Maleakhi 4:6

4:6 He will encourage fathers and their children to return to me, ¹  so that I will not come and strike the earth with judgment.” ² 

Maleakhi 3:17

3:17 “They will belong to me,” says the Lord who rules over all, “in the day when I prepare my own special property. ³  I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

Maleakhi 1:6

The Sacrilege of Priestly Service

1:6 “A son naturally honors his father and a slave respects ⁴  his master. If I am your ⁵  father, where is my honor? If I am your master, where is my respect? The Lord who rules over all asks you this, you priests who make light of my name! But you reply, ‘How have we made light of your name?’

Maleakhi 4:2

4:2 But for you who respect my name, the sun of vindication ⁶  will rise with healing wings, ⁷  and you will skip about ⁸  like calves released from the stall.

Maleakhi 2:3

2:3 I am about to discipline your children ⁹  and will spread offal ¹⁰  on your faces, ¹¹  the very offal produced at your festivals, and you will be carried away along with it.

Maleakhi 3:5

3:5 “I ¹²  will come to you in judgment. I will be quick to testify against those who practice divination, those who commit adultery, those who break promises, ¹³  and those who exploit workers, widows, and orphans, ¹⁴  who refuse to help ¹⁵  the immigrant ¹⁶  and in this way show they do not fear me,” says the Lord who rules over all.

Maleakhi 2:11

2:11 Judah has become disloyal, and unspeakable sins have been committed in Israel and Jerusalem. ¹⁷  For Judah has profaned ¹⁸  the holy things that the Lord loves and has turned to a foreign god! ¹⁹ 

Maleakhi 2:15

2:15 No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. ²⁰  What did our ancestor ²¹  do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth. ²² 

Maleakhi 2:10

The Rebellion of the People

2:10 Do we not all have one father? ²³  Did not one God create us? Why do we betray one another, in this way making light of the covenant of our ancestors?

[4:6]  ¹ tn Heb “he will turn the heart[s] of [the] fathers to [the] sons, and the heart[s] of [the] sons to their fathers.” This may mean that the messenger will encourage reconciliation of conflicts within Jewish families in the postexilic community (see Mal 2:10; this interpretation is followed by most English versions). Another option is to translate, “he will turn the hearts of the fathers together with those of the children [to me], and the hearts of the children together with those of their fathers [to me].” In this case the prophet encourages both the younger and older generations of sinful society to repent and return to the Lord (cf. Mal 3:7). This option is preferred in the present translation; see Beth Glazier-McDonald, Malachi (SBLDS), 256.

[4:6]  ² tn Heb “[the] ban” (חֵרֶם, kherem). God’s prophetic messenger seeks to bring about salvation and restoration, thus avoiding the imposition of the covenant curse, that is, the divine ban that the hopelessly unrepentant must expect (see Deut 7:2; 20:17; Judg 1:21; Zech 14:11). If the wicked repent, the purifying judgment threatened in 4:1-3 will be unnecessary.

[3:17]  ³ sn The Hebrew word סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah, “special property”) is a technical term referring to all the recipients of God’s redemptive grace, especially Israel (Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18). The Lord says here that he will not forget even one individual in the day of judgment and reward.

[1:6]  ⁴ tn The verb “respects” is not in the Hebrew text but is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. It is understood by ellipsis (see “honors” in the preceding line).

[1:6]  ⁵ tn The pronoun “your” is supplied in the translation for clarification (also a second time before “master” later in this verse).

[4:2]  ⁶ tn Here the Hebrew word צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah), usually translated “righteousness” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT; cf. NAB “justice”), has been rendered as “vindication” because it is the vindication of God’s people that is in view in the context. Cf. BDB 842 s.v. צְדָקָה 6; “righteousness as vindicated, justification, salvation, etc.”

[4:2]  sn The expression the sun of vindication will rise is a metaphorical way of describing the day of the Lord as a time of restoration when God vindicates his people (see 2 Sam 23:4; Isa 30:26; 60:1, 3). Their vindication and restoration will be as obvious and undeniable as the bright light of the rising sun.

[4:2]  ⁷ sn The point of the metaphor of healing wings is unclear. The sun seems to be compared to a bird. Perhaps the sun’s “wings” are its warm rays. “Healing” may refer to a reversal of the injury done by evildoers (see Mal 3:5).

[4:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “you will go out and skip about.”

[2:3]  ⁹ tc The phrase “discipline your children” is disputed. The LXX and Vulgate suppose זְרוֹעַ (zÿroa’, “arm”) for the MT זֶרַע (zera’, “seed”; hence, “children”). Then, for the MT גֹעֵר (go’er, “rebuking”) the same versions suggest גָּרַע (gara’, “take away”). The resulting translation is “I am about to take away your arm” (cf. NAB “deprive you of the shoulder”). However, this reading is unlikely. It is common for a curse (v. 2) to fall on offspring (see, e.g., Deut 28:18, 32, 41, 53, 55, 57), but a curse never takes the form of a broken or amputated arm. It is preferable to retain the reading of the MT here.

[2:3]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew term פֶרֶשׁ (feresh, “offal”) refers to the entrails as ripped out in preparing a sacrificial victim (BDB 831 s.v. פֶּרֶשׁ). This graphic term has been variously translated: “dung” (KJV, RSV, NRSV, NLT); “refuse” (NKJV, NASB); “offal” (NEB, NIV).

[2:3]  ¹¹ sn See Zech 3:3-4 for similar coarse imagery which reflects cultic disqualification.

[3:5]  ¹² tn The first person pronoun (a reference to the Lord) indicates that the Lord himself now speaks (see also v. 1). The prophet speaks in vv. 2-4 (see also 2:17).

[3:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “those who swear [oaths] falsely.” Cf. NIV “perjurers”; TEV “those who give false testimony”; NLT “liars.”

[3:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and against the oppressors of the worker for a wage, [the] widow and orphan.”

[3:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “those who turn aside.”

[3:5]  ¹⁶ tn Or “resident foreigner”; NIV “aliens”; NRSV “the alien.”

[2:11]  ¹⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[2:11]  ¹⁸ tn Or perhaps “secularized”; cf. NIV “desecrated”; TEV, NLT “defiled”; CEV “disgraced.”

[2:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “has married the daughter of a foreign god.” Marriage is used here as a metaphor to describe Judah’s idolatry, that is, her unfaithfulness to the Lord and “remarriage” to pagan gods. But spiritual intermarriage found expression in literal, physical marriage as well, as vv. 14-16 indicate.

[2:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and not one has done, and a remnant of the spirit to him.” The very elliptical nature of the statement suggests it is proverbial. The present translation represents an attempt to clarify the meaning of the statement (cf. NASB).

[2:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “the one.” This is an oblique reference to Abraham who sought to obtain God’s blessing by circumventing God’s own plan for him by taking Hagar as wife (Gen 16:1-6). The result of this kind of intermarriage was, of course, disastrous (Gen 16:11-12).

[2:15]  ²² sn The wife he took in his youth probably refers to the first wife one married (cf. NCV “the wife you married when you were young”).

[2:10]  ²³ sn The rhetorical question Do we not all have one father? by no means teaches the “universal fatherhood of God,” that is, that all people equally are children of God. The reference to the covenant in v. 10 as well as to Israel and Judah (v. 11) makes it clear that the referent of “we” is God’s elect people.