The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
Ver. 1. The burden] That is, the burdenous prophecy (as Tremellius renders it): a burden, as, 1. Enjoined and imposed upon the prophet to utter, to cry aloud and not spare, to lift up his voice as a trumpet, &c., straining every vein in his heart to do it; declaiming lustily against sin and sinners, and proclaiming hell-fire for them in case they amend not. This is a business of some burden, onus ipsis etiam Angelis tremendum. This was typified in the staffrings that were made to continue upon the ark; the Kohathites' shoulders felt wherefore. If God had not helped those Levites they could never have borne the ark, 1 Chronicles 15:26. St Paul was very sensible of the ministerial burden rolling upon him daily, 2 Corinthians 11:28. And Latimer leaped when lighted of his bishopric. 2. As burdening the people with their sins, and breathing out threatenings for the same; for sin (how lightly soever accounted of) hales hell at the heels of it, and procures Divine vengeance, which is a burden unsupportable. It brake the angels' backs, and made the Son of God groan piteously then when he "bare our sins in his body on the tree," 1 Peter 2:24. His soul was heavy therewith even to death; and had he not had the better shoulders, had not God laid help on one that was mighty (even the mighty strong God, as he is styled, Isa 6:6), he had fainted and failed under his burden. David complains that his sins were gone over his head, and, like a sore burden, were too heavy for him to bear, Psalms 38:4. That which comforted him was, that no sooner he had said Peccavi, I have sinned, but the prophet Nathan said, Transtulit Deus peccatum tuum, 2 Samuel 12:13, God hath translated thy sin upon Christ, hath caused thy sin to pass over to him, and (as it were) by a writ of removal, hath cast thy burden upon his shoulders. And this incomparable mercy David afterwards celebrateth, Psalms 32:4,5 "For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me"; the guilt of sin and sense of wrath quelled him and killed him almost; for his natural moisture was turned into drought of summer; he was turned into a very skeleton, or a bag of bones, a bottle of smoke, woefully wanzed he was, and wasted. But for remedy, "I acknowledged my sin unto thee," I fled by faith to the true scape goat, Christ Jesus, on whom was laid as a burden the iniquity of us all, Isa 53:6 Romans 5:8, and thou presently forgavest the iniquity of my sin, that is, the guilt of it, that till then lay like a load upon my conscience, and, as an obligation, bound me over to condign punishment. Cain, for want of this comfort, ran roaring up and down, my sin, that is, my punishment "is greater than I can bear," Genesis 4:13. And a far better man than Cain (even holy Job, with whom God was but in jest, as it were) cries out that his calamity was "heavier than the sand of the sea," Job 6:3, and that "yet his stroke was heavier than his groaning," Job 23:2. Those that have ever felt the masery of a laden conscience can tell what an evil and bitter thing sin is, Jeremiah 2:19. Those that now run away with it, and make as light of it as Samson did of the gate of Gaza, shall one day groan out, woe and alas, when God shall set himself to load them with tortures in hell who do now load him with their sins, and weary him out with their iniquities, Isaiah 43:24. For prevention, oh that they would be persuaded to believe the prophets, that their souls might prosper; to be sensible of sin's burden, that Christ might ease them; to take upon them his burden, which is onus sine onere, and would be no more burden to them than the wings are to the bird, whereby he is borne aloft; that they would imitate porters, who being called and offered money to bear a burden, will poise it and weigh it in their hands first, which when they see they are not able to stand under, no gain will entice them to undertake it. Do we provoke the Lord to anger? are we stronger than he? Is it not a fearful thing to fall into the punishing hands of the living God? Hebrews 10:31. Is the wrath of a king as the roaring of a lion, as the messengers of death? surely they that tremble not in hearing shall be crushed in pieces in feeling, as that martyr (Bradford) said, and let all those scoffers that make children's play of God's dreadful menaces, (as St Peter's word εμπαικται, 2 Peter 3:3, importeth), that, leviathan-like, esteem God's iron as straw, Job 41:27; that read his prophetic burdens as they do the old stories of foreign wars, or as they behold the wounds and blood in picture or piece of arras, a which never makes them smart or fear; let all these, I say, read and ruminate that flaming place, Jeremiah 23:33; Jeremiah 23:37, and let them know, that if they belong to God he will cripple their iron sinews by the sense of their many and massy or bony sins, Amos 5:12. As if otherwise, he will fall upon them with his full weight, and grind them to powder, Matthew 21:24. Cavete; cavebitis autem si pavebitis. Beware, you shall beware if you are terrified.
To Israel] The two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with those few of the ten tribes that returned among them from the Babylonish captivity: These, though we never find them again going a whoring after idols, the sin that they had paid so dear for, and had now bought their wit, yet forgetful of former both beatings and benefits, as children are, they soon returned to their old flagitious practices of polygamy, blasphemy, sacrilege, defilement of divine worship, unlawful marriages; and so had lost in a manner the fruit of their sufferings, putting God to his old complaint, Why should ye be smitten any more, &c., and causing him to sigh out, as even sick of them, "Ah, sinful nation," "Reprobate silver shall men call them," Isaiah 1:4 Jeremiah 6:30 .
By Malachi] Heb. By the hand of Malachi, i.e. by his mouth and ministry. Hand is put for mouth by a catachresis; b because the hand is the instrument of instruments, as saith the philosopher, οργανον οργανων. See the like Exodus 9:35 Numbers 4:37; Num 4:45 Isaiah 8:11. One expositor noteth here, that this expression, by the hand, is used to teach us that prophets and ministers must preach not with their tongues only, but with their hands too; lest they be found in number of those Pharisees that say, but do not, that bind heavy burdens, and hard to be borne, upon other men's shoulders, but they themselves touch them not with one of their fingers, Matthew 23:3,4. Let our hands also preach as well as our tongues, ne dico factis deficientibus erubescant, as Tertullian speaketh, lest talking by the talent and working by the ounce, our hands give our tongues the lie.
By Malachi] i.e. Mine angel, or, an angelic man. Not a heavenly angel, as Origen held; nor as told and taught by an angel how to deliver and deport himself in his office; like as when the Bathcol, or voice from heaven, came to Christ, John 12:28, the people that stood by and heard it said that it thundered, others said, an angel spake to him, John 12:29. But either he was so called by his parents at his birth and circumcision (as Angelus Politianus and others), or else so surnamed by the good people of those times; as whose disposition, communication, conversation, countenance, and whole carriage were angelic. Chrysostom, for like cause, calleth Paul Angelum terrestrem, an earthly angel. And the author to the Hebrews, speaking of those faithful martyrs that lived and suffered soon after Malachi's time, he saith, "Of whom the world was not worthy," Hebrews 11:38, meaning that they were fitter to be set as angels in heaven, to be fixed in the region of happiness, to shine full fair upon the celestial shelf (as that martyr said), than to abide here among sinners. Chrysostom, in his 55th Homily upon Matthew, calleth certain religious men of his time angels, for their sanctimony and celestial conversation. And Dr Taylor, martyr, blessed God that ever he came in company with that angel of God, John Bradford.
a A rich tapestry fabric, in which figures and scenes are woven in colours. ŒD
b Improper use of words; application of a term to a thing which it does not properly denote; abuse or perversion of a trope or metaphor. ŒD