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Mal.1:1: The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel is in the mouth (in manu) of Malachi. LXX: "Receiving the word of the Lord upon Israel in the hand of His angel". What does burden or heaviness mean, expressed in Hebrew by the word massa (טשא), and in Aquila - ἄρμα, or what λῆμμα means, that is, acceptance, as translated by the Seventy and other interpreters, we said about this in the interpretation of other prophets. For Nahum writes: “The burden of Nineveh: the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkashite” (Nahum.1:1), and Habakkuk: “The burden that the prophet Habakkuk saw” (Habakkuk 1:1), and Zechariah: “The burden of the word of the Lord on the land of Adrach and on Damascus, [the place of] his rest” (Zech.9:1) and again (Zech.12:1): "The Burden of God's Word on Israel". Let us therefore be content with the interpretation set forth there; but in the present case we will only say that the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel, or, as LXX translated: “on Israel,” is something very important, for it is called heaviness, but it also contains something comforting, for it is directed towards Israel, and not against Israel, because one thing means for us to write to someone or about someone, and the other means to write against someone; the first has the meaning of friendship, the second shows the complete detection of enmity. In addition, it is necessary to know that after Israel was taken into captivity, i.e. ten tribes, the other two tribes are also indifferently called by the same name: Judah and Benjamin. And in the words: in the hand of his Angel or Malachi, understand the word hand in the meaning of deeds. In the same way, the word of God was in the hand of Haggai, and in the hand of Jeremiah, and in the hand of Moses; The word of God does not come into the hands of those who have unrighteousness in their hands, or whose right hand is filled with bribes, or whose hands are full of blood, but it comes into the hands of those who “among the innocent [or: in innocence] wash their hands” (Ps. 25:6). With water of this kind, Pilate was forced to wash his hands so as not to agree with the blasphemy of the Jews (Matthew 27:24); the Psalmist exclaims with joy about these waters: “On the waters of calm He raised me” (Ps. 22:2); The Lord gives a promise about this water through the prophet: “I will sprinkle you with pure water” (Ezek. 36:25). But he who is a sinner becomes drunk with the cup of Babylon, and regarding him it is said: “Thorns grow in the hand of the drunken” (Proverbs 26:9). LXX: Lay it on your hearts. These words are not in the Hebrew text; and I think that they were added from the book of the prophet Haggai: “And now set it on your hearts, from this day onwards” [fix your hearts] (Hag. 2:18). So, after the name of the prophet, or introduction, in a special way (dupliciter) you need to accept the words: Put it on your hearts, i.e. in the sense: notice, think about what is said above in the words: The acceptance of the word of the Lord against Israel in the hand of his angel. In other words, carefully consider what should be said after this, in order to perceive it not only with your bodily ears, but with the strength of your soul and heart, and build yourself treasuries in which you could accumulate for yourself the riches of God’s words; and let wisdom act trustingly when you are spread wide and, having filled your hearts with the words of God, drive out the ungodly thoughts that come from the heart - namely, murder, fornication, adultery, theft (Matthew 15:19), etc., and when you fulfill what the Savior said: “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear” (Luke 8:8). Mal.1:2–5: I have loved you, says the Lord. And you said: In what ways have You loved us? “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother, says the Lord; but I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau. And I turned his mountains into a wilderness, and his inheritance into dragons of the wilderness. Therefore, if Idumea says: We are subjected to destruction, but when they return they will again rebuild what was destroyed, then the Lord says to this: They will build, but I will destroy; and they will be called the end of wickedness, and a people with whom the Lord is angry forever. And your eyes will see, and you will say: May the Lord be magnified above the borders of Israel. LXX: “I have loved you, says the Lord, and you said: In what ways have you loved us? Was not Esau the brother of Jacob, says the Lord, and I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and turned his borders into a wilderness, and his inheritance into desert dwellings [the dens of wild beasts]. When Idumea says: It is ruined, let us return and restore what was ruined, then the Lord Almighty will say: They will build, but I will destroy, and their borders will be called [the borders of] iniquity and a people against whom the Lord has prepared for eternity, and your eyes will see, and you will say: The Lord has been exalted above the borders of Israel.” Israel, i.e. Judas, to whom the word of God and the vision of the Lord were usually addressed, is forced to endure the greatest burden and severity of punishments from the Lord in order to leave behind more serious sins and through trials to learn what he does not know through blessings. And so that the punishment imposed by God on His chosen ones does not seem unjust, He adds: I have loved you. In fact, “The Lord disciplines him whom he loves and disciplines every son whom