Malachi 1:5

5 Your own eyes will see this, and you yourselves will say: The Lord is great, [even] beyond[a] the borders of Israel.[b]

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 hated Esau. I turned his mountains into a wasteland, and [gave] his inheritance to the desert jackals."
4 Though Edom says: "We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins," the Lord of Hosts says this: "They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the Lord has cursed forever.
5 Your own eyes will see this, and you yourselves will say: The Lord is great, [even] beyond the borders of Israel.
6 "A son honors [his] father, and a servant his master. But if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is [your] fear of Me? says the Lord of Hosts to you priests, who despise My name." Yet you ask: "How have we despised Your name?"
7 "By presenting defiled food on My altar." You ask: "How have we defiled You?" When you say: "The Lord's table is contemptible."

Footnotes 2

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