Malachi 3:15

Malachi 3:15

The People Complain Harshly

13 “Your^a words have been harsh against Me,”
Says the Lord,
“Yet you say,
‘What have we spoken against You?’

14 ^aYou have said,
‘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?

15 So now ^awe call the proud blessed,
For those who do wickedness are¹ raised up;
They even ^btempt God and go free.’ ”

A Book of Remembrance

16 Then those ^awho feared the Lord ^bspoke to one another,
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.

17 “They^a shall be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts,
“On the day that I make them My ^bjewels.
And ^cI will spare them
As a man spares his own son who serves him.”

18 ^aThen you shall again discern
Between the righteous and the wicked,
Between one who serves God
And one who does not serve Him.

Commentaries:

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

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Malachi 3:16 >>

And now—Since we who serve Jehovah are not prosperous and "the proud" heathen flourish in prosperity, we must pronounce them the favorites of God (Malachi 2:17; Psalms 73:12).

set up—literally, "built up": metaphor from architecture (Proverbs 24:3; compare Genesis 16:2, Margin; Genesis 30:3, Margin.)

tempt God—dare God to punish them, by breaking His laws (Psalms 95:9).

Malachi 3:13-18

He notices the complaint of the Jews that it is of no profit to serve Jehovah, for that the ungodly proud are happy; and declares He will soon bring the day when it shall be known that He puts an everlasting distinction between the godly and the ungodly.

words . . . stout—Hebrew, "hard"; so "the hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him" (Judges 1:15) [HENDERSON].

have we spoken—The Hebrew expresses at once their assiduity and habit of speaking against God [VATABLUS]. The niphal form of the verb implies that these things were said, not directly to God, but of God, to one another (Ezekiel 33:20) [MOORE].

**Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Malachi 3:15:**

Jeremiah 12:1
Malachi 3:18
Malachi 4:1
Malachi 4:3

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Malachi 3:16 >>

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