The Despicables

My previous post looked at how Esau despised his relationship with his father when he sold his birthright. While researching the Hebrew word "bazah" (Strong's # H959), translated as "despise" in Genesis 25:34, I found that it was disproportionately represented in the book of Malachi which is just 52 verses long. On average every 10 verses there is a reference to despising something and the opening verses are all about Esau. I felt this was no coincidence and on rereading Malachi it was obvious that people of Israel were despising their birthright. They had been miraculously returned to the land of Israel after 70 years of captivity in Babylon and yet the nation, especially the priests, were far from God and their society was in spiritual decline. At this point the prophet Malachi is sent by God to call the nation back to Him. 

Eight questions

Malachi is written as a dialogue between God and Israel about their relationship with Him.  God starts the conversation with a statement and in response the priests and the people question God about what God has stated or commanded.  How it all "hangs together" can be confusing as sections stop and start inconsistently and commentators vary in their interpretations listing five,six or seven series of statements and questions. I found the best approach is to focus on each new statement and the corresponding question and ignore the number of verses between them. Below I have listed God's commands or statements and the people's responses throughout the dialogue and you can see that Israel questions God eight times. Four of these questions are in couplets (1:6-7 and 3:7-8) linking two questions together at one time.

Eight Questions
Israel's Eight Questions 


As you look through God's statements, or commands, they are disturbingly similar to what Jesus challenged the Seven Churches of Revelation about. It is very interesting that both the Old and New Testaments end with prophetic books that contain challenges to God's people and that, in both cases, the starting issue is about our love for God. This is not a coincidence!

Despised Love (Malachi 1:2-5)

The first question Israel raises is about God's assertion that He loved them. It had left them confused and they demanded that God explain how He loved them! They had been through 70 years of captivity but had returned to a ruined homeland and they concluded that God didn't love them. The Lord graciously answers their question but not in a way they would have anticipated. He describes the extent of His love not by listing all the blessings lavished on Israel but by what they had been saved from! Their life is contrasted with Esau's descendants and how Edom would be a "people against whom the Lord will have indignation forever" (Malachi 1:4). Israel, however, would always be the recipients of God's promises and love irrespective of their circumstances. 

In Revelation 2:4 Jesus tells the Ephesian church that they have left their "first love." This was a church famous for being one of the most influential in the formative years of the early church and they thought they loved Him! Jesus acknowledges their service for Him and their righteousness but still challenges them to repent! He asks them to remember what their love had been like when they had first been redeemed from darkness and sin. 

These are powerful challenges. Like Israel, we can easily become blase about God's love and  forget what we have been saved from and the price that God paid to redeem us. Like the Ephesians we can have an inflated view of our relationship with God and forget that He is the Redeemer and we are the redeemed ones. That is why Hebrews 12:15 warns us to "look diligently lest anyone fall short of the grace of God". Falling short means that we devalue God's amazing unmerited favor (grace) and end up like Esau who, although he remained his father's son, lost the richness of that relationship because he devalued his birthright.    

The Coming Hope 

Beyond this opening section there is verse-after-verse describing how God continues to call Israel to account and it makes for grim reading! There is too much to cover in one post so over the next few posts we will examine these in more detail.

However, it is not all doom and gloom and it is worth reading what is recorded in Malachi 3:16-17 at the end of the dialogue. Here there is a wonderful picture of how the repentant heart pleases Him.  

"Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on His name. 'They shall be Mine,' says the Lord of hosts ..."
 

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