Matthew Poole Commentary - Malachi 1:7 - 1:7

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Matthew Poole Commentary - Malachi 1:7 - 1:7


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Ye offer polluted bread; you through covetousness take any the people bring, whether such as the law requires or no. If it answer not the perfection of the law, yet you first make it serve me, through your contempt of me, and then to serve your turn to feed you and yours.



Polluted; either by ill-managing it, and misordering what is good and allowable, or accepting what is disallowed and forbidden, because of its blemishes.



Bread; either the shew-bread, of which Exo_25:30; or meat-offerings, Exo_29:41 Le 2 Num 28:5; or, in a more large sense, all that was to be offered unto God, sacrifices and oblations.



Upon mine altar: by this it appears bread is to be expounded here of sacrifices, and not to be confined to the narrow bounds of this one kind.



And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? they stand upon their own justification, and proudly contend with God, either implying they did not offer such polluted things, or if they were defective, and in law sense polluted, yet that this did redound to God, or affect him no more than the perfection of them could add to him.



In that ye say; perhaps in words, however by your deeds you speak your thoughts and judgment; you think so, and then act so.



The table; before it was altar, now it is table, not to be opposed each to other, but comprehending both, and all that was offered unto God on both.



Is contemptible; as if they measured sacrifice and oblation by the splendour and riches of the temple and altar; the first were more pompous than the second, and these priests probably thought they might abate in the qualities of the offerings, as this temple abated in its splendour; they contemned this, and then contemn those offerings.