God reproaches the Jews with their ingratitude: and the priests for not
offering pure sacrifices. He will accept of the sacrifice that shall be
offered in every place among the Gentiles.
1:1. The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by the hand of
Malachias.
1:2. I have loved you, saith the Lord: and you have said: Wherein hast
thou loved us? Was not Esau brother to Jacob, saith the Lord, and I
have loved Jacob,
I have loved Jacob, etc.... I have preferred his posterity, to make
them my chosen people, and to lead them with my blessings, without any
merit on their part, and though they have been always ungrateful;
whilst I have rejected Esau, and executed severe judgments upon his
posterity. Not that God punished Esau, or his posterity, beyond their
desert: but that by his free election and grace he loved Jacob, and
favoured his posterity above their deserts. See the annotations upon
Rom. 9.
1:3. But have hated Esau? and I have made his mountains a wilderness,
and given his inheritance to the dragons of the desert.
1:4. But if Edom shall say: We are destroyed, but we will return and
build up what hath been destroyed: thus saith the Lord of hosts: They
shall build up, and I will throw down: and they shall be called the
borders of wickedness, and the people with whom the Lord is angry for
ever.
1:5. And your eyes shall see: and you shall say: The Lord be magnified
upon the border of Israel.
1:6. The son honoureth the father, and the servant his master: if then
I be a father, where is my honour? and if I be a master, where is my
fear? saith the Lord of hosts.
1:7. To you, O priests, that despise my name, and have said: Wherein
have we despised thy name? You offer polluted bread upon my altar, and
you say: Wherein have we polluted thee? In that you say: The table of
the Lord is contemptible.
1:8. If you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if you
offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? offer it to thy prince, if
he will be pleased with it, or if he will regard thy face, saith the
Lord of hosts.
1:9. And now beseech ye the face of God, that he may have mercy on you,
(for by your hand hath this been done,) if by any means he will receive
your faces, saith the Lord of hosts.
1:10. Who is there among you, that will shut the doors, and will kindle
the fire on my altar gratis? I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord
of hosts: and I will not receive a gift of your hand.
1:11. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is
great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and
there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great
among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.
A clean oblation.... Viz., the precious body and blood of Christ in the
eucharistic sacrifice.
1:12. And you have profaned it in that you say: The table of the Lord
is defiled: and that which is laid thereupon is contemptible with the
fire that devoureth it.
1:13. And you have said: Behold of our labour, and you puffed it away,
saith the Lord of hosts, and you brought in of rapine the lame, and the
sick, and brought in an offering: shall I accept it at your hands,
saith the Lord?
Behold of our labour, etc.... You pretended labour and weariness, when
you brought your offering; and so made it of no value, by offering it
with an evil mind. Moreover, what you offered was both defective in
itself, and gotten by rapine and extortion.
1:14. Cursed is the deceitful man that hath in his flock a male, and
making a vow offereth in sacrifice that which is feeble to the Lord:
for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful
among the Gentiles.