What distinguishes rejected and clean offerings?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Priestly contempt and defective offerings contrast with the clean oblation among Gentiles.

Chapter breakdown

The heading announces reproof of ingratitude and impure priestly sacrifices, and acceptance of sacrifice among Gentiles. Malachias delivers God’s burden to Israel. God declares love; the people ask how. Esau is Jacob’s brother. The edition explains unmerited preference and blessings for Jacob’s posterity despite ingratitude, and severe judgments on Esau’s posterity without punishment beyond deserts; it refers to Romans 9. Esau’s mountains become wilderness and his inheritance goes to desert dragons. Edom proposes rebuilding, but God says he will throw it down and call it wicked borders and a people under lasting anger. Observers will magnify God upon Israel’s border.

Son and servant honor father and master; God asks the priests where his honor and fear are. They despise his name through polluted altar bread and contempt for his table. Blind, lame and sick offerings are called evil, with a challenge to offer them to a prince and see whether he accepts. The priests are told to seek mercy after what their hands have done. God asks who shuts doors and kindles altar fire gratis, declares no pleasure in them and refuses their gifts. From sunrise to sunset his name is great among Gentiles, with sacrifice and a clean oblation in every place. The edition identifies this oblation as Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharistic sacrifice; the verse itself does not add incense.

They profane the table and call what fire consumes contemptible. They claim labor and puff away the offering, bringing lame and sick goods obtained by rapine. The edition explains feigned weariness, an evil mind and defective goods obtained through extortion. A deceitful man owning a male but vowing a feeble sacrifice is cursed, for God is a great king whose name is dreadful among Gentiles. This local reproof is not expanded into a claim that all temple rites are abolished.

The story inside

Jacob’s preference is explained as unmerited. Blind, lame and sick offerings receive reproof. The Eucharistic explanation belongs to the edition.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Jacob’s preference is explained as unmerited.
2
Blind, lame and sick offerings receive reproof.
3
The Eucharistic explanation belongs to the edition.

Test your recall

What does the deceitful donor own and offer?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 104170–104181
1:2. I have loved you, saith the Lord: and you have said: Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau brother to Jacob, saith the Lord, and I have loved Jacob, I have loved Jacob, etc.... I have preferred his posterity, to make them my chosen people, and to lead them with my blessings, without any merit on their part, and though they have been always ungrateful; whilst I have rejected Esau, and executed severe judgments upon his posterity. Not that God punished Esau, or his posterity, beyond their desert: but that by his free election and grace he loved Jacob, and favoured his posterity above their deserts. See the annotations upon Rom. 9.
Lines 104199–104207
1:7. To you, O priests, that despise my name, and have said: Wherein have we despised thy name? You offer polluted bread upon my altar, and you say: Wherein have we polluted thee? In that you say: The table of the Lord is contemptible. 1:8. If you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? offer it to thy prince, if he will be pleased with it, or if he will regard thy face, saith the Lord of hosts.
Lines 104213–104223
1:10. Who is there among you, that will shut the doors, and will kindle the fire on my altar gratis? I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will not receive a gift of your hand. 1:11. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts. A clean oblation.... Viz., the precious body and blood of Christ in the eucharistic sacrifice.
Lines 104229–104242
1:13. And you have said: Behold of our labour, and you puffed it away, saith the Lord of hosts, and you brought in of rapine the lame, and the sick, and brought in an offering: shall I accept it at your hands, saith the Lord? Behold of our labour, etc.... You pretended labour and weariness, when you brought your offering; and so made it of no value, by offering it with an evil mind. Moreover, what you offered was both defective in itself, and gotten by rapine and extortion. 1:14. Cursed is the deceitful man that hath in his flock a male, and making a vow offereth in sacrifice that which is feeble to the Lord: for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the Gentiles.