Malachi 1:5

5 Your eyes will see it and you will say, "May the LORD be great beyond the borders 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 I rejected Esau. I turned Esau's mountains into desolation, his inheritance into a wilderness for jackals.

4 Edom may say, "We are beaten down, but we will rebuild the ruins"; but the LORD of heavenly forces proclaims: They may build, but I will tear them down. They will call themselves a wicked territory, the people against whom the LORD rages forever.

5 Your eyes will see it and you will say, "May the LORD be great beyond the borders of Israel."

6 A son honors a father, and a servant honors his master. But if I'm a father, where is my honor? Or if I'm a master, where is my respect? says the LORD of heavenly forces to you priests who despise my name. So you say, "How have we despised your name?"

7 By approaching my altar with polluted food. But you say, "How have we polluted it?" When you say, "The table of the LORD can be despised."