Malachi 2:17

D. Situation: complaints of the Lord’s injustice 2:17

Malachi recorded complaints that the people were voicing that gave further proof that they were acting faithlessly and needed to change (cf. Mal_2:10-15 a). That another disputation is in view is clear from the question and answer format that begins this pericope, as it does the others. Malachi 2:17 contains the question and answer, and the discussion follows in Malachi 3:1-6. The Israelites’ changeability (Malachi 2:17) contrasts with Yahweh’s constancy (Malachi 3:6).

"The reader is introduced here for the first time in Malachi to three themes, all of which may be expressed, for convenience, as needs: the need for messianic intervention, the need for a day of judgment, and the need for social justice." [Note: Stuart, p. 1346.]

Malachi announced to his hearers that they had wearied God with their words; He was tired of hearing them say something. Their response was again hypocritical incredulity. They believed He could hardly be tired of listening to them since He had committed Himself to them as their covenant lord (cf. Isaiah 40:28).

This is another place where Scripture seems to contradict itself. On the one hand God said He does not grow weary (Isaiah 40:28), but on the other hand He said He was weary (here). The solution, I think, is that in the first case He was speaking about His essential character; He does not tire out like human beings do. In the second case He meant that He was tired of the Israelites speaking as they did. In this second case He used anthropomorphic language to describe how He felt as though He were a human being, which, of course, He is not. [Note: For extended discussion, see Clendenen, pp. 372-82.]

The prophet explained that Yahweh was tired of the Israelites saying that He delighted in them even though they said that everyone who did evil was acceptable to Him. They seem to have lost their conscience for right and wrong and assumed that because God did not intervene He approved of their sin. Really their question amounted to a challenge to God’s justice. If they were breaking His law and He was just, He surely must punish them. Their return to the land indicated to them that He was blessing them, and He promised to bless the godly in the Mosaic Covenant (Deuteronomy 28:1-14).

Contemporary people say the same thing. "If there is a just God, why doesn’t He do something about all the suffering in the world?" "If God is just, why do the wicked prosper?" Scripture reveals that God blesses the wicked as well as the righteous (Matthew 5:45; Acts 14:17), and the righteous suffer as well as the wicked because of the Fall and sin (Genesis 3:16-19; Ecclesiastes 2:17-23). Moreover, God allows Satan to afflict the righteous as well as the wicked (Job 1-2). God will eventually punish the wicked and bless the righteous, but perhaps not in this life (cf. Job 21:7-26; Job 24:1-17; Psalms 73:1-14; Ecclesiastes 8:14; Jeremiah 12:1-4; Habakkuk 1). Malachi’s audience had forgotten part of what God had revealed on this subject, and, of course, they had not yet received New Testament revelation about it.

"Disillusionment had followed the rebuilding of the Temple because, though decade followed decade, no supernatural event marked the return of the Lord to Zion." [Note: Baldwin, p. 242.]