And bwho can stand when He appears?
For cHe is like a refiner’s fire
And like launderers’ soap.
He will purify the sons of Levi,
And purge them as gold and silver,
That they may boffer to the Lord
An offering in righteousness.
Will be1 pleasant to the Lord,
As in the days of old,
As in former years.
I will be a swift witness
Against sorcerers,
Against adulterers,
aAgainst perjurers,
Against those who bexploit wage earners and cwidows and orphans,
And against those who turn away an alien—
Because they do not fear Me,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
You have gone away from My ordinances
And have not kept them.
bReturn to Me, and I will return to you,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
c“But you said,
‘In what way shall we return?’
Do Not Rob God
Yet you have robbed Me!
But you say,
‘In what way have we robbed You?’
aIn tithes and offerings.
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“If I will not open for you the cwindows of heaven
And dpour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.
So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
Says the Lord of hosts;
For you will be aa delightful land,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
The People Complain Harshly
Says the Lord,
“Yet you say,
‘What have we spoken against You?’
‘It is useless to serve God;
What profit is it that we have kept His ordinance,
And that we have walked as mourners
Before the Lord of hosts?
For those who do wickedness are1 raised up;
They even btempt God and go free.’ ”
A Book of Remembrance
And the Lord listened and heard them;
So ca book of remembrance was written before Him
For those who fear the Lord
And who1 meditate on His name.
“On the day that I make them My bjewels.
And cI will spare them
As a man spares his own son who serves him.”
Between the righteous and the wicked,
Between one who serves God
And one who does not serve Him.
| << Malachi 3:3 | Malachi 3:5 >> |
Malachi 3:4
Then (And) shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem - The "law," the new revelation of God, was to Isaiah 2:3. "go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Judah and Jerusalem then are here the Christian Church. "They shall be, pleasant (literally sweet) unto the Lord." It is a reversal (using the self-same word) of what God had said of them in the time of their religious decay Hosea 9:4. "they shall not offer wine-offerings to the Lord, neither shall they be sweet unto Him; Jeremiah 6:20. your burnt-offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto Me."
As in the days of old - , before the days of degeneracy; as it stands in the ancient Liturgies "Vouchsafe to look upon them (the consecrated oblations) with a propitious and serene Countenance, and to accept them, as Thou vouchsafedst to accept the gifts of Thy righteous Abel and the sacrifice of our patriarch Abraham, and the holy sacrifice, the immaculate offering, which Thy high priest Melchizedec offered unto Thee." "The oblation of the sacrament of the eucharist, made by the Jews who should believe in Christ, which is known to have been first instituted by Christ in the city of Jerusalem, and afterward to have been continued by His disciples (Matt. 26 (29); Acts 2:42, Acts 2:46.) shall be pleasing unto the Lord, as the sacrifices of the patriarchs, Melchizedec, Abraham, and the holy priests in the law, as Aaron; yea, the truth takes precedence of the figure and shadow; the sacrifice of the new law is more excellent and acceptable to God, than all the sacrifice, of the law or before the law. With this agrees what the Lord saith to the synagogue Isaiah 1:25-26, Isaiah 1:28, "I will turn My hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin; and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors, as at the beginning: and the destruction of the transgressors, and of the sinners, shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed." So now it follows.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Malachi 3:4:
| << Malachi 3:3 | Malachi 3:5 >> |
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