Malachi 3

17. The sins of the priests had at bottom a deep apostasy in principle and theory from the living God. They had ceased to vindicate the ways of God to man; had ceased to think and speak well of His government; had ceased to regard Him as holy, just and good. H. C.—They denied Him to be the righteous Governor of the world. If He did not delight in sin and sinners, yet it would serve their turn to believe that He would never punish it or them. They said, “Where is the God of judgment? That God who we have been so often told would call us to an account, and reckon with us for what we have said and done—where is He? He has forsaken the earth, and takes no notice of what is said and done there; He has said that He will come to judgment; but where is the promise of His coming? We may do what we please, He sees us not, nor will regard us.” It is such a challenge to the Judge of the whole earth as bids defiance to His justice, and in effect dares Him to do His worst. Such scoffers as these there were in the latter days of the Jewish Church, and such there shall be in the latter days of the Christian Church; but their unbelief shall not make the promise of God of no effect, for the day of the Lord will come. Behold, the Judge stands before the door; the God of judgment is at hand. H.

The scepticism indicated by the questions Malachi puts into the people’s mouth is as old as time, and as new as to-day. It is common to all ages and to every heart. The prosperity of the wicked and the delay of Providence are roots out of which doubt forever springs afresh. In our turn we all ask, “If there be a God, and He is just and good, why does He permit good to be overcome of evil?” Cor.

3:1 BEHOLD, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in, behold, he cometh, saith the LORD of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver; and they shall offer unto the LORD offerings in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in ancient years. And I will come near to you to judgement; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers; and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts. For I the LORD change not; therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers ye have turned aside from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye say, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? yet ye rob me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with the curse; for ye rob me, even this whole nation. Bring ye the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room

11 enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, 12 said the LORD of hosts. And all nations shall call you happy: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts. 13 Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein have we 14 spoken against thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we 15 have kept his charge, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are built up; yea, they 16 tempt God, and are delivered. Then they that feared the LORD spake one with another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, 17 for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in the day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure; and I will spare 18 them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him 4:1 not. For, behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith 2 the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go 3 forth, and gambol as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I do make, saith the LORD of hosts. 4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for 5 all Israel, even statutes and judgements. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before 6 the great and terrible day of the LORD come. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Chap. 3. The coming of John Baptist and of Jesus the Messiah is foretold with some of the results (verses 1-5); then exhortations to repentance and rebukes for sin, especially the sin of robbing the Lord of His tithes and offerings (verses 6-12). The spirit of the wicked is contrasted with the spirit of the righteous (verses 13-18).

1. The most ample proof is found in the New Testament that “My messenger” is John Baptist. Our Lord bore witness to John (Luke 7:27): “This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, who shall prepare the way before Thee.” His father, Zacharias, when filled with the Holy Ghost, said, “Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,” etc. (Luke 1:76). Consequently, “the Lord whom ye seek,” “the Messenger of the Covenant,” can be no other than Jesus the Messiah. But why is He called “the Messenger of the Covenant”? “Messenger” means angel. It is the word usually translated angel. Jesus is the Angel of the Covenant in the twofold sense: (1) Of being the same personage so often called in the Old Testament an “angel”—e.g., Ex. 23:20-23, which if the reader will examine, he will see refers to the uncreated angel who pardons sin, in whom is the name of Jehovah, and who is a perpetual Presence with His Church under both the old dispensation and the new; called “the Angel of the Covenant” also, because so long promised by covenant with the patriarchs and saints of old; and (2) of being especially “the Mediator of the new covenant” (Heb. 9:15); and of “the better covenant, established upon better promises” (Heb. 8:6-13). The person who speaks in this verse is “Jehovah of Hosts.” Yet He says, “I will send one who shall prepare the way before Me.” The testimony of inspiration thus makes the promised Messiah no other than “Jehovah of Hosts.” This name is given Him by Divine authority. H. C.

Old Testament passages that speak of a certain being as the “Angel of Jehovah” occur in many different books, and in connection with different periods in the history. Those which belong to the times of the Exodus are Ex. 3:2; 14:19; 23:20, 23; 32:34; 33:2; Num. 20:16; 22:22 seq. This same angel of Jehovah is very prominent in the thought of the post-exilian prophets (Hag. 1:13; Zech. 1:11, 12; 3:1, 5, 6, etc.). In their thought, there are strong analogies between their times and the times of the Exodus, and the Angel that led their fathers into the promised land is leading them. Malachi here quotes, compositely, from the two clauses: “Behold, I send an angel” (Ex. 23:20), and “My Angel shall go” (Ex. 23:23). The Messenger of the Covenant: better, “the Angel of the Covenant,” the Angel whom Jehovah in the time of the Exodus covenanted to send before His people. By the only unforced understanding of the matter, “My angel,” “the Lord,” and “the Angel of the Covenant” are one and the same person. The prophet represents that Jehovah is speaking to these post-exilian people, saying, for substance: When your fathers came out of Egypt, I promised to be with them in the person of My Angel. Later, one of My prophets proclaimed that the way should be prepared before Me. You profess that you are seeking Me as your lord. You profess that you would be delighted with the presence of the covenant Angel. And yet you ask, Where is the God of judgment? You pretend to think that I am pleased with the evil, as well as with the good. In view of this, I announce that I keep My word. I send My Angel. The way shall be prepared for My coming. Suddenly you shall be aware that your lord the Angel is in the temple. And what then? W. J. B.

That “Angel” had redeemed Israel from Egypt, had led them through the desert, had been the “Captain of the Lord’s host.” The name of Jehovah was “in Him.” He it is whose coming is here prophesied, and in His coming Jehovah comes to His temple. A. M. —He who should come was the Lord, again Almighty God, since, in usage, too, none else is called “the Lord” (Ex. 23: 17; 34: 23; Isa. 1: 24; 3: 1; 10: 16, 33; 29: 4) as none else can be. The temple also, to which He was to come, the temple of God, is His own. The Messenger and the Angel of the Covenant, plainly, even from the parallelism, is the same as the Lord. Pusey. —All Christian interpreters are agreed that this Lord is Christ, whom God hath made both Lord and Christ, and who is Lord over all (Acts 2: 36; 10: 36); by whom all things were made, are sustained and governed; who is, as the root of the word imports, the basis and foundation not of any private family, tribe or kingdom, but of all; by whom are all things and we by Him; and whose we are also by right of redemption; and so He is Lord of lords and King of kings, deservedly called the Lord. Pococke.

