Malachi 3:8-12 meaning

God begins Malachi 3:8-12 with a rhetorical question⎯an inquiry meant to emphasize a point rather than get an answer: Will a man rob God? (v. 8). The expected answer is “No, a man should not rob God.” But God continues saying “Yet you are robbing Me!”

The Hebrew term translated as man is “adam.” It is the name and title of the first human, and can be literally translated “person” or “human being” (Genesis 6:3, 8:21). The appropriate emphasis is on the fact that humans were created. It makes no sense for the one created to try to rob from their creator since all they have comes from the creator.

There is a sense in which one cannot rob from God because everything is already His (Psalm 50:10-12). But there is another sense in which the idea of robbing from the Creator/God is just backward since all we have is from Him and without Him we have nothing.

But the people were robbing the LORD. This is apparently the opposite of what they thought. They believed they were living righteously. They were accordingly unhappy with God for not blessing them appropriately (Malachi 2:17, 3:7, 3:14).

In the previous section, the Suzerain/ruler God reminded His covenant people of their history of rebellion and urged them to repent (Malachi 3:7). This was so they might enjoy His abundant blessings that flow from following His ways. Then they would be walking in fellowship with Him.

God now explains why He says: Yet you are robbing Me! The Judeans apparently thought this charge to be out of bounds, as they ask: How have we robbed You? The attitude seems to be “What are you talking about, everything we are doing is just right.” It is observable that humans do not have to be taught how to justify themselves! Self-justification is engrained into the core of the human flesh. Accepting responsibility for our own actions is a true perspective which leads to fellowship with God and others.

God responded to the Jewish peoples’ question by simply saying that the people had robbed Him In tithes and offerings (v 8).

The people had vowed to do all God commanded in the covenant He made with them (Exodus 19:8). This included making certain tithes and offerings. These offerings served three purposes: 1) to worship 2) to gather and celebrate with friends and family (eating a feast together) and 3) to provide for the Levites.

The word tithe means “tenth.” There were three types of tithes in the covenant law, although all the tithes were to be given as unto the LORD (Leviticus 27:30):

1. The sacred tithe (Numbers 18:21, 24). These tithes were to be waved before the LORD then given to the Levites for their sustenance.
2. Festive tithes (Deuteronomy 12:5-7, 14:22-27). These tithes were to be consumed by family and friends (and shared with the Levites) in the pilgrimage festive occasions set forth in the covenant, such as Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles. These festivals were for remembrance (such as being delivered from Egypt) as well as national unity around their covenant agreement with the LORD. These tithes were something like a vacation savings account, setting aside provision to finance pilgrimages to Jerusalem.
3. The tithe for the Levites and poor (Deuteronomy 14:28-29). This tithe was to be performed once every three years (and might be a substitute application for the festive tithe every third year).

Given the agrarian economy of Israel, the tithes are described simply as ten percent of any agricultural products (grain, wine, oil). However, these tithes could be converted to money if transporting in-kind goods was not practical (Deuteronomy 14:24-25).

The term offering (Hebrew “terumah”) denotes a portion separated from a larger whole and is a fiscal term (Proverbs 29:4). It may include gifts from agricultural products and personal valuables such as silver, gold, and precious stones (Exodus 25:2). It was a free-will offering. The Levites were also to tithe to the Lord through an offering (Numbers 18:26). Malachi paired the two terms (tithes and offerings) to inform his audience that they failed to bring both tithes and offerings to the LORD.

Speaking on God’s behalf, the prophet said to the people: “You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you!” (v. 9). 

Since the LORD mentioned tithes (plural) and offerings (plural) we might infer that the people are failing to observe all aspects of the covenant provisions. This would imply that:

1. They were not properly caring for the Levites.
2. They were not setting aside provision to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem and participate in the festive celebrations there.
3. They were not providing for the poor.

They might have justified not providing for the Levites since the Levitical priests of that day were corrupt. We saw in Malachi 2:9 that God had judged the Levites by making them despised in the eyes of the people. However, God still expects them to serve the Levites as a ministry to Him. The LORD says for you are robbing Me. The Levites were corrupt, but God desired the people to be obedient to Him notwithstanding.

It seems reasonable to suppose that the Levites might have similarly justified swindling the people (Malachi 1:14) because they were not properly caring for them. Perhaps since the people were allowed to bring money from their festive tithes to purchase offerings, the priests were selling blemished animals for the price of unblemished and pocketing the difference (Malachi 1:8, 14, Deuteronomy 14:24-25).

Perhaps each group would point at the other and say, “I am fine, it is them that is the problem.” But God’s perspective is that the problem is with the whole nation of you. He is not looking for someone who is good at blaming. He is looking for someone who will do as He asks.

