Malachi 2:17-4:6
We are in the Exile Stream reading from the Tree of Life Version.
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Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis
Lord, the passage today reminds us that your commands are not burdensome. Trying to put life back together after straying from your commands is what is burdensome. Keep us in Your care, Your Spirit, and your Will. Amen.
This is the final word of the Old Testament and it delivers the heat. God had just finished scathing them in the prior verses for dumping their wives, taking up with foreign women [since those ladies were more, uh, “IN-ter-essss-ting”] – having been raised in a sex-cult atmosphere. THEN they would come in to the Temple [wacky-wife-n-tow], lay down their paltry offerings and then wonder why Malachi stuck it to them just as God would roll his eyes, so to speak. And amid all the pathetics. Malachi continues:
2:17 – “excuse me people?! You come in to my Temple like this and expect what? a pat on the back? What do you think I am anyway?!”
3 – The Lord is coming and He is bringing a Message [btw, Adonai Tzva’ot means “Lord of Hosts”; the one who rules all the 100,000,000 angels of heaven!] He wants all the sinful tendencies, the iniquity, the transgressions to stop and stop now. And He also wants all of those living back in Israel again to stop blathering their dopey inquiries to God while steeped in their sinfulness, “huh? whaa- God? uh, are we offending you at all? Perhaps YOOOOU God are the one with the attitude problem?… It isn’t us with the problem? …Iszzz it?” We all just heard the expansive list of sins that were being exercised in Israel/Judah/Jerusalem. And the people thought that they could plead ignorance. Gimme-a-break. Plus the people were not tithing, wondering why prosperity eluded them, wondering why pests were eating their crops, wondering why God was upset with them.
Drake was visiting a church in the mountain states a few years back and was asked to help with the offering routine as they were helping build up a pastor’s fund for struggling parishes in the area. The plate was passed and it went by a couple who was dressed to the nines. The man feigned to be jolted as the plate reached him. Then he pompously scrolled through scores of “hundred$” in his wallet, and “alas!” here were two one dollar bills that he plucked out and rubbed together to prove that he was give TWO dollars, not one. [What he was actually doing was making sure that a third ONE dollar bill didn’t escape his grasp]. And he thought that no one present (including God) knew that that same month he dropped $9million on a chalet (a palace!) in an exclusive ski resort town. He also had just purchased new porsche [ca. $130K] for his wife. And just ask him – he did this because she de-ZERVES the best of everything! uh huh.
It’s theft in plain sight/broad daylight when people think they can steal from God.
4:1-6 – All this needed to stop for judgment was coming. The Day of the Lord, sometimes called “The Day” is mentioned five times in Malachi. God was going to scorch all the disobedience from the land. He was going to turn the fathers’ hearts back to their deserted children. [Remember many had ditched their wives for foreign women – and where do y’think this left the children from their original Hebrew wives?] Yes, the children were lost and going astray. God was scolding their derelict fathers and they would receive it, and repent, or God was going to curse their land with utter destruction. He was about out of patience.
[Malachi 4:1-6 in most versions is Malachi 3:19-23 in the TLV version]