It is not possible to find any other person to whom the words of this prophecy will apply. From Malachi, to the destruction of the temple, no one can be named, except the Lord Jesus, who is able to make any pretension to the express characters in this prediction. Mark therefore had good reason to introduce his Gospel with this unexceptionable text of Malachi, in order to show the connection between the Old and New Testament, and that one began where the other ended. There was no Jew at that time who did not agree to the application of this prophecy to the Messiah, according to the letter. No Christian since hath been so wild as to fancy any other sense of it. Even the learned Grotius, so willing and so capable, as he appears to be at other times, to invent double meanings, yields up this prophecy to Christ, as concerning Him only, and no other person. Bp. Chandler.

The first words of this chapter seem a direct answer to the profane, atheistical demand of the scoffers of those days, which closed the foregoing chapter: Where is the God of judgment? To which it is readily answered, “Here he is; He is just at the door; the long-expected Messiah is ready to appear; and He says, For judgment am I come into this world; for that judgment which you so impudently bid defiance to.” One of the rabbins says, that the meaning of this is that God will raise up a righteous King, to set things in order, even the King Messiah. And the beginning of the Gospel of Christ is expressly said to be the accomplishment of this promise, with which the Old Testament concludes (Mark 1: 1, 2). So that by this the two Testaments are, as it were, tacked together, and made to answer one another. H.

2. Who may abide: Jehovah, in the person of His Angel, they had been taught, was to do great things for His people, and especially for the obedient among them; but He was also to be a severe judge (Ex. 23: 21, 22; 32: 34). Whether His coming would be a joy to any among them would depend on whether they were prepared for it, so that they would receive Him trustingly and obediently. Fuller’s: A fuller, in Bible language, is not a workman who thickens the cloth after it has been woven, but a laundryman—one who washes garments or cloths, to cleanse them. Incidentally, bleaching is thought of as part of the cleansing process. There is an implication here that whoever bears the character of base metal may well dread the fire, and whoever bears the character of foulness may well dread the processes by which the fine linen is made clean. W. J. B.

2, 3. “Who shall be able to bear the day of His coming”—the searching ordeal of such moral scrutiny? Not those corrupt priests, so recently before the prophet’s mind. Ah! full soon will He scourge them out of His temple, and hurl them down from the high position which they so shamefully desecrate! “Who shall stand when He appeareth?” Some few—those who “looked for redemption in Jerusalem”—will hail His coming as “the horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David;” but the sensual, the worldly, the formal—however carefully they may have covered up their iniquity with the cloak of sanctimonious profession, will be put through such processes of refining and proving as shall surely reveal their dross—“for He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap”—physical agents which well illustrate the work of the coming Messiah in purifying His Church. The state of the Church and its leading men at that time strongly suggested the need of this purifying work to be done by “the Messenger of the Covenant.” H. C.

The process alluded to by Malachi in this passage, and further described by Ezekiel (Ezek. 22: 20-22), is very like what is called cupelling in modern metallurgy. The vessel containing the alloy is placed in the midst of the fire, and the blast is applied to the metals, not to the fire. When this is done, nothing but the precious metals, gold and silver, remain. Jeremiah also illustrates this method (Jer. 6: 29, 30). The silver there is mixed with iron, copper and tin. Lead is put with it on the fire. It soon melts. The lead comes to the top, forms a crust, and thus consumes away, but does not purify. But why? Because, as the prophet says, “the bellows are burned.” There was nothing to send a blast upon the molten metal, and it remains reprobate “silver.” When the refiner has the blast properly directed on to the contents of the earthen vessel, he sits and watches it carefully. When the mass has become thoroughly molten, the surface has a deep orange red color, with a kind of flickering wave constantly passing over it. As the heat is increased, the color of the fused metal becomes lighter. The refiner sits watching until all the orange color and shading have disappeared, and the metal assumes the appearance of a highly polished mirror, reflecting everything around. When the refiner can see himself perfectly reflected, as in a looking glass, he knows that the metal is pure. If he is not satisfied after he has removed it from the furnace, he adds more lead, and repeats the process. So does Jehovah try and sift His people till they have been perfected in the furnace of affliction. Tristram.

The images of the refiner’s fire and the fullers’ soap imply painful processes, of which the intention is to burn out the dross and beat out the filth. It sounds like a prolongation of

Malachi’s voice when John the Baptist peals out his herald cry of one whose “fan was in His hand,” and who should plunge men into a fiery baptism, and consume with fire that destroyed what would not submit to be cast into the fire that cleansed. Nor should we forget that our Lord has said, “For judgment am I come into the world.” He came to “purify;” but if men would not let Him do what He came for, he could not but be their bane instead of their blessing. Judgment is the shadow of salvation, and constantly attends on it. Neither Malachi nor the Baptist gives a complete view of Messiah’s work, but still less do they give an erroneous one; for the central portion of both prophecies is His purifying energy, which both liken to cleansing fire. That real and inward cleansing is the great work of Christ. It was wrought on as many of His contemporaries as believed on Him, and for such as did not He was a swift witness against them. Nor are we to forget that the prophecy is not exhausted yet; for there remains another “day of His coming” for judgment. A. M.

Many processes He has, the great Spiritual Refiner, who sits in the midst of His Church, to make liker to Himself and thus more capable of reflecting His image those on whom He has set His heart, and at whose hands He would fain accept an offering not mean nor poor. Having appointed to them a kingdom, He appoints to them, first of all, to drink of His cup and to be baptized with His baptism. What way is there for any one of us but only this? It was well said long ago, “The way to heaven is by Weeping Cross;” and all true pilgrims shall find it so. Treach.

Trials are among the most signal waymarks in the pilgrimage of faith, trials at the beginning, trials in the continuance, trials at the end. Yet not trials always, nor trials unmingled, but enough constantly, or at intervals, to prove thee and show thee what is in thy heart, and to lead that heart for healing and rest to God. The history of faith, and of God’s discipline for its increase and perfection, ever has been and ever will be a record of trials. Character is read and known in the temper of the soul sustaining them, and they themselves are the costly instruments of God in refining and establishing the soul. We are in the shop of the Great Jeweller, preparing for our places in His palace above; and they whom He means to make the most resplendent, said Leighton in this beautiful figure, He hath oftenest His tools upon. Until this discipline of God have been applied to him, a man knows not of what elements his nature is composed, nor what hidden evils may be festering in his bosom. God must bring them out, and redeem him from them, or he can never be prepared for the kingdom of heaven. G. B. C.

The word “character,” in its origin, is suggestive. It is from a word which signifies to engrave, to cut into furrows. Thus it means that which is engraved or cut on anything. In life, therefore, it is that which is distinctive in any individual. Or, to put it in a more practical way, it is that which experiences cut or furrow into the life. A baby has no character. Its life is like a piece of white paper, with nothing yet written upon it; or it is like a smooth marble tablet, on which the sculptor as yet has cut nothing. Character is formed as the years go on. It is the writing, the song, the story, put upon the paper. It is the engraving, the sculpturing, which the marble receives under the chisel. Final character is what a man is when he has lived his earthly years. In the Christian it is the lines of the likeness of Christ furrowed and scarred upon his soul by the Divine Spirit, through the means of grace and the experiences of his own life. J. R. M.

By secret trials, chastenings, which none but they and God can understand, the Lord is cleansing them from their secret faults and making them understand wisdom secretly; burning out of them the chaff of self-will, and self-conceit, and self-vanity, and leaving only the pure gold of righteousness. How many sweet and holy souls, who look cheerful enough before the eyes of men, yet have their secret sorrows! They carry their cross unseen all day long, and lie down to sleep on it at night; and they will carry it, perhaps, for years and years, and to their graves and to the throne of Christ, before they lay it down, and none but they and Christ will ever know what it was—what was the secret chastisement which God sent to make the soul better which seemed to us already too good for earth. So does the Lord watch His people, and tries them by fire, as the refiner of silver sits by his furnace watching the melting metal, till he knows it is purged from all its dross by seeing the image of his own face reflected on it. Charles Kingsley.

There is not one stroke of superfluous agony. Every pulse of anguish is felt by God, as the refiner and purifier of silver watches the furnace, sure to lift the molten metal out, or to cool the fire, when the needed change is wrought. The instant faith’s deep discipline is accomplished, Christ stays His hand. F. D. H.

Affliction may be the fire, but Christ is the Refiner. Whatever instrument may cause the nerves to agonize and the heart to grieve, the Lord Himself holds it. The tool may be malignity, but the worker is love. We may be in the hand of our enemy, but the enemy himself is in the hand of God. That which aims to destroy is used as the unconscious medium of serving the purpose of that which designs to bless. He is present all through the operation of the trial. As much as the act of refining silver implies the presence of the refiner, the affliction of a Christian implies the presence of Christ. The process could not be carried on without Him. By the side of His afflicted disciple, He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver. There He is, “a very present help in time of trouble.” Very present; closer than close, nearer than near; making him who is sorely tried a wonder to himself and a wonder to me. When he comes into the light of the living again, he will look back upon this day’s experience with surprise, and say, “I never could have lived through it if Christ had not been with me.” There he is, to comfort with assurances of Divine sympathy. No visible friend, however loving, who sits by that poor man, holding his hot hand, or fanning his fevered brow, can even faintly understand the gentle tenderness of the unseen Saviour’s heart, for it is infinite. . . . Powers of great usefulness can be educated in no other way. Powers of endurance are unknown where there has been nothing to endure. Powers of rule belong alone to those who have learned to rule by learning to obey. The power of teaching is the special faculty of men who have themselves undergone stern discipline. The power of sympathy is educated in the school of sorrow. Leaders whose souls have never been crucified, and whose plans have never had a failure, are apt to be at best pitiless exactors of righteousness, mere engines for doing duty; iron men, who never melt into compassion; rough men, who knock down weakness, and to whom the fine offices of consolation are all mysteries. No words can express how much the world owes to sorrow. C. Stanford.

We enter a world of antagonism and opposition the moment we resolve at Christ’s feet to be Christians, to be true men, to obey God, to forsake sin, to do our duty. There never comes a time when we can live nobly without effort, without resistance to wrong influences, without struggle against the power of temptation. It never gets easy to be good. We are apt to grow weary of this continued struggle, and to become discouraged that it never ends. But out of this very struggle we get the nobleness and beauty of character after which we are striving. One of the Scotch martyrs had on his crest the motto Sub pondere cresco—“I grow under a weight.” On the crest was a palm-tree, with weights depending from its fronds. In spite of the weights, the tree grew straight as an arrow, lifting its crown of graceful foliage high up in the serene air. It is well known that the palm grows best loaded down with weights. Thus this martyr testified that he, like this beautiful tree of the Orient, grew best in his spiritual life under weights. This is the universal law of spiritual growth. There must be resistance, struggle, conflict, or there can be no development of strength. Men pity those whose lives are scenes of toil and endurance, but God’s angels do not look upon such with pity if only they are victorious; for they are thus climbing daily upward, toward the holy heights of sainthood. The beatitudes in the apocalypse are for those who overcome. Spiritual life needs opposition. It flourishes most luxuriantly in adverse circumstances. We grow best under weights. J. R. M.

4. “Ancient years.” The prophet has in mind pre-exilian times, long gone by, when the temple worship was in its glory. It will be so again, he says, when the winnowed temple ministers become pure in heart and correct in practice.

5,6. The severe purifying processes will be applied to the people as well as to the priestly classes, and especially to those who are personally guilty of the wrongs for which God rebukes the nation. I will come: It is Jehovah, in the person of His Angel, that will come to judgment. Doubtless the prophet has in mind the same wrongdoers whom he condemns in 2 : 11–16, the same who are described in Ezra and Nehemiah as forming illegal unions with foreign women. It is noticeable that Malachi condemns these unions on the ground of their involving treachery to legal wives to whom these men had been previously married, and on the ground of their leading to divorces. He says that Jehovah hates divorcing (2 : 16). Put these facts along with the fact that Ezra and Nehemiah, in describing the cases of these foreign women, never use the terms that properly signify either marriage or divorce, and it may lead to the conclusion that the conduct of these leaders was more humane than many have supposed. False swearers: It should be “the false swearers,” those who had sworn (Neh. 10 : 28 seq.) to keep Jehovah’s laws and abstain from foreign alliances, and see that the temple revenues were maintained, and who had failed to keep their oath. Along with these, Malachi, like most of the pre-exilian prophets, rebukes sorcerers, and those who, in various ways, oppress the weak. W. J. B.

