YHWH Brings A Further Charge Against His People. They Have Failed in Their Offering Of Tithes (Malachi 3:7-12).
There were no doubt some who could still feel pretty pleased with themselves. They could insist that they had not brought defective offerings (Malachi 1:7-14), that they had not married foreign wives who introduced idolatry (Malachi 2:10-11), that they had not divorced their wives (Malachi 2:14-16), that they had not been complacent about the sins of Israel (Malachi 2:17). So now Malachi brings another test of their genuineness in worship. Have they contributed their full required amount in tithes? Tithes were like taxes. Unless you were very godly you paid as little as possible. There were always possible ways of manipulating situations that could result in a reducing of the tithes needing to be paid, especially at a time when the Levites were not particularly active to monitor them. And the non-arrival of the tithes (which is a small and struggling community would not be plentiful, could affect the worship at God's House because the Levites had to give attention to their own survival (compare Nehemiah 13:10).
‘From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my ordinances,
And have not kept them.
Return unto me, and I will return unto you,
Says YHWH of hosts.
But you say,
In what shall we return?
Will a man violently rob God?
Yet you violently rob me.
But you say, In what have we robbed you?
In tithes and offerings.
You are cursed with the curse,
For you rob me, even this whole nation.'
Having laid out many of his accusations against the priests and the people Malachi now calls for repentance. From the days of their fathers to the present they have turned aside from God's ordinances, and have not kept them. Now he calls on them to return to God, and then, he says, God promises that He will return to them.
Do we sometimes wonder why God is not as active in our day as we would like? Here is His answer. It is because His people have turned aside from His ordinances. It is because they are not fully obeying Him and are not genuinely dedicated to Him. It is because they are withholding themselves from God. And the solution is simple. ‘Return to Me, and I will return to you.'
But these people of God would not have it that they were not obeying God's ordinances. ‘In what shall we return?' They asked God. YHWH, through the prophet, comes back with a rhetorical question in return. ‘Will a man violently rob God? And yet you violently rob Me.' This immediately brought an indignant reply. ‘In what have we robbed you?' The idea was preposterous. They were not Temple robbers. Who would be foolish enough to rob the One Who knows everything that a man does?
God's answer comes firm and sure. ‘In tithes and offerings.' Let them just think back over how they have behaved in respect of His tithes and offerings. They have calculated, they have stinted, they have wrangled, they have interpreted ‘leniently', they have avoided paying and giving to the full extent that they knew in their hearts, once they thought about it, that they should have done. Thus they are guilty of having robbed God. There would be very few if any who could deny the charge.
The ‘tithe' or ‘tenth' was what they should have been offering to God out of all their produce. It had been a continual requirement since the time of Moses. And it should have been of their very best, because it was made to God. Every third year the tithe would be set aside for the needs of the poor, so that food would always be available for those in genuine need (Deuteronomy 14:28-29), and the remainder of the time the tithe went to the Levites, and of that a tenth went to the priests (Leviticus 27; Numbers 18). No doubt many had argued to themselves that as not many Levites had returned full tithes need not be paid, and they had in fact carried that argument into effect so efficiently that the Levites hardly received any at all (Nehemiah 13:10).
The word ‘offerings' covers the other offerings that should be made including such as the firstfruits and wave offerings, and other contributions due to the Temple. It should be noted what a turn around this was requiring in their hearts. From being those who offered blemished sacrifices, and begrudged tithes and offerings, they were to become wholehearted worshippers of, and givers to, God. The searching of heart would unquestionably result in religious revival.
‘Bring you the whole tithe into the store-house,
That there may be food in my house,
And prove me now herewith,
Says YHWH of hosts,
If I will not open you the sluicegates of heaven,
And pour you out a blessing,
That there will not be room enough to receive it.'
God now returns with His offer. Let them bring the WHOLE tithe into the store house so that the Levites and priests could be amply fed, and let them prove whether in return He would be faithful or not. This would, of course, produce a total revolution in their thinking. Once they began being honest about their tithes, and began to consider what was truly required, it would develop a healthy attitude of mind (calculating tithes was not mechanical, quality as well as quantity had to be considered, as they considered what they would give to God) and it would bring to mind a host of other ways in which they were not being faithful to the covenant. And the aim was that those matters would be sorted out as well.
But the very change in the attitude of their hearts would result in God responding and blessing their harvests. For once they had begun to worship Him truly and fully from their hearts His promise was that He would ensure sufficient rain to produce abundant fruitfulness. Palestine was almost totally dependent on rain for its productivity. When the rains came then life was good. The land was productive, and the harvests produced were plentiful (there was never any doubt about the sun). But when the rains were withheld the land suffered, and the harvests were poor. The sun beat down and the earth was scorched. Unlike in Egypt and in Babylonia there were not sufficient quantities of water in their rivers to irrigate the land.
‘The sluicegates of Heaven.' They did not, of course, literally believe that there were sluicegates in Heaven. They knew perfectly well that the rain came from the clouds. It is simply a picturesque way of describing plentifulness of rain.
And what would be the final result? Their storehouses would prove too small. They would have such abundant harvests that they would be unable to store them. To people struggling as they were in difficult circumstances it must have sounded like a dream come true.
The implication is quite clear. Those who would enjoy the blessing of God must themselves ensure that they are generous and genuine towards God. This was not a promise of great prosperity. It was a promise of good returns for honest toil. It was an assurance that God would be with them and would bless them. It was a call for a total change of heart. To see it as a kind of mercenary bargain is to miss the whole point.
‘And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
And he will not destroy the fruits of your ground,
Nor will your vine cast its fruit,
Before the time in the field,
Says YHWH of hosts.
And all nations will call you happy,
For you will be a delightsome land,
Says YHWH of hosts.'
And how would all this happen? It would happen because of the activity of God. He would deal with all who would ‘devour' the crops, whether humans, beasts or insects (including fruit pests and locusts), preventing them from attacking the harvest. He would ensure that the fruit of the vine remained in place, and did not fall to the ground until harvest time, a result which would denote trees destitute of water.
And the result would be that all the nations around would call them ‘happy' and their land a ‘land of delight', because it would be such a wonderful and fruitful land. And this was the promise and guarantee of YHWH of hosts.