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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Malachi 3:8 - 3:8
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
rob - literally, “cover”: hence, defraud. Do ye call defrauding God no sin to be “returned” from (Mal 3:7)? Yet ye have done so to Me in respect to the tithes due to Me, namely, the tenth of all the remainder after the first-fruits were paid, which tenth was paid to the Levites for their support (Lev 27:30-33): a tenth paid by the Levites to the priests (Num 18:26-28): a second tenth paid by the people for the entertainment of the Levites, and their own families, at the tabernacle (Deu 12:18): another tithe every third year for the poor, etc. (Deu 14:28, Deu 14:29).
offerings - the first-fruits, not less than one-sixtieth part of the corn, wine, and oil (Deu 18:4; Neh 13:10, Neh 13:12). The priests had this perquisite also, the tenth of the tithes which were the Levites perquisite. But they appropriated all the tithes, robbing the Levites of their due nine-tenths; as they did also, according to Josephus, before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. Thus doubly God was defrauded, the priests not discharging aright their sacrificial duties, and robbing God of the services of the Levites, who were driven away by destitution [Grotius].