6. The connection of thought here turns on the special significance of the name Jehovah—the ever-faithful and unchanging One—the God of the promises, who hath said and will surely fulfil. If He had not made such promises of enduring protection and mercy to the ancient covenant people, He would even now cut them off at once. It is only because He is Jehovah that His faithfulness spares “the sons of Jacob.” There is a power in that name, “sons of Jacob,” that avails to save them yet, on the score of those never-failing promises. H. C.

God, and all that is in God, is unchangeable. His mercy is unchangeable, it “endureth forever.” So His strength, He is called the Rock of Ages. So also His counsel, He may change His sentence, the outward threatening or promise, but not His inward decree. So also His love is immutable; His heart is the same to His people in all the diversity of their outward condition. We may change in circumstances or in opinions, but God does not change. T. Manton.

All our changes arise from the imperfection of our nature. We lose what we have, because of our feebleness; and we receive accessions, because we have not sufficiency in ourselves. Defect, limitation and dependence characterize our nature, and hence we change; fulness, infinitude and all-sufficiency characterize the Deity, and hence, during the flow of ages, he remains the same. Wm. Cooke.

Every promise which He has made is guaranteed, as well by His natural attributes of wisdom, power and sufficiency, as by His perfect moral rectitude. In this character of truth, the everlasting foundations of His religion are laid. That changes not, because the doctrines taught in it are in themselves true without error, and can never be displaced by new and better discoveries; it fails not, because every gracious promise must by Him be accomplished; and thus the religion of the Bible continues from age to age, and from day to day, as much a matter of personal experience as it ever was. In its doctrines, it can never become an antiquated theory; for truth is eternal. In its practical application, it can never become foreign to man; for it enters now and must ever enter into his concerns, his duties, his hopes and comforts, to the end of time. We know what is true as an object of belief, because the God of truth has declared it; and we know what is faithful, and, therefore, the object of unlimited trust, because “He is faithful that hath promised.” R. Watson.

The different frames and feelings which distress us do not affect God nor cause any change in His love to us. A changeable God must be an unhappy being like ourselves; but God never changes in His love, purposes and grace to us. He did not love us, choose us and set His heart upon us on account of what He saw in us, but as He viewed us in the Son of His love. We are unrighteous sinners in ourselves; but He sees in Christ an everlasting atonement for our sins, an everlasting righteousness to justify us: therefore He is ever pleased with us in Christ; ever of one mind concerning us; ever rests in His love to us and joys over us: no change in us can ever affect His mind, His love or His joy. W. Mason.

It is a source of great comfort and strength amid the changes of human life to know that there is One who changes not. The unchangeableness of God gives a solid basis upon which our thought and hope may rest, and enables us to believe that all the vicissitudes of our life are held within the scope of a never-failing Divine purpose. The changelessness of God is not like that which is found in the uniformity of nature, but is the changelessness of personal character—changelessness in the fundamental principles of action and attributes of character, with the utmost play of variety and change of activity within the limits involved in an immutable moral nature. It is the same changeless love which manifests disapproval and condemnation of sin as manifests approval of goodness. The desire and effort on the part of God to promote the highest good of His creatures as truly require that He should disapprove and condemn sin as that He should approve holiness. God’s love, then, in its essential character, is changeless. It is and ever remains the desire and effort to bless, save, and bring to its true life of godlikeness every soul of man. But the mode in which it shall act and the course which it shall pursue, in dealing with individual men, must vary according to the character and attitude of each man toward the love which is seeking his highest welfare. . . . While the love of God is changeless in its tenderness and yearning to bless, it is also changelessly holy and unable to approve or overlook sin. God will ever seek our truest welfare, but He could never promote our truest welfare if He did not condemn our sins. He is changeless in His glorious and holy perfections; but within those perfections themselves there is all the variety and play of passion, feeling and action, which belong to a living, moral personality perpetually exerting His infinite energies in acts of wisdom, power and grace. G. B. Stevens.

This sublime idea of the one, absolute, independent, perfect God which fills the pages of the Old Testament, from the first phrase of Genesis to the last of Malachi, which is asserted with authority in the Law, whose breath inspires the prophets, in presence of which psalmists adore and Hebrew sages meditate; this idea which the Son of God has accepted, hailed, confirmed, and which He has transmitted to His Church, making of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at once our God and our Father; this idea which becomes the sentence of death of the nations which reject it, the powerful support of all those that adopt and preserve it; whence did the Israelites derive it? It is their only intellectual treasure, since they had no other grandeur, no other mission in the history of the world than to be its bearers; and it is their own peculiar treasure, for no other nation has shared it with them. We must accept the word which is claimed by the very facts themselves; we must admit that there has been revelation. F. Godet.

To the moral education and development of our race, a vivid conception of God’s active presence, and conscious, intelligent interest in human affairs is indispensable. It was such a conception which made the Hebrews a peculiar people—nay, in spite of their conspicuous faults, a great people. Their invincible vitality, their distinctive, unconquerable homogeneity, against which so many tyrant persecutors have hurled themselves in vain, would have been melted away in the course of any two of the last twenty-five centuries, had theirs been a pantheistic conception of God. Their survival as a people, though long divested of a country, and even of a chief, is a striking proof of the conservative force that inheres in the idea of a God to whom those who will may draw practically, consciously nearer than are those who know Him not; though these, too, are subjects of His care. The bloodless speculation which vaunts itself philosophy and enlightenment has rarefied the other wherein it works, until “the undevout astronomer” alone can tell what it believes or aims to teach with regard to our theme. But, whatever else may be affirmed or denied thereof, it can hardly be doubted that the general drift of this speculation is toward a weakened sense of moral responsibility. It inspires no such horror of sin or dread of divinely decreed and administered retribution as do the canons of ancient faith. “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the children of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,” becomes absurd self-sacrifice in the contemplation of a philosophy which precludes all retribution which is not the necessary consequence of violating beneficent laws—in whose regard punishment is but another phase of gravitation. In such a philosophy, self-denial finds no aliment, conscience no spur, and the love and practice of virtue no safeguard in that “fearful looking for of judgment” which pursues and overtakes the transgressor. Horace Greeley.