he receives” (Heb. 12:6). When He says: I have loved, i.e. in the past tense, thereby denying true love. And they, in their sinful insolence, answer, forgetting about good deeds, “in what ways have You loved us?” To this the Lord answers: Keeping silent about other things and about your recent return from Babylon, I will speak about your cradle: before you were born, namely: before Rebekah gave birth to Esau and Jacob (Gen. 25:23), I loved you in Jacob, but I hated the Edomites in Esau. Explaining this passage in a mysterious meaning, the Apostle Paul writes to the Romans, combining the two testimonies of the book of Genesis and Malachi into one: “But also Rebekah, who had [in the womb] from one union with Isaac our father, for while they were not yet born, and had not yet done good or evil, - so that according to election, what God had appointed would remain [unchangeable], not because of works, but from Him who Called it was said to her that the greater would be a lesser servant, as it is written: He loved Jacob, but hated Esau” (Rom. 9:10-14). The words: as it is written refer both to the book of Genesis and to the prophet Malachi. He says: Not only did I love Jacob before he was born, and hate Esau before he came out of his mother's womb; but I also transferred My love and hatred to their descendants: hatred to Esau, whose mountains, Seir, I turned into desert, and whose cities I turned into deserted places, dwellings for snakes and beasts. If Edom, i.e. Esau will say: True, because of the wrath of God we are ruined, but we will build cities again, then learn the prophetic word of the Lord: When they build, I will destroy, and their eternal desolation will be a proof of My wrath. So by deeds I showed hatred towards Esau; and love for you, i.e. to Jacob, I will prove it in the following way. After their devastation and turning into the wilderness, your eyes will see and you will say: May the Lord be magnified above the borders of Israel and by comparing the calamities that your brother has endured, you will recognize the benefits of God to you. The Jews delude themselves with the vain hope that at the end of the world Edom, according to prophecy, will be the Romans, and Israel will be them; that after the overthrow of Idumea, i.e. Roman power, dominion over the world will pass to the Jews. “We said this as a basis for understanding, as far as possible for us, past events.” Now let's move on to the spiritual interpretation. Israel, i.e. husband or mind (sensus), contemplating God or, as it seems to me best, εὐύθτατος; Θεοῦ, i.e. the most righteous of God is loved by the Lord and wants to know the basis (rationem) of His love for himself. And the Lord gives him the answer that Jacob and Esau were born from the same branch, i.e. vices and virtues come from the same source, when, due to free will, we incline at will to both sides. But initially vices arise in childhood, adolescence and adolescence; a more mature age then corrects and eradicates them. But the elder brother is beast-like (hispidus - covered with hair) and bloodthirsty (Gen. 25:27); he finds pleasure in hunting, in forests, and wild animals; the younger brother is gentle, simple and leads a modest home life. God sets the boundaries of Idumea, i.e. earthly and bloodthirsty country, and this is forever. Therefore, if shameless malice tries to restore again what was ruined by the command of God, the Lord declares Himself the enemy of what is restored through vices. And after everything within the enemies has been overthrown, we will be able to see the eyes of Israel and all the saints who cry: “May the Lord be magnified within the borders of those who contemplate God in thought.” Then, God’s love and hatred occur either as a result of foreknowledge of the future, or as a result of works; for we know that God loves everything and does not hate anything that he has created (Wisdom 11:25), and especially reveals His love for those who are enemies and fighters against vices. On the contrary, God hates those who want to restore what He destroyed again. However, God’s hatred is presented in a human form (ἀνθρωποπἀθως), as is His crying, and sorrow, and His anger; this is so that we, hearing about His hatred of the wicked, avoid what God hates, as we know. Mal.1:6: A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Therefore, if I am the Father, then where will you honor Me? And if I am the Lord, then where is the fear of Me, says the Lord of hosts. LXX: “The Son will give glory to the Father and the servant will fear his master. And if I am the Father, then where is My glory and if I am the Master, then where is the fear towards me, says the Lord Almighty.” Although I loved you in Jacob as sons before you were born, yet choose now by what name you will call Me: whether I am your Father or Master. If I am the Father, then give Me due respect and show the reverence worthy of a parent. If I am the Master, then why do you despise Me, why do you not fear Me? And He speaks to those who returned from the Babylonian captivity under Zerubbabel and Joshua the son of Jozedek, under Ezra the priest and Nehemiah (1Ezra 3:2, 8) and, having built an altar, did not yet build the church and did not erect the walls of the city, and yet lived in the sins of the past, not honoring the Lord with either love or fear. As for the words: glory, honor, in Greek δόξα in Hebrew chabod (כבוי), this is the same concept (verbun), but according to the peculiarities of the Latin language, we translated Hebrew into Latin honor. For in the Gospel, where the Lord and Savior says: “Father, glorify (clarifica) Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee” (John 17:1) in Greek it is δόξασον, i.e. glorify (glorifica). Instead, many of the Latins translated: give honor (honorifica). At the same time, let us reflect on the fact that the son and the slave, according to the meaning of St. Scripture happens by [one’s own] will, and not by natural necessity. In fact, whoever has received the spirit of sonship is converted into a son of God; and whoever accepts the spirit of slavery into fear (Rom. 8:15), he becomes a servant of God. So, God first of all wants us to be His sons and voluntarily do good; if we want to achieve that God considers us at least slaves, of course, we must leave evil [at least] under pain of punishment. Of sons in the worst sense of the word (in malam partem) we read: “We were the sons of wrath, the sons of hell” (Eph. 2:3); these sons, worthy of torment, are born by the Pharisees, going around sea and land (Matthew 23:15); Judas the traitor is also called the son of destruction (John 17:12), and in the eighty-eighth Psalm it is written about the Lord: “The son of iniquity will not be able to harm Him” (Ps.89:23). The prophet Hosea also has the name sons of adultery, born of a harlot mother, about whom it is written: “your mother committed fornication” (Hosea 2:5); and in the Gospel the Jews are equated with the sons of the devil: “You were born of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father” (John 8:44). We read about sons in the best sense of the word, as about the sons of God: “To those who received Him, He gave power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12), as about the sons of wisdom, according to the word of the Gospel: “Wisdom is justified by her sons” (Matthew 11:19), as about the sons of Abraham: “Truly, truly, I say to you, God is able to raise up sons for Abraham from these stones.” (Matthew 3:9), as about the sons of the Apostle: “My sons, whom I beget again, until Christ is reflected in you” (Gal.4:19), and much like that. So the son is an honor or glory for the father, as it is written: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your works and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). A slave also honors his master, but not with the same love as a son; but usually it is meant to honor: both the son of his father and the servant of his master; however, Almighty God, knowing the difference between a son and a slave, expects glory from the son, and fear from the slave, for “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Wis. 1:7; Sir.1:16). So from the fear of slavery we move to filial glorification. Mal.1:7: To you, O priests [word]: you have despised My name and said: In what way have you despised Your name? You offer unclean bread to Me on the altar and say: in what way have we dishonored You? - In what you say: The Altar of the Lord is not worthy of respect. LXX: “You priests, who despise My name and say: In what ways do we despise Your name? When you brought unclean bread to My altar, you said, “In what way have we defiled it?” In that you say: The Altar of the Lord is not worthy of respect, and you despise what is laid on it**.” The words: And you despise what is entrusted to him, we have marked with the sign ** (obelo), for they are not in the Hebrew text, and they were added in view of what follows. So this speech is addressed to you, O priests, who despise My name. Upon returning from Babylon, under fear of past slavery, they should have turned with all their thoughts to the Lord God; however, they not only did not do this, but, imitating Cain (Gen. 4:9), they even arrogantly find out from Him, from Whom nothing hidden escapes, in which they despise His name, in order to cover up the wound of their conscience with shameless pretense. So, you want to know in what ways you despise My name? You bring unclean bread to My altar, namely, the showbread, which, according to Jewish traditions, you yourself should have sowed, reaped, ground, and baked, and now you take the first bread that comes into your hands and recklessly ask: How have we defiled them, or: You. In fact, if the sacraments are dishonored, then dishonor is caused to the One to whom the sacrament belongs. And the following words: In what you say: The Altar of the Lord does not deserve respect, we can interpret this way: having returned from Babylon and not building a church, but remaining to live in huts and in the ruins of the old city, they built only an altar, but not with such splendor as the previous one, and imagined that with an insufficiently majestic structure they could allow a decrease in the degree of reverence for God. – We have sketched out the light lines on which a spiritual interpretation should be built. The Word of the Lord corrects careless bishops, presbyters and deacons, or - since we all constitute the race of priests and kings - all those who are called by the name of Christ, as having been baptized into Christ; why do they despise the Name of God? When they ask, why have they despised His name? God indicates actions in which contempt is expressed: You, he says, offer My unclean bread on the altar. We dishonor bread, i.e. the body of Christ, when we unworthily approach the altar and drink pure blood, defiled, and say: The Lord’s Table does not deserve respect. The point is not that anyone actually dares to speak like that and wickedly thinks of saying it in a criminal voice, but that the deeds of sinners dishonor the Lord's table. It can be said another way: the Teacher of the Church, who makes spiritual bread and