seventh year, and the exaction 38 And the priest the son of every debt. of Aaron shall be with the Le32 Also we made ordinances vites, when the Levites take for us, to charge ourselves yearly tithes; and the Levites shall with the third part of a shekel bring up the tithe of the tithes for the service of the house of unto the house of our God, our God: to the chambers, into the treasure house.

37 And that we should bring the first-fruits of our dough, and our offerings, and the fruit of all manner of trees, of wine and of oil, unto the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God; and the tithes of our ground unto the Levites, that the same Levites might have the tithes in all the cities of our tillage.

39 For the children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the offering of the corn, of the new wine, and the oil, unto the chambers, where are the vessels of the sanctuary, and the priests that minister, and the porters, and the singers; and we will not forsake the house of our God.*

* About ten or eleven years after this, Nehemiah obtained leave from Artaxerxes to pay a second visit to Jerusalem; when he found that there was need of a fresh reformation with respect to each of the three duties to which they had so solemnly engaged themselves, namely, not to intermarry with the people of the land, to allow no commercial dealings on the sabbath day, and to contribute the due portion of their goods and fruits for the temple and service of God.

One act of his pious zeal in this second reformation led to consequences which brought the enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans to its greatest height. "He turned out Manasseh, the son or grandson of the high priest, for marrying the daughter of Samballat, the Horonite;" (concerning whom see chap. ii. 10, 11;)" and Samballat procured a grant from the king of Persia, to build on mount Gerizim, near Samaria, a temple like that at Jerusalem, and to make Manasseh, his sonin-law, the high priest of it." This temple was the resort of such Jews as by any lawless conduct had excluded themselves from their own, and thus not only became an encouragement

Watts's Scrip. Hist. chap. xix. sect. 1. qu. 18, 19.

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to disorder and contempt of the religious observances required by the law, (which alone would have greatly tended to increase the enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans,) but also threatened the overthrow of the great temporal "promise" to which they hoped to come," since if once the idea obtained credit that offerings and sacrifices could be acceptable to God in any other place except Jerusalem, there was no saying where the principal scene of worship might be established: or to what extent such temples might be multiplied.

Now this cause of hatred was of a nature peculiarly calculated to continue; as being inseparably connected with an expectation, which of course would become the more exciting as the time drew on in which they hoped to see its fulfilment; and as this was the very time (for so far they could rightly interpret their prophecies) when the true Messiah did appear, (though "when they saw him, there was no beauty that they should desire him,") it is no wonder that even to that day "the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans ;" and this principal cause of the enmity is seen in another part of the short conversation here alluded to, between Christ and the woman of Samaria; it appears in the first words she said to him as soon as she "perceived" that he was a "prophet," "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

And here we should observe, that this long and ever-fresh annoyance was entirely caused by their own disobedience to God's strict commandment of not intermarrying with the surrounding nations, and presents a striking instance of the unchangeable nature of the denunciations of their Scriptures, in the fulfilment of these words of Joshua: "If If ye do in any wise go back, and cleave unto the remnant of these nations”—“ and shall make marriages with them"-" know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you. and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes." Perhaps this last expression was never so fully illustrated as when the rival temple was built upon mount Gerizim.

MALA CHI.

Though there are differences of opinion as to the exact time in which Malachi prophesied, it is certain that it was either during or very soon after the government of Nehemiah; and accordingly we find a peculiar character in his prophecies adapted to and connected with his commission to rebuke the priests and people for one of the three things which chiefly required Nehemiah's correction, namely, the withholding the due offerings from the house of God.*

The double purpose of the prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah, was to testify of Jesus, and to encourage the poor exiles just returned to their ruined city in their work of restoration; the double purpose of that of Malachi was to testify of Jesus, and to rebuke the ungrateful and incorrigible Jews for dishonouring, by neglect and selfish indifference, and by blemished and polluted offerings, that very temple which was so inseparably connected with their own brightest hopes, and which their fathers, under the encouraging promises of God (and in fulfilment of his more ancient promises) had so lately raised from those ruins which spoke the awful sureness of his threats. Accordingly, even the evangelical prophecies (chap. i. 11, chap. ii. 1, 2, 3) concerning HIM who was " to be the glory of his people Israel," as well as " a light to lighten the Gentiles," are, in fact, also denunciations against the Jewish priests, the Jewish temple, the Jewish worship, and the Jewish hopes.

"He also rebuked them for marrying strangers, and on some other subjects, in chap. ii.

CHAP. I.

In all fourteen verses.

Malachi.

thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the LORD of hosts. 10 Who is there even among

THE burden of the word of you that would shut the doors the LORD to Israel by for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the LORD of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.

6 ¶ A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?

11 For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place in7 Ye offer polluted bread cense shall be offered unto my upon mine altar; and ye say, name, and a pure offering,* for Wherein have we polluted my name shall be great among thee ? In that ye say, The the heathen, saith the LORD of table of the LORD is contemp-hosts.

tible.

CHAP. III.

BEHOLD, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me;t

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This is perhaps the very plainest prediction of the annulling of the ceremonial law, and the "changing" of the customs which Moses delivered," (and which the Jews" delighted in," as promising so much glory to their nation,) to be found in all their prophets. What, in fact, is this passage from the middle of the tenth verse, "I have no pleasure in you," to the word" offering" in the eleventh, but exactly what Christ said to the woman of Samaria, " The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father," the hour cometh "" when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him?"

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+ This (John the Baptist) is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face which shall prepare thy way before thee." Matt. xi. 10.

and the LORD, whom ye seek, finer and purifier of silver and shall suddenly come to his he shall purify the sons of Levi, temple, even the messenