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Mal_3:6-12
This section ought perhaps to follow on to the preceding. Those whom it blames for not paying the Temple tithes may be the skeptics addressed in the previous section, who have stopped their dues to Jehovah out of sheer disappointment that He does nothing. And Mal_3:6, which goes well with either section, may be the joint between the two. However this be, the new section enforces the need of the people’s repentance and return to God, if He is to return to them. And when they ask, how are they to return, "Malachi" plainly answers, By the payment of the tithes they have not paid. In withholding these they robbed God, and to this, their crime, are due the locusts and bad seasons which have afflicted them. In our temptation to see in this a purely legal spirit, let us remember that the neglect to pay the tithes was due to a religious cause, unbelief in Jehovah, and that the return to belief in Him could not therefore be shown in a more practical way than by the payment of tithes. This is not prophecy subject to the Law, but prophecy employing the means and vehicles of grace with which the Law at that time provided the people.
"For I Jehovah have not changed, but ye sons of Jacob have not done with(?). In the days of your fathers ye turned from My statutes and did not keep them. Return to Me, and I will return to you, saith Jehovah of Hosts. But you say, ‘How then shall we return?’ Can a man rob God? yet ye are robbing Me. But ye say, ‘In what have we robbed Thee?’ In the tithe and the tribute. With the curse are ye cursed, and yet Me ye are robbing, the whole people of you. Bring in the whole tithe to the storehouse, that there may be provisions in My House, and pray, prove Me in this, saith Jehovah of Hosts-whether I will not open to you the windows of heaven, and pour blessing upon you till there is no more need. And I will check for you the devourer, and he shall not destroy for you the fruit of the ground, nor the vine in the field miscarry, saith Jehovah of Hosts And all nations shall call you happy, for ye shall be a land of delight, saith Jehovah of Hosts."