7-12. In the first chapter, Malachi had scathingly rebuked the temple ministers because they did not stand by their duties, even at the cost of hardships, when the people failed to bring in the tithes and offerings. Now he pays his respects to the people who have been guilty of this failure. God counts as robbery our failure to contribute our proper proportion to the support of religious ordinances. With a curse: The Revised Version has, correctly, “the curse.” Probably the curse referred to in the first verses of chap. 2—that is, the curse described in De. 28. In the second chapter, Malachi applies the Deuteronomy passage to the priests; now he applies it to “this whole nation.” Their way to escape the curse is to be obedient, and the specific obedience now required is that which consists in bringing in all their religious dues. W. J. B.

The key-word of the Christian life is “sacrifice”—surrender, and that to God. That is to be stamped on the inmost selves, and, by the act of the will, on the body as well. “Yield yourselves to God, and your members as instruments of righteousness to Him.” It is to be written on possessions. Malachi necessarily keeps within the limits of the sacrificial system, but his impetuous eloquence hits us no less. It is still possible to “rob God.” We do so when we keep anything as our own, and use it at our own will, for our own purposes. Only when we recognize His ownership of ourselves, and consequently of all that we call “ours,” do we give Him His due. Such thoroughgoing surrender is the secret of thorough possession. The true way to enjoy worldly goods is to give them to God. The lattices of heaven are opened, not to pour down, as of old, fiery destruction, but to make way for the gentle descent of God’s blessing, which will more than fill every vessel set to receive it. This is the universal law, not always fulfilled in increase of outward goods, but in the better riches of communion and of larger possession in God Himself. He suffers no man to be His creditor, but more than returns our gifts—as legends tell of some peasant who brought his king a poor tribute of fruits of his fields, and went away from the presence-chamber with a jewel in his hand. A. M.

Return unto Me, and I will return unto you (verse 7). Although God does not change, man does. And when man changes his attitude toward God, it makes it seem as though God had changed His attitude toward man. If man looks toward God, he sees the loving face of God; but if man turns his back on God, he misses that loving face, and then he is inclined to think that God has become his enemy. There is only one cure for such a trouble as this, and that is for the changeful man to turn back again to the unchanging God. If man and God seem to be in opposition, the fault is wholly man’s. Man has turned away from God, and brought about this seeming opposition between the two. If man will simply turn back again, the old loving relations will be re-established. H. C. T.

7, 8. This is why God judges, but does not destroy: He purges out the wicked, and refines the good from their dross, in order that, in His unchanging compassion, He may carry out His purpose of redemption and grace. Thus “the covenant is equipped at all points and sure;” for if the unfaithfulness of man cannot annul it, what can? And that man’s unfaithfulness cannot annul it is evident; for “from the days of your fathers ye have departed from My statutes, and have not kept them.”

This, too, is why God has delayed His coming. It is not that He is slack concerning His promises, but that they will not fulfil the conditions of the promise. Generation after generation they have shown themselves to be a disobedient and gainsaying people. How can He come to them, while they still depart from Him? How can He come, bringing salvation, while they do not keep His statutes? The blessing of the obedient cannot be given to the disobedient. Let them return to Him from whom they have departed, and then see whether He will keep them waiting for Him.

But “wherein shall we return?” they object. In what have we departed from Him, that we should retrace our steps? Are not we the chosen race, the holy nation? “Dare a man defraud God?” replies Jehovah. “Yet ye have defrauded Me.” “We!” respond the people; “we defraud Thee! Pray, how?” “Ye have defrauded me,” answers Jehovah, “even in that in which ye pride yourselves as being most exact, in the least things; how much more, then, in the greatest? Even the tithes and offerings have not been duly paid, although your neglect has been rebuked by a curse, the curse of famine.” Cox.

10. This striking passage has the richer interest to Christians because, under the principles of the ancient economy—viz., temporal blessings to the faithfully obedient—it presents to us the great law of His spiritual administration as well, showing that there can really be no limit (short of our utmost capacity) to the spiritual blessings God will give those who, really hungering for righteousness, “open wide their mouth that God may fill it,” and hence who honestly use all appropriate means for this result. God is forever the same, and certainly is no less bountiful of blessings under the Christian than under the Jewish economy. “Prove Me;” put My words to the test. H. C.

Malachi has told us how the people brought blind and lame and sick—nay, even stolen, beasts for sacrifice; how they offered ewes on pretence that they had no rams in their flocks, and vowed their choicest oxen and sheep, and then, when the moment of pressure was past, brought “that which was corrupt;” how the priests offered “polluted bread” and “unclean sacrifices,” and cried, as they discharged their function, “What a weariness it is!” Now even the Hebrews knew that “to obey is better than to sacrifice;” but they also knew that to sacrifice was to obey; and so often as they neglected the lesser obedience of sacrifice, they still more neglected the larger obedience of moral conformity to the Divine Will. In His mercy God only puts them to the lesser test. For the present it shall be enough if they bring “all the tithe” into the store-chambers of the temple. Let them but do that, and He will open the sluice-gates of heaven, and pour down on them the blessing of copious rain; He will rebuke the devouring locust; the fruit of the earth shall no longer be destroyed before it can be gathered in, nor shall the vine miscarry of its grapes. So happy shall be their condition, so fertile their land, that all nations shall call them blessed. Thus the Lord whom they seek will come to them so soon as they are ready for Him, so soon as He can come in benediction. He will come, not only in His temple, but also in their barns and homesteads and fields. Cox.

We are not only to worship God with our lips and give Him praise with our tongue, but He has required that we should worship Him with our substance. Our services add nothing to God, therefore it is our good which He seeks in all His institutions of religion. It is our good, our greatest good, that our whole trust should be in the Lord, always and upon all occasions; because He cannot fail us, and everything else will, and, therefore, we must be miserable if we place our trust in anything else than God, and our greatest happiness must consist in a full and absolute dependence upon Him. Now this trust and dependence is produced more by our deeds than our words; more by practising of it than by speaking of it and praising it; and the payment of our tithe is a practise of it, a trusting in God that He will not only accept it and give us spiritual blessings of it, but even that we shall gain by it, as to this world, and prove the richer for it. For it is His blessing only that giveth increase, as to the fruits of the field, so to the labors of our hands, to all our endeavors in whatever vocation. The Lord bids us prove Him herein, try Him, trust in Him, and see how abundant He will be in His blessings to us, and whether He will not return to us tenfold for the tenth we give to Him. But if we dare not trust God so far as to make this small experiment when He provokes us to it, and grudge to give Him the tenth, who gave us all, it is but just with Him to take that from us wherein we trusted, and not to leave us a tenth; but to take the whole from those who durst not trust Him and His promises with a tenth. C. Leslie, 1700.

