Malachi 1:5

5 Your eyes will see [this], and you will say, "Yahweh is great beyond the borders[a] of Israel."

Malachi 1:5 Meaning and Commentary

Malachi 1:5

And your eyes shall see
The destruction of the Edomites, and their fruitless attempts to rebuild their desolate places; and the difference between them and the Israelites, who were returned to their own land, and inherited it, when they could not; and the love of God to the one, and his hatred of the other:

and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border of
Israel;
Aben Ezra interprets it, ye that dwelt in the border of Israel shall say, the Lord shall be magnified, or let him be magnified; let greatness and glory be ascribed to him for what he has done: or, as Kimchi, give him praise and greatness because you are dwelling in your border, and their border is desolate; and your border is called the border of Israel, but theirs the border of wickedness; and so the Targum,

``let the glory of the Lord be multiplied, because he hath enlarged the border of Israel;''

and, according to Jarchi, the sense is, he shall show his greatness from our border, to make it known that we are his people: all show and own that God had loved them more than others, and therefore they ought to have honoured and obeyed him, in which they were deficient, and so ungrateful.

Malachi 1:5 In-Context

3 but Esau I have hated. I have made his mountain ranges a desolation, and [given] his inheritance to the jackals of [the] desert."
4 If Edom says, "We are shattered, but we will return and rebuild [the] ruins," Yahweh of hosts says this: "They may build, but I will tear down; and they will be called a territory of wickedness, and the people [with] whom Yahweh is angry forever."
5 Your eyes will see [this], and you will say, "Yahweh is great beyond the borders of Israel."
6 "A son honors [his] father, and a slave his master; but if I [am] a father, where [is] my honor, and if I [am] a master, where [is] my reverence?" says Yahweh of hosts to you, O priests, {who despise} my name. "But you say, 'How have we despised your name?'
7 [You are] presenting defiled food on my altar! But you ask, 'How have we defiled you?' By saying [that] the table of Yahweh is despised!

Footnotes 1

Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.