Malachi 1:4

4 If Edom says, "We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins," the LORD of hosts says, "They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called 'the wicked country,' and 'the people with whom the LORD is angry forever.'"

Malachi 1:4 Meaning and Commentary

Malachi 1:4

Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished
Or the Idumeans, as the Targum; the posterity of Esau, who acknowledge themselves greatly reduced by the desolations made in their country, cities, towns, and houses, being plundered of all their valuable things. Kimchi interprets it, if the congregation of Edom should say, though we are become poor and low, and our land is laid waste: but we will return;
being now become rich, as the Targum adds; that is, as Jarchi explains it, with the spoils of Jerusalem: and build the desolate places:
as Israel did, as Kimchi observes, when they returned from their captivity; and so the Edomites hoped to do the same: thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw
down;
they attempted to build again their cities and towns, but could not succeed, God was against them: and they shall call them;
or, "they shall be called" ^F21; this shall be the name they, shall go by among men, by way of proverb and reproach: The border of wickedness;
a wicked kingdom and nation, from one end to the other; this shall be said of them, as the reason of their utter and perpetual desolation: and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever;
not for seventy years only, as against the Jews, ( Zechariah 1:12 ) , but forever; and these are now no more a people; they are utterly extinct; their name and nation are lost; there is not the least appearance of them; when the Jews, though they are scattered about in the world, yet they are still a people, and distinct from all others.

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FOOTNOTES:

F21 (Mhl warqw) "et vocabuntur", V. L. Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, Grotius.

Malachi 1:4 In-Context

2 "I have loved you," says the LORD. But you say, "How have you loved us?""Is not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the LORD. "Yet I have loved Jacob

3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert."

4 If Edom says, "We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins," the LORD of hosts says, "They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called 'the wicked country,' and 'the people with whom the LORD is angry forever.'"

5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, "Great is the LORD beyond the border of Israel!"

6 "A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, 'How have we despised your name?'