God will preserve an unrighteous nation if there is someone who will stand in the gap for righteousness (Ezekiel 22:30). He will preserve a nation with only a small percentage of righteous men (Genesis 18:32). He does not call His people to be a majority, but to be like salt and light (Matthew 5:12, 16). A small amount of salt preserves a large amount of food and a small light source overcomes darkness.

But since God says the whole nation of you, it would seem that there is not even a remnant of the people serving this purpose. When God spoke in Ezekiel 22:30 of desiring to find someone to stand in the gap for Him, the context deals with those in civil authority. In Judah, the priests served as important leaders and had become corrupt. God said something similar in Malachi 1:10, where He wished at least one person would be willing to take an action as bold as shutting the gates to the Temple to put an end to the corrupt worship practices.

Since the people are robbing God, He says You are cursed with a curse. The covenant/treaty God entered into with Israel had specific provisions for disobedience to His commands (Deuteronomy 28:15). God is gracious and allows time for repentance. The LORD is “a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity” (Jonah 4:2).

But there comes a time when the window of opportunity to repent closes and judgment is rendered. One way God judges willful sin is by completely giving a rebellious person over to their evil desires so they will experience the full weight of their consequences (Romans 1:24).

The LORD did not want to judge His covenant people without giving them a second chance. For this reason, He urged them to repent so He could bless them: Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows” (v. 10).

The form of the command likely suggests that the people of Judah held back portions of their tithes while others perhaps ceased tithing altogether. The statement also answers the question in the previous section: “How shall we return?” where the people seemed confused as to what they might be doing wrong (Malachi 3:7). The message is clear: the people were to bring their tithes into the storehouse.

The word storehouse might apply to spaces designated for storage within the Temple. This is reinforced by the immediate context, where God stated, so that there may be food in My house. The phrase My house refers to the Temple in Jerusalem. This would indicate that the particular tithe God is focused on is the tithe to the Levites. This is despite the fact that God had judged them by making them despised in the eyes of the people due to their corruption (Malachi 2:9). The offering is to God, so should be given despite the misuse or misapplication of the Levites.

In the New Testament, Ananias and his wife Sapphira were judged severely for withholding a portion of a promised offering (Acts 5:1-10). God expects vows to be kept (Ecclesiastes 5:4-5). At one point God judged Israel because Saul broke a vow that Joshua had made with the Gibeonites centuries earlier (2 Samuel 21:1). Israel had vowed to keep the statutes of God’s covenant and God expected them to do so (Exodus 19:8).

The Temple in Jerusalem had been rebuilt during the time of the prophet Zechariah around 516 BC, “on the third day of the month Adar; it was the sixth year of the reign of King Darius” (Ezra 6:16). God called it His house because it was the place where His covenant people worshiped and served Him (Ezra 3:10). He commanded them to bring their tithes to the Temple because such offerings would provide for the Levitical priests and serve as a reserve for the most vulnerable in the nation (Numbers 18:1-2; 21-32; Deuteronomy 14:28-29).

A house is a dwelling place of a host. The Hebrew term for the Temple is “beit ha'mikdash” and literally means “the holy house.” God taught the Israelites over their generations that His house (the Tabernacle and later the Temple) was to be a sanctified place so that He would dwell there (Exodus 25:8). This points to a greater truth, that our own bodies are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit and likewise should be a pure, sanctified space for Him to dwell (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Having spelled out the purpose for the people’s tithes and offerings, God issued them a challenge: Test me now in this. The verb translated as test here (Hebrew “bochan”) means to prove something, as when someone tests a new product. Here in Malachi, testing God is not an act of disbelief, as when the Israelites tested Him in the wilderness at Massah (Exodus 17:7; Deuteronomy 6:16). At Massah, the people’s test basically told God “You have to do what we want if you want to be our God,” which would be treating Him as a pagan god.

This test is a call for the Judeans to act in faith that God will do as He promised in His covenant. God promised to bless them if they would obey His statutes (Deuteronomy 28:1-15). God is saying “If you will do as I ask, you will find out I will do as I promised.” Before telling the people the benefits they would enjoy by providing for the Temple, the prophet inserted the phrase, Says the LORD of hosts, to confirm the divine nature of his message.

The term for LORD is “Yahweh” in the Hebrew text. It is the name that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14). That name speaks of God’s character as the creator of all things (the “I AM”) and His relationship with His chosen people (Exodus 3:14, 34:6). Malachi used the term Yahweh to remind the Judeans that God was their covenant partner. But Judah’s Suzerain Ruler is not a simple deity, unable to defend Himself or fight for His vassals. He is the LORD of hosts.

