Malachi 3:13 Commentary and Bible Study

Moore treats this as a further more developed version of the fourth charge – questioning God’s justice – but if the fourth charge is really about perverting God’s standards, then this is something new. The initial charge here is that the people’s words have been stout against the Lord. The English verb ‘to be stout’ translates a Hebrew verb meaning to be strong, to be firm. Something is stout when it is of large size – a reference to a persons’ girth, or perhaps to a large stick he is carrying. By an English idiom, words are stout when they are presented in a bold and vigorous and somewhat rude and obstinate way. The people again claim not to know what the Lord means by this. It is as if they defiantly say, ‘Prove it!. Prove we are as bad as you say we are.’ And so verses 14 and 15 follow, where their detailed complaint against him is spelled out. It is a bad sign when we will not search our own hearts and find the sin that is all too conspicuous there, but have to have it thrust before our faces before we will acknowledge it. God has done two things wrong in their estimation. He has ignored all their service and their detailed keeping of his ordinance, and he has rewarded those who have positively ignored his standards. For while they have been careful to keep his ordinance, to worship in the temple, to observe special days, and even to afflict themselves in an effort to please him, others have done none of these things. There are those who are proud, who work wickedness, who tempt God, and yet these are the very ones that he seems to make happy, to establish, and to deliver. It is therefore vain to serve him, for he does not notice, and he does not distinguish between the righteous and the wicked. Their religion is a burden to them and it is one which they no longer think is worthwhile. Those words are stout complaints against God, for which they are being rebuked.