Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
And now we call the proud happy (blessed) - This being so, they sum up the case against God. God had declared that all nations should "call them blessed" Malachi 3:12. if they would obey. They answer, using His words; And "now we (they lay stress on the word we,) pronounce blessed," in fact, those whom God had pronounced cursed: Psalms 119:21. "Thou hast rebuked the proud, who are cursed." Their characteristic, among other bad men, is of insolence Proverbs 21:24. arrogance, boiling over with self-conceit, and presumptuous toward God. The ground of Babylon' s sentence was "she hath been proud toward the Lord, the Holy One of Israel;" Jethro says of the Egyptians, as a ground of his belief in God (Exodus 18:11. It is used of Egypt toward Israel. Nehemiah 9:16.) "for, in the thing that they dealt proudly," He was "above them." It describes the character of the act of Israel, when God bade them "not go up, neither fight, and they would not hear, and went up presumptuously into the battle" Deuteronomy 1:41, Deuteronomy 1:43 the contumacious act of those, who, appealing to the judgment of God, afterward refused it: Deuteronomy 17:12-13. of Johanan' s associates, who accuse Jeremiah of speaking falsely in the name of God; Jeremiah 43:2. they are persons who rise up Psalms 86:14. forge lies against Psalms 119:69. dig pits for Psalms 119:85. deal perversely with, Psalms 119:78. hold in derision Psalms 119:51. oppress Psalms 119:122. the pious. Whether or no, they mean specifically the pagan, those, whom these pronounced blessed, were those who were contemptuous toward God.
Yea, the workers of wickedness - , those who habitually work it, whose employment it is, "are built up; yea, they have tried God and have escaped." God had promised that, if Jeremiah 12:16, "they will diligently learn the ways of My people, they shall be built up in the midst of My people;" these say, the workers of wickedness "had been built up:" God had bidden themselves Jeremiah 3:10, "make trial of Me in this;" these answer, the wicked had made trial of Him, and had been unpunished.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Malachi 3:15:
Psalms 19:13
Malachi 4:1
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