Malachi 3

9. cursed--( Malachi 2:2 ). As ye despoil Me, so I despoil you, as I threatened I would, if ye continued to disregard Me. In trying to defraud God we only defraud ourselves. The eagle who robbed the altar set fire to her nest from the burning coal that adhered to the stolen flesh. So men who retain God's money in their treasuries will find it a losing possession. No man ever yet lost by serving God with a whole heart, nor gained by serving Him with a half one. We may compromise with conscience for half the price, but God will not endorse the compromise; and, like Ananias and Sapphira, we shall lose not only what we thought we had purchased so cheaply, but also the price we paid for it. If we would have God "open" His treasury, we must open ours. One cause of the barrenness of the Church is the parsimony of its members [MOORE].

10. ( Proverbs 3:9 Proverbs 3:10 ).
storehouse--( 2 Chronicles 31:11 , Margin; compare 1 Chronicles 26:20 , Nehemiah 10:38 , Nehemiah 13:5 Nehemiah 13:12 ).
prove me . . . herewith--with this; by doing so. Test Me whether I will keep My promise of blessing you, on condition of your doing your part ( 2 Chronicles 31:10 ).
pour . . . out--literally, "empty out": image from a vessel completely emptied of its contents: no blessing being kept back.
windows of heaven--( 2 Kings 2:7 ).
that . . . not . . . room enough, &c.--literally, "even to not . . . sufficiency," that is, either, as English Version. Or, even so as that there should be "not merely" "sufficiency" but superabundance [JEROME, MAURER]. GESENIUS not so well translates, "Even to a failure of sufficiency," which in the case of God could never arise, and therefore means for ever, perpetually: so Psalms 72:5 , "as long as the sun and moon endure"; literally, "until a failure of the sun and moon," which is never to be; and therefore means, for ever.

12. Fulfilling the blessing ( Deuteronomy 33:29 , Zechariah 8:13 ).
delightsome land--( Daniel 8:9 ).

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" ( Jude 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].

14. what profit . . . that we . . . kept, God. Job 21:14 Job 21:15 , 22:17 describe a further stage of the same skeptical spirit, when the skeptic has actually ceased to keep God's service. Psalms 73:1-14 describes the temptation to a like feeling in the saint when seeing the really godly suffer and the ungodly prosper in worldly goods now. The Jews here mistake utterly the nature of God's service, converting it into a mercenary bargain; they attended to outward observances, not from love to God, but in the hope of being well paid for in outward prosperity; when this was withheld, they charged God with being unjust, forgetting alike that God requires very different motives from theirs to accompany outward observances, and that God rewards even the true worshipper not so much in this life, as in the life to come.
his ordinance--literally, what He requires to be kept, "His observances."
walked mournfully--in mournful garb, sackcloth and ashes, the emblems of penitence; they forget Isaiah 58:3-8 , where God, by showing what is true fasting, similarly rebukes those who then also said, Wherefore have we fasted and Thou seest not? &c. They mistook the outward show for real humiliation.

15. 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 ).

16. "Then," when the ungodly utter such blasphemies against God, the godly hold mutual converse, defending God's righteous dealings against those blasphemers ( Hebrews 3:13 ). The "often" of English Version is not in the Hebrew. There has been always in the darkest times a remnant that feared God ( 1 Kings 19:18 , Romans 11:4 ).
feared the Lord--reverential and loving fear, not slavish terror. When the fire of religion burns low, true believers should draw the nearer together, to keep the holy flame alive. Coals separated soon go out.
book of remembrance . . . for them--for their advantage, against the day when those found faithful among the faithless shall receive their final reward. The kings of Persia kept a record of those who had rendered services to the king, that they might be suitably rewarded ( Esther 6:1 Esther 6:2 ; compare Esther 2:23 , Ezra 4:15 , Psalms 56:8 , Isaiah 65:6 , Daniel 7:10 , Revelation 20:12 ). CALVIN makes the fearers of God to be those awakened from among the ungodly mass (before described) to true repentance; the writing of the book thus will imply that some were reclaimable among the blasphemers, and that the godly should be assured that, though no hope appeared, there would be a door of penitence opened for them before God. But there is nothing in the context to support this view.

17. jewels--( Isaiah 62:3 ). Literally, "My peculiar treasure" ( Exodus 19:5 , Deuteronomy 7:6 , 14:2 , 26:18 , Psalms 135:4 , Titus 2:14 , 1 Peter 2:9 ; compare Ecclesiastes 2:8 ). CALVIN translates more in accordance with Hebrew idiom, "They shall be My peculiar treasure in the day in which I will do it" (that is, fulfil My promise of gathering My completed Church; or, "make" those things come to pass foretold in Malachi 3:5 above [GROTIUS]); so in Malachi 4:3 "do" is used absolutely, "in the day that I shall do this." MAURER, not so well, translates, "in the day which I shall make," that is, appoint as in Psalms 118:24 .
as . . . man spareth . . . son--( Psalms 103:18 ).

18. Then shall ye . . . discern--Then shall ye see the falseness of your calumny against God's government ( Malachi 3:15 ), that the "proud" and wicked prosper. Do not judge before the time till My work is complete. It is in part to test your disposition to trust in God in spite of perplexing appearances, and in order to make your service less mercenary, that the present blended state is allowed; but at last all ("ye," both godly and ungodly) shall see the eternal difference there really is "between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not" ( Psalms 58:11 ).
return--Ye shall turn to a better state of mind on this point.