distributes it to the nations, despises the name of God if, under the influence of human vanity or out of the desire for temporary gain, which is a consequence of glory, he speaks to the nations in such a way that he flatters the rich, shows honor to sinners and, as the Apostle James says, accepts those who come to him with gold rings (James 2:2) and drives away from himself holy but poor people; [such a teacher] defiles the bread of doctrine, and dishonors the Lord himself, by imagining that the table of His Scriptures is the same as the table of idols and human doctrine (saecularis doctrinae). Mal.1:8: If you sacrifice a blind [animal], is it not evil? And if you sacrifice the lame or the weak, is that not also evil? Bring this to your leader, will he like it, or will he accept your face? Says the Lord of hosts. LXX: “Therefore, if you sacrifice a blind thing, is it not evil? And if you sacrifice something that is lame or weak, isn’t that also evil? Bring this to your leader, will he accept your face? Says the Lord Almighty." We learn more fully about the difference in sacrifices and about what the Jews had to sacrifice and what not to sacrifice from the book of Leviticus (chapters XXI and XXII). – So, upon returning from Babylon, the priests, Levites, gatekeepers, singers, Nathina and Solomon’s servants, a list of which Ezra gave, brought to the Lord sacrifices prohibited by the law, namely sacrifices from blind, lame and animals with various defects (1Ezra 2), i.e. what the prophet expresses with one name: weak (languidus). If, he says, you bring something like this to your leader, will he not reject you? Will he not think that this is an insult to him? And you dare to sacrifice to God what you do not dare to offer as a gift to man! It would take too long to reveal at this time the mysterious significance of each victim. I will only talk about those mentioned in this chapter. Those spiritual sacrifices are blind who are not enlightened by the light of Christ and do not have an eye pure according to the word of the Gospel (Matthew 6:22). The prayer of the one asking for it is not firm, not stable, but he approaches it absent-mindedly (duplici mente); he will hear along with the people of Judah: “How long will you limp on both feet” (1 Kings 18:21). But the sacrifice that does not have the power of Christ God and the wisdom of God is painful and has all kinds of weakness. And this kind of sacrifice, which does not have the light of truth and does not move with the firm foot of wisdom, but staggers from weakness of various kinds, if offered to the primate (principi) of the Churches, or to some learned and wise teacher, will they not be rejected and will not serve to the disgrace of the one who dared to make such sacrifices? Mal.1:9-10: And now pray before God that He may have mercy on you; for if this was done by your hand, can He in any way receive your faces? Says the Lord of hosts. Who is there among you who shuts the gates and kindles fire on My altar freely? LXX: “And now offer up supplications before your God, and ask Him; your hands have done this; will I accept your face from you? The Lord Almighty speaks. For even among you the gates are shut, and fire is not kindled on My altar without compensation.” In this place, the Seventy Interpreters do not agree with the Jewish truth in many respects; and it must be recognized that where there is a difference in translation, there is a difference in meaning. Since you have offered blind, lame and sick sacrifices - for you have done everything that I said - then repent: will the Lord God somehow have mercy on you. For among you, not to mention the high priest, the priest, the Levite and the singer, neither the gatekeeper, nor the one who lights the fire on the altar for the burnt offering, [labours for nothing], i.e. to the very last servant there is no person who does not receive reward from Me for his work. And when He says this, He means tithes of all the fruits that the people bring. This clearly shows that service that does not require remuneration at the present time is more acceptable before the Lord. Therefore, the Apostle preaches the Gospel without pay (1 Thess. 2:9): day and night he works with his hands, so as not to be a burden to anyone, and testifies that this glory of preaching freely among the pagans should in no way be taken away from him (2 Thess. 3:7-9). But LXX interpreters convey a completely different meaning. – O priests, who offer flawed sacrifices, turn to repentance and plead before the Lord, and ask for the works of your hands. And regarding the words added: Will I accept your faces from you? I don’t know whether they correspond to the calling to repent. In fact, no one says: “Ask me, and I will not spare you.” The words follow: The gates are closing for you, namely the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Savior says: “I am the door” (John 10:9). It can be interpreted differently. The gates of the Scriptures will not be opened for you, and you will not be able to see the Holy of Holies, nor to know the mysteries of the Lord, nor to burn incense on His altar, for your prayers will not reach Him. And what is expressed by the word δωρεὰν, which we translated by the word gratuitously, interpreters who accept the last (nunc) meaning we set forth, translate by the word grace (gratiam) in the sense that such ministers do not have grace to serve before the altar of the Lord. Mal.1:10-13: I have no favor with you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept a gift from your hands. For from the east of the sun to the west, my