Section VI Tithing, the Way of Blessing
Malachi 3:6-12
The prophet now takes up another obstacle in the way of the free outpouring of God's blessing upon Israel. The nation had been unwilling to pay the price of His favor. The “windows of heaven” are closed because the people have been withholding their “tithes and offerings.” Let these be brought in to the full and “showers of blessing” will fall upon the land.
Before we charge Malachi with a legal spirit let us remember that Israel's refusal to tithe was “an outward sign of alienation from God.”1 Their neglect at this point was symptomatic of unbelief and disobedience, and their repentance could not therefore be shown in a more practical way than by the payment of tithes.
Malachi opens the subject by making a contrast between the constancy of the Lord and the inconstancy and frailty of His people: I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed (6). On the one hand, God is saying, “I am Yahweh—‘I AM THAT I AM’ (Exod. 3:14); you are still the 'sons of Jacob’—deceivers and cheats.” On the other hand, He says, “Because I am the God of unchanging love, therefore ye … are not consumed.” Martin Luther once exclaimed, “If I were God, I would knock the world to pieces!” It is because God is God that we are not destroyed. Pusey paraphrases this verse beautifully: “God might justly have cast off them and us; but He changes not. He abides by the covenant which He made with their fathers; He consumed them not; but with His own unchangeable love awaited their repentance. Our hope is not in ourselves, but in God.”2
In v. 7 God presses His charge: Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. God is faithful, but the people, like their fathers, are faithless. Their complaint is that God has failed them, but the Lord puts the blame where it belongs—on them. The connection between vv. 7 and 6 is given by Pusey: “I am not changed from good; ye are not changed from evil. I am unchangeable in holiness; ye are unchangeable in perversity.”3 By mine ordinances God meant every expression of His will found in the Torah (the first five books of the OT, but often extended to mean “the law”—God's revelation to Israel).
Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord. The wayward must return to the road from which they wandered. “The thought is not that of merely turning in a particular direction, but of retracing one's steps.”4 This is the Old Testament idea of repentance and conversion (cf. Isa. 55:7). While repentance is basically a change of attitude and purpose (the thought of the New Testament word metanoia), yet such a change must necessarily manifest itself in action (cf. Matt. 3:8, “fruits meet for [worthy of] repentance”). But what action? As in previous instances (1:6; 2:17), the prophet's hearers demand that he be more specific: Wherein shall we return?
The prophet answers with a question which answered itself: Will a man rob God? (8) His tone is one of incredulity. Will a man in his weakness and creatureliness rob the Creator? Yet ye have robbed me. The Hebrew word translated rob is rare, found only here and in Prov. 22:33. The original text possibly read “cheat” instead, since there is only a slight difference between the two Hebrew words. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? The prophet answers, In tithes and offerings. By the law (1) the tithe (tenth) of all produce, as well as of flocks and cattle, belonged to the Lord and must be offered to Him (Lev. 27:30, 32); and (2) this was assigned to the Levites for their services (Num 18:21, 24). Nehemiah had to deal more than once with the evil here rebuked (cf. Neh. 9:38; 10:32-39; 13:10-14).
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation (9). The word translated nation (goy) usually means heathen nation. There is no way to render the word in English, but Barnes suggests, “O Gentiles all.”5 Both priests and people fall under this charge. The curse is shown in the next verse to be crop failure and the sufferings which follow.
The prophet now tells them how they can return to the Lord: Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse (10). Evidently they had not ceased tithing altogether, but they were not paying in full. The people as a whole were possibly keeping back a part of the tenth, deeming that they needed it worse than the priests. More probably, large numbers of them had ceased tithing altogether, while the faithful pious were denying themselves in order that they might meet their religious obligations in full.6 This laxity was probably encouraged and excused by their poverty. But Malachi sees it as a symbol of a deep-seated contempt for God and of their alienation from Him. So he commands them to bring their whole tithe into the storehouse. This was undoubtedly the great chamber which surrounded the Temple on three sides. Tobias about this time diverted it from its original purpose as a receptacle of the people's tithes and heave offerings and assigned it to the high priest, but Nehemiah restored it to its proper use (Neh. 10:38; 13:5-9, 12-13). T. T. Perowne has aptly written: “It is not unlikely that the ‘chambers,’ which abutted to the height of three stories on the walls of Solomon's Temple, were intended in like manner for storehouses (I Kings vi. 5, 6). In the great Reformation under Hezekiah such chambers were ‘prepared,’ either built or restored, in some part of the Temple area, to receive the enormous influx of tithes and offerings (2 Chron. xxxi. 11, 12).”7
God's design in requiring the people to bring their whole tithes into the storehouse was that there may be meat in mine house. Before Nehemiah's reformation “the Levites and the singers … were fled every one to his field” because “the portions of the Levites had not been given them.” At Nehemiah's insistence, aided perhaps by Malachi's injunctions, “the tithe of the corn and the new wine and the oil” were brought into “the treasuries” (Neh. 13:10-12). “Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel [of Christ] should live of the gospel” (I Cor. 9:14). Although for private reasons St. Paul did not exercise this privilege, he considered it fully as justified as Old Testament practice (I Cor. 9:9-14). If the tithe was the percentage of giving for a Jew under the old covenant, will New Testament believers give less? (Cf. Heb. 7:8.) The Church of Jesus Christ has found no better way of providing for its needs than by reechoing Malachi's behest. A tithing church is a church sufficient to whatever challenge may arise. Moreover, a non-tithing Christian is hard put to defend his niggardliness. Can he escape the charge that his failure is likewise a sign of his contempt for God?
God attaches a glorious promise to His command to tithe: And prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it (10). This is literally a promise of rain (cf, Gen. 7:11; 8:2; II Kings 7:2, 19). The phrase suggests that they had been experiencing drought and bad Crops. However the sign of rain was often a symbol of blessing (see Zech. 10: 1; 14:17). That there shall not be room enough to receive it is translated more aptly as “a more than sufficient blessing” (Berk.). And I will rebuke the devourer—“the locust or the drought or blasting or mildew or hail, whatever the devourer was at that time.”8 The promise continues: and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts (11).
“As in Haggai and Zechariah and indeed in the Old Testament generally (Hag. 2:19; Zech. 8:9-13), the idea of blessing is no rarefied, spiritual state, but a wholeness and health of total social life, the sign of which is fertility. In a land that is blessed, everyone and everything is fruitful to fulfil the function for which it is made.”9 The prophet foresees that all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts (12). “When the surrounding nations see the prosperity which will follow liberality towards God, they will rightly judge that it is the Lord's action in blessing His people.”10
We must of course apply a Christian footnote to vv. 10-12. Material prosperity and physical health do not invariably accompany faithfulness to God. But spiritual health and prosperity do. When adversity comes, the Christian whose tithes are all paid finds himself on praying ground. In the New Testament we find a higher formula than Malachi's. The elder John wrote to a believer named Gaius, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth” (III John 2). The highest reaches of faith are found in a passage like Rom. 8:28-39, where we are assured that God is working in every detail of the life of one who loves God and that nothing in the created universe can separate such a one from God's love in Christ.
An exposition of vv. 6-12 might follow this outline under the heading “Tithing, the Way of the Blessing”: (1) The charge, 6-9; (2) The challenge, l0abcd; (3) The promise, 10e-12.
Another analysis could be “God's Call to Tithing.” (1) A recognition of God's ownership, 8; (2) A criterion of total Christian stewardship, 9; (3) An expression of sincere worship, 10; (4) A confession of faith in God's promise, 10b; and His providence, 11-12 (G. B. Williamson).