Other Allegations Against The People Of Israel (Malachi 2:17).
Malachi now briefly add other sins of which they are guilty before God. No doubt in his oral prophesying he considerably expanded on these.
You have wearied YHWH with your words.
Yet you say, In what have we wearied him?
In that you say, “Every one who does evil is good in the sight of YHWH,
And he delights in them,”
Or “Where is the God of justice?”
In Malachi 1:13 the priest had found offering the sacrifices ‘wearisome'. Now we learn that God finds His people wearisome (although using a different Hebrew stem). They have wearied YHWH with their words. But how have they wearied Him?
They say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of YHWH and He delights in them.' These words are not to be taken literally as they stand. We are not to assume that the people were openly approving of evil and saying that it did not matter. What it signifies is:
· Either that they were manipulating the Law to justify their lawless behaviour (Jesus' regular charge against the Scribes and Pharisees - Mark 7:8-13; Matthew 23:16-28).
· Or that they were assuming that evil did not matter as long as sacrifices for sin were offered (the same danger as is often inherent in auricular confession).
· Or that they are grumbling because YHWH appears to be treating those who do evil as good, something made clear by the prosperity of their lives.
Note the assumption that most of them were involved in this. They had settled down into a self-satisfied apathy, and were simply allowing the Law to be flouted in many ways, and were then justifying it in one way or another. And this it should be noted is on top of their general attitude towards sacrifices, their offering of blemished animals, their marrying of foreign idolatrous wives, and their penchant for divorce. It is clear that the community was in a general state that was displeasing to God (very similar to our own).
And in spite of their own unwillingness to do and demand from each other what was right, they grumbled because they thought that God was not just. (How like us they were). Their point was that He was not fulfilling their hopes and expectations. Thus they were saying, ‘Where is the God of justice?' This may have indicated that they felt that God was not acting as He ought in regard to their affairs (having the feeling that they deserved better) or it may be a sarcastic question in the light of the fact that He was not punishing those that they considered deserved punishment. The question that they did not ask was what it was about their lives that prevented Him from fulfilling their expectations.