name is great among the nations and is sanctified in every place, and a pure sacrifice is offered to my name, for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. And you dishonor Him by saying: The Altar of the Lord is not worthy of respect, and what is placed on it is worthy of contempt, along with the fire that consumes it. And you said: This is [the fruit] of labor! And they treated it with contempt, says the Lord of hosts; and they brought [to the altar] the lame and the sick from the stolen goods, and offered them as gifts. Will I accept it from your hand? The Lord speaks. LXX: “I have no favor with you, says the Lord Almighty, and I will not accept sacrifice at your hands, because from the east of the sun to the west my name is glorious among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name and a pure sacrifice, for my name is great among the nations. says the Lord Almighty. But you despise Him by saying: The altar of the Lord is dishonorable and the food placed on it does not deserve respect. And you said: This is from hard work! And they rejected him with contempt, says the Lord Almighty. And you brought the stolen goods, the lame and the sick, and made a sacrifice. Will I accept it from your hands? Says the Lord Almighty." The rule in relation to the interpretation of the Scriptures is this: where a very clear prediction of the future is revealed, the force of what is written should not be weakened by an allegorical interpretation, which is not always undoubtedly true. In this place, the word of the Lord is addressed specifically to the Jewish priests who sacrifice the blind, the lame and the sick, so that they know that their carnal sacrifices must be accompanied by spiritual sacrifices. And the Lord should not offer the blood of oxen or goats, but fragrant incense, i.e. prayers of saints; and not only in the Jewish region, and not only in the city of Judea - Jerusalem - but in every place a sacrifice will be offered, and not an unclean one, like that of the people of Israel, but an immaculate sacrifice, as in the solemn services of Christians; for from the east of the sun to the west the name of the Lord is great among the nations, as the Savior says: “Father, I have revealed your name to men” (John 17:6). And then, as He says, My name must be great among the nations, you, the leaders of the Jews, have dishonored and are dishonoring Him. For prophecy reveals the future in such a way that it does not lose sight of the present. O priests and leaders of the Jews! In every place a pure sacrifice is offered to My name, and My name will be great among the nations because you say: “The altar of the Lord is dishonorable, and what is laid on it is not worthy of respect, together with the fire that consumes it.” Upon returning from Babylon, the people built an altar from rough stones that accidentally fell into their hands, as stated in the book of Ezra (1 Ezra 6), but without a church, without city buildings and walls, and thought that due to the poverty of the furnishings, decorations, and worship would be on a smaller scale. The Lord says to them: “You think that the altar is not worthy of honor, like the burnt offerings and the sacrifices offered on it along with the fire that consumes them. You do not understand that the Almighty God does not require gold and precious stones and many sacrifices, but the favor of those who offer them.” And those interpreters who do not mean the altar, but simply the table (meal) on which the loaves are placed, in my opinion, are completely unable to interpret the words added at the end: along with the fire that devours them, because the fire did not consume the showbread, since the priests always put new ones in place of the old ones [or: replaced the old ones with new ones], and the removed loaves were at the complete disposal of the priests (Lev. 24:5-9). However, this passage, undoubtedly, can be understood this way: You dishonor My name by saying: “What good is it if we sacrifice the best?” Whatever this offering may be, it must still be consumed by fire. The fruit of the altar is fire, and the food for the fire is sacrifices or burnt offerings. - But the wickedness of your previous speech is not enough for you: you also add: “Behold [the fruits] of labor, and you treated it with contempt, says the Lord.” The meaning of this speech is this: You said: “We have returned from captivity; we were the property of our enemies; we suffered a lot during the long journey; we are poor: what we could have was spent during the difficult migration; and now we sacrifice what we have”; saying this, you treated your offerings with contempt, that is, you recognized them as worthy of My contempt, or, as you can read in Hebrew: And you treated Me with contempt. By saying this, you have dishonored not the sacrifice, but Me, for whom the sacrifice is intended. Therefore I will in no way accept it from your hands, says the Lord Almighty. Some think that although this is said primarily to the Jews, for their sacrifices are unclean and defiled, and the sacrifice is transferred to the pagans, it should be applied to the priests of the Church of Christ, who carelessly offer sacrifices to the Lord. If we accept this, we must accept that from the Church the sacrifices must be transferred to another denomination. On the other hand, how will the Gospel take the place of the law if after the Gospel comes something that is not meant to be [according to prophecy]? And by the desecrated table of the Lord they mean Holy Scripture, if it is understood differently from what is written in it.