The term hosts (Hebrew, “Sabaoth”) means “army” and denotes the angelic armies of heaven (1 Samuel 1:3). In prophetic literature, the phrase LORD of hosts often describes God’s power as a warrior leading His army to defeat His foes (Amos 5:16, 9:5; Habakkuk 2:17). In Malachi, it demonstrates God’s power as the supreme warrior who has complete control over all human affairs. As such, He required faithfulness and loyalty from His subjects/vassals who entered in to covenant with Him.

The Suzerain God offered an opportunity to the post-exilic Judeans to prove His faithfulness to His covenantal promises. He said to them, Test me now if I will not open for you the windows of heaven. The windows of heaven depict abundant rain leading to abundant agricultural produce. In the book of Haggai, the “sky has withheld its dew, and the earth has withheld its produce” leading to drought and famine (Haggai 1:10). God desires to do the opposite for Judah and bring abundant rain. But He desires them first to walk in obedience by performing all the tithes God requested.

The people of Judah had previously experienced drought and famine because they neglected the Temple rebuilding and were preoccupied with their comfort (Haggai 1:6−11). Similarly, Malachi now tells the people that God would restore their agricultural prosperity if they returned to Him and began to follow His ways (Malachi 3:7). He would pour out for them a blessing until it overflows. Their land would yield abundant crops. In other words, the people’s faithfulness to God would result in fruitfulness in their land.

Not only would God provide ample rains for the agricultural produce of His people, but He would also protect their crops. He declared, “Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes,” says the LORD of hosts (v 11).

The devourer that God would rebuke so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground includes swarms of locusts. In the ancient world, outbreaks of locusts were not uncommon. They were so strong that they could devour people’s crops, as the book of Joel makes clear (Joel l:4). God often used these locusts to judge His people for disobedience and rebellion (Deuteronomy 28:42; 1 Kings 8:37; Amos 4:9).

Insects such as locusts could destroy the fruits of the ground in a short amount of time. The fruits of the ground likely refers to any crop such as grain (Nehemiah 10:35). The Hebrew word translated as cast its grapes is most often translated “bereave” but is also rendered “unfruitful” and “depopulated.” This is why translators added its grapes since the context of bereavement is the vine. 

The fruits of the ground would provide bread for people and feed for animals. The vine was one of the essential products in ancient Israel (Haggai 2:19). Even today, vineyards are productive there. The vine characterized Israel’s agricultural fertility, so often served as a potent image for the land itself (Isaiah 5:1−7).

In our passage, the people learned that pestilence and crop failure would cease if they became faithful in presenting their full tithes to Him. The presence of pestilence and drought might be a reason the people felt God was letting them down (Malachi 3:14). As we have seen, they had self-justified as having kept their covenant with God, so they believed they ought to be blessed. The prophet inserted the formula, Says the LORD of hosts, to confirm the divine nature of his revelation. This is a definitive word that the actual truth was that the people of Judah have systematically violated their covenant agreement.

The LORD ends this section by outlining the positive effects Israel’s agricultural prosperity would have on the other nations. He declared: “All the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land,” says the LORD of hosts (v 12). Today, Israel remains an agricultural center and exports large amounts of fresh produce across the Middle East and the world.

One of God’s reasons for establishing His covenant/treaty with Israel was as a witness to the nations. Israel was to serve a priestly function and witness to the nations of a better way to live, a way of loving rather than exploiting one’s neighbor (Exodus 19:6). If Judah would follow the tithing statutes and properly care for the Levites and the poor, then God would bless them and they would provide a good witness to the neighboring nations. God included a promise to bless all nations through Abraham in the covenant He made with him (Genesis 12:1-3).

The Hebrew word translated as blessed is “ashre.” It means “happy” or “fortunate.” This word appears as a major theme in the very first Psalm, which says the one who fears the LORD and walks righteously is blessed (Psalm 1:1). In Malachi 3:8-12, the blessed condition represents the future state of Israel when her citizens will choose to walk in God’s ways.

God saying that All the nations will call you blessed indicates both that God is ready and willing to pour out blessings upon them if they will repent now, as well as referring back to the first part of Chapter 3 where God promised He would send His messenger, the Messiah, to cleanse Israel and make it righteous. There will be a time when Israel will return and God will set up a lasting kingdom with the Son of David on a lasting throne, as He has promised (2 Samuel 7:12-13).

The surrounding nations will witness Israel’s prosperity and recognize them as the recipients of God’s blessing. The reason they would do so is because Israel will be a delightful land. It will be the most desirable country because of its abundance and prosperity. The prophet once again inserts the formula, Says the LORD of hosts, to confirm the divine nature of his revelation.