While men are allowed to handle and manage to a certain limit what they are also permitted in a kind of figure to call their property as a part of the discipline of their moral liberty—to try and prove them what manner of men they are—they are also continually to be opening their hands and parting with this substance, putting it clean away from them, cost what it will, laying it on altars, burning it in the fire, beating it small, scattering it as incense on the air, making it the maintenance of the Lord’s priesthood, sending it away in the wilderness. Bp. Huntington.

Self has got hold of the purse-strings, and the Lord is likely to be robbed of His dues. That is the real secret of diminished contributions in our churches, and that accounts for the fact while God’s Church is growing richer at a rapid rate, so many grand institutions for the spread of His kingdom are often at starvation point. “The lust of the eye and the pride of life” steal in, and under smooth pretences commit their shameful larcenies of the moneys which God loans to His stewards. When Christians undertake to cheat God, their sin is sure sooner or later to find them out. T. L. Cuyler.

God’s claim upon our money gains. In every province of human life God requires His proprietorship to be recognized. The seventh part of our time is hallowed for His service. The firstfruits of corn were to be devoted to religious uses. The firstborn in the household belonged to God, and was to be redeemed by substitution. And now, of all their yearly gains, one tenth was claimed by God. His claim proceeds from His proprietorship. Toward the Hebrews He was obviously and directly landlord. He had put them into possession of their estates, and rightfully could exact from them a rent. And with respect to all national substance, God is absolute Proprietor. He has an original and indefeasible right as Creator; and it is His supreme power that maintains in existence the treasures of the earth. Even the power we have to accumulate wealth is derived from the same beneficent Source. It is His gift, not that He has conveyed to us the irresponsible right in it, but simply in the sense that we had nothing with which to purchase it. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” D. D.

God has made the outpouring of spiritual blessing dependent upon man’s faithfulness in observing the law of tithes and firstfruits and religious tributes of all kinds: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” We may keep back part of the consecrated price, but the loss will be ours rather than God’s. We may account ourselves even clever in making calculations as to how much we can save from the cost of piety and charity, but the great law of compensation will proceed disastrously in our case because of this calculated and irreligious penury: “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly.” This law of compensation operates also in the other direction with noble impartiality: “He which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” We imagine that all God’s benefactions are spiritual; we have shut Him out from the field and the vineyard; but hear His word: “The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and He shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” But we must not attempt to make an investment of our charity. J. P.

We pray for the coming of the kingdom of Christ, and wonder, at times, that our heartless, disunited, inconsistent prayers are not more successful. But what do we expect? Let it be supposed that a convocation of all the Christians upon earth should be held, to implore the conversion of the world. How justly might an ancient prophet be sent from God to rebuke them, and say: “The means for the conversion of the world are already in your hands. Had you been dependent on human charity for support, you might have then expected to see your Almighty Lord erect His kingdom by miracle, or you might have warrantably come to His throne to implore the means necessary for carrying it on by your own instrumentality. But these means are actually in your hands. You are asking Him to do that, the very means for doing which are at this moment locked up in your coffers, or wasted in costly self-gratification. For what purpose has He placed so much wealth in your hands? Surely not to consume it in self-indulgence. “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house to lie waste? Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord, consider your ways.” Look abroad over your assembled myriads; calculate the immense resources of wealth placed at your disposal; imagine that you were to be seized with a noble generosity, like that which at different times descended on the ancient people of God, and then say, what enterprise would be too vast for your means? Make this consecration of your substance to the cause of Christ, and then come and ask for the conversion of the world. Till then, ask only, and in common consistency expect only, that He will bless you to the amount of your sacrifices for His cause. J. Harris.

Modern missions are maintained neither by the zeal of the few nor by the mere zeal of the many, but rather by the deep-seated impulsive power of a grave and irresistible conviction, pressing on the conscience even of the inert and the selfish; and much more on the hearts of the fervent and devoted. That a Christian has no more liberty to withhold his aid and service from these evangelizing associations than he has to abandon the duties of common life, and that for a man to profess hope in Christ and to deny what he might spare to promote the diffusion of the Gospel, is the most egregious of all practical solecisms. I. Taylor.

We have not penetrated to the centre of true Christian activity, we have not risen to the height of the apostolic view of duty to Christ and to the world, until we give because we are indebted to men whose faces we have never seen; to whom the world accounts us not under the slightest obligation; to whom we are indebted simply because the God who made both them and us has distinguished us from them in order that we might bless them, as we may, with the powers and the knowledge which He has given to us! R. S. S.

It is the “multitude praying without”—be they few or many, known or unknown—who are the builders of your churches, the senders of your missionaries, the really efficient patrons of your orphan-houses, hospitals and Christian education societies. The finest and firmest machinery in the world is so much dead material without these prayers. I suppose most of you have seen some elaborate and costly specimen of mechanism standing still: every little screw and bolt of the complicated system in its place; every post and bar, flange and transom secure; every bright lever and arm, wheel and tooth, tempered and tested—the whole a splendid embodiment and trophy of intellectual ingenuity and determination, yet silent and inert as icicles, till some lifted gate or opened valve lets in the mysterious motive power which makes it a sure and mighty servant of a purpose beyond it. So are all our best religious measures, till the breath of the Church’s prayers joins them to the Spirit from on high. Throughout all its portions the Scripture has no other doctrine. “Be strong, all ye people of the Lord, for I am with you, saith the Lord.” “Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit.” “Prove Me if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing.” F. D. H.

11,12. These verses still expand the promise commenced in verse 10. If you will truly bring in all the tithes and meet all your obligations to God, then I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes—the locust, put here for all forms of destructive agents. All the nations shall witness to your prosperity. H. C.

13-15 contain a rebuke of persons who were impatient under temporal trials, and murmured against God, because they did not at once reap the fruit of their service in temporal prosperity. B. C.

The antithesis between what God had said before (verses 10-12), and what these wicked gainsayers reply (verses 14, 15), is much more apparent in the original, especially of verse 15, than in the received translation. First, the pronoun “we,” being expressed in full, is slightly emphatic: you say one thing; we, on our part, not admitting what you say, are stoutly maintaining the opposite. Then the verb, “call you blessed” (in verse 12), and the corresponding verb, “call the proud happy” (verse 15), are precisely the same; as if they would say, You claim that the nations shall call God’s obedient people blessed; we, for our part, call the proud blessed. So the word rendered “prove” (verse 10) is the same as is here (verse 15) rendered “tempt.” You have said, Let My people prove Me. We have to say in reply, that the wicked have proved Thee by scoffing at Thy words; and yet so far from being punished, they are even delivered from all fear and danger. H. C.

16,17. In the third act of this dramatic dialogue (chap. 3: 13-4: 3), in which the prophet is the mouthpiece alternately of Jehovah and of the people, we once more hear the sceptical murmurs of distrust. First comes the charge: “Your words do Me wrong, saith Jehovah.” Then follows the “but,” the objection: “And ye say, What do we speak against Thee?” And then comes the rejoinder, which gives us a sample of the common talk of the day. Wherever men met for converse they might be heard saying, some, “It is vain to serve God!” others, “What profit is it that we keep His ordinances, and go about with sad faces and in mourning weeds as those who lament the national sins?” some, “We see that the proud are blessed rather than the humble!” others, “The wicked flourish rather than the just!” and still others, “Those who tempt God by their presumption and impiety are nevertheless delivered from peril rather than the meek and the devout!” In short, the general sentiment of the time was that the very blessings promised to the meek, the humble, the sorrowful, were bestowed on the heedless, the proud, the self-confident; and the general mistake of the time was that because they, the Jews, fasted and observed certain outward forms, and these not always the forms ordained by Jehovah, they therefore possessed that piety which He had promised to bless and reward.

Now just as in chap. 2: 5-7, Jehovah had rebuked the false and corrupt priests by placing before them a charming picture of the true priest, the ideal Levi, so here He rebukes the foolish and profane talk of the multitude by contrasting with it the conversation of the faithful remnant, the little community of saints, who feared Him and thought on His Name. Unhappily, however, their talk is not reported, at least by Malachi, though, as we have seen, that of the ungodly is. All we are told of it is, that it was full of the fear of Jehovah, and that it was held to be of such value in heaven that, just as the Persian monarch kept a book in which the heroic deeds of any of his servants were recorded, so the King of Heaven “hearkened and heard” when His servants spoke well of Him in evil times, and had their names written in a book of remembrance. When we read,

“Then they that feared Jehovah spake often one with another And Jehovah hearkened and heard, And a book of remembrance was kept before Him For those that feared Jehovah, And that thought on His Name,”

we are not only charmed with the stately music of the lines; we long that we could stand in that happy company of saints, if only for a few moments, and hear what they had to say to each other, and learn what it was that drew them so often and so close together. Is it altogether impossible to recover the words which Malachi has failed to report? It is by no means impossible. Our wish may be fulfilled. We may hear of what they that feared the Lord spake one to another; we may give, on the best authority, some of the very words they used. While the nominal Israel said, “It is vain to serve God,” the true, the elect Israel said, “Happy is every one that feareth Jehovah, that walketh in His ways.” While the former said, “What profit is it that we serve Him?” the latter said, “They that put their trust in Jehovah are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but standeth fast forever.” While the degenerate majority said, “The proud are blessed, the wicked flourish, the boldly bad are saved from all peril!” the pious few said, “Though the ploughers plough our back, and draw long furrows, God will cut in sunder the traces of the wicked; though the proud are green and flourishing for a time, they are but as the grass on the village roofs wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom” (Ps. 135); “though we go forth weeping, sowing a mere handful of seed with tears, through the mercy of Jehovah we come back to the homestead, bearing many sheaves, with songs of joy” (Ps. 136). That these words and the like were used by the faithful few we know, for God kept a book of remembrance in which they were written, not only in heaven, but also on earth; and in the “Pilgrim’s Psalm-book” we may read them to this day, knowing that they are the very words sung by the inspired poets of Malachi’s time, and familiar on the lips of as many as feared Jehovah and hated evil. Cox.

16. They feared the Lord—that is the beginning of wisdom and the root of all religion; they reverenced the majesty of God, submitted to His authority. In every age there has been a remnant that feared the Lord, though sometimes but a little remnant. They thought upon His Name; they seriously considered and frequently meditated upon the discoveries God has made of Himself in His Word and by His providences; and their meditation of Him is sweet to them and influences them. They thought on His Name; they consulted the honor of God and aimed at that as their ultimate end in all they did. Those that know the name of God should often think of and dwell upon it in their thoughts; it is a copious, curious subject, and frequent thoughts of it will contribute very much to our communion with God, and the stirring up of our devout affections to Him. They spake often one to another concerning the God they feared and that name of His which they thought so much of; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak; and a good man out of a good treasure there will bring forth good things. They that feared the Lord kept together as those that were company for each other; they spake kindly and endearingly one to another for the preserving and promoting of mutual love, that that might not wax cold when iniquity did thus abound. They spake knowingly and edifyingly to one another, for the increasing and improving of faith and holiness; they spake one to another in the language of them that fear the Lord and think on His Name—the language of Canaan; when profaneness was come to so great a height as to trample upon all that is sacred, then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another. H.

There is no sweeter entertainment than for travellers to be remembering their country; their blessed home, and the happiness abiding them there, and refreshing and encouraging one another in the hopes of it; strengthening their hearts against all the hard encounters and difficulties in the way; often overlooking this moment, and helping each other to higher apprehensions of that vision of God which we expect. Leighton.—And how often has it happened that, when holding sacred converse with one another, Jesus Himself has joined them, as He did the two disciples on the road to Emmaus when they were conversing of the decease which He accomplished at Jerusalem? And though their eyes are let so that they do not see Him, yet their hearts burn within as He talks with them and opens to them the Scriptures, and they know that it has been the Lord. McCosh.

We may sometimes be with Christians, the conversation apparently about God’s Word or kingdom, and yet there may be no real ozone in the atmosphere, no converse of heart with heart, no nourishment and no refreshment. On the other hand, there may have been no “religious conversation,” and yet the animating and restful influence of affection, friendship and the contact of minds living in the fear and light of God. This is a large subject, and yet one on which each one must find for himself what is right, safe and profitable. Only let us be sincere, and avoid all Pharisaism. The next best thing to grace is nature. Only let us be heavenly-minded and avoid worldliness. For, blessed be God, the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. A. Saphir.

He kept an account of them; a book of remembrance was written before Him. It is an expression after the manner of men, intimating that their pious affections and performances are kept in remembrance as punctually and particularly as if they were written in a book; as if journals were kept of all their conferences. Great kings had books of remembrance written and read before them, in which were entered all the services done them, when and by whom, as Esth. 2: 23. God, in like manner, remembers the services of His people, that in the review of them He may say, “Well done, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” God has a book for the sighs and tears of His mourners (Ps. 56: 8), much more for the pleadings of His advocates. Never was any good word spoken of God or for God from an honest heart, but it was registered that it might be recompensed in the resurrection of the just, and in no wise lose its reward. H.

God hearkens and hears, records and remembers all that the righteous say. Every word of encouragement spoken to a weary fellow- toiler, every word of sympathy and comfort to an afflicted spirit, every word of quickening to diligence and activity in the Christian life, every kind, generous, loving word that has helped and cheered a struggling, tempted fellow-soul, is heard, remembered and recorded, and one day shall be disclosed again to the mutual, grateful joy of the helper and the helped. So, too, every good word spoken in season to him who owns no Saviour, who has no hope, who is without God, and yet is journeying to an eternal world where trust and hope in a God and Saviour are the conditions of happy existence, every such word will be found on record too; it will contribute to the lasting joy of its utterer and of him that has heeded it. B.

From one cause or another we shrink from the responsibility of avowing our deepest convictions. Partly it is from the fear of ostentation and singularity, partly from self-distrust and sincere humility, partly from more unworthy motives. But from whatever cause it may be, by so doing we wrong our friends. We leave unspoken the word which might have cheered or guided or turned them. By our coldness we suffer them to remain in doubt whether God has visited us. If the heart be full, men argue, its feelings will find utterance. If the Christian creed be accepted as the truth, it cannot but color the whole life of the believer. Not to speak then of our highest hopes, not to talk, one with another, of what, as we trust, God has done and will do for us, is to cast discredit on our name. When that is at stake we may well forget ourselves. No one has ever ventured to cast aside his religious reserve without meeting with sympathy for which he had not looked, and gaining courage from the sense of spiritual fellowship. How can it be otherwise? It is not of ourselves we speak, but of God whom we have seen. It is not our own honor which we look for, but the glory of our Father which is in heaven. It is not of any special prerogative we make boast, but of a blessing which is offered as the common heritage of men; for Christ is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. So may we all see Him as our Redeemer and our strength; so may we give Him glory; so may we confess Him before men! Bp. Westcott.

What a world would this become were all brought to do God’s will! How would there be in each individual soul that fulness of joy which can flow only from thoughts and affections centred upon God, and a will conscious of acting ever in harmony with His will! How would there be perfect agreement among communities of men, that agreement which can only be where the wills of men are brought into union with one another by being in union with the one great Will! How would the glory of

God, the one great end of man’s being on earth, abound, so that God, looking down on His obedient children, imaging His will on earth, might declare Himself well pleased with the children of men, and pour down on them His blessings with an unsparing hand! Karslake.

17. Those who thus thought on Jehovah should be thought of by Him, affirms the prophet. In the new day which He was about to create, the day of His coming, they should be a peculiar and choice possession to Him; on that day, while He punishes the ungodly, who distrust and contemn Him, He will spare the faithful even “as a father spareth the son who serves him,” and has been true to his service in dark and perilous times. Cox.

All the goodness of the saints shall then be revealed by the Judge. Their greatest excellencies are invisible to the eyes of men; the sanctity of their aims and affections which gives life and value to all the acts of obedience; their secret duties, wherein the sincerity and ardency of their souls is most expressed, are only known to God. And such is the excellent humility of the saints, that the more they are enriched and abound with the gracious influences of the spirit, the less they discover to the world; as the celestial bodies, when in nearest conjunction with the sun and most filled with his light, are least in appearance to the inhabitants of the earth. But there is a book of remembrance before Him, for them that feared the Lord and thought upon His Name. And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in the day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them as a man spares his son that serves him. Bates.

When the “jewels” are “made up,” He will pronounce, “they are Mine.” What triumph to hear it! What congratulation with one another! What congratulation of the innumerable angelic “hosts;” for it is “the Lord of Hosts” that will say, “they are Mine!” And what a situation must that be—in place, and circumstances, and felicity, and glory—in which He will assign their abode within the immediate manifestation of His presence! He will also confer on them an inconceivably more glorious brightness, and beauty, and value, as in themselves, than they had on earth. And this to shine “as the stars, forever and ever.” Looking at this prospect, which of us can be content that his soul should be wanting when “the Lord of Hosts” shall “make up His jewels”? Who can bear the thought of being cast among the baser rejected things of the creation, and for Him to say, “that is not Mine—take it away”? Foster.

It is not too much to think that when God shall have made up all His jewels, and the number of the elect shall be complete, He will make it a part of their happiness to look back from the height of heaven upon all their winding track and to see that every step has been ordered in infinite love; that their sorest trials have been merciful; that their freest choices have been links in God’s chain of purpose; that their very sins have been overruled for good. And if this shall appear amazing in the history of an individual, how shall it shine resplendent in the nations of them that are saved, when ten thousand times ten thousand intermingling and entangled lives shall visibly accord with one infinite plan, and centre in one sovereign purpose! The great end of creation and providence and grace is God’s own glory. J. W. Alexander.

What a heaven will the true Christian have! Not only a heaven prepared for him, but a heaven within him, to meet the heaven above—a heaven of purity within, to meet the heaven of holiness without, and all of God as a security for its eternal duration. R. Hill.—Treasures in heaven are indefectible in their nature and endless in duration. They are still full, fresh, and entire, like the orbs above, which shine with undiminished lustre and move with unwearied motion. Nay, when these lights of heaven shall be put out, the righteous, being fixed in the Divine presence, shall enjoy one perpetual day—a day commensurate to the unlimited eternity of God Himself. R. South.

18. “Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between sinners and saints; between those that serve God and make conscience of their duty to Him and those that serve Him not, but put contempt upon His service. Ye that now speak against God as making no difference between good and bad, and therefore say, It is in vain to serve Him (verse 14), ye shall be made to see your error; ye that would speak for God, but know not what to say as to this, that there seems to be one event to the righteous and to the wicked and all things come alike to all, will then have the matter set in a true light, and will see to your everlasting satisfaction the difference between the righteous and the wicked. H.

The reckoning day will shortly come! Let the righteous return after a little space, and they will see a broad line of diverse destiny ranging “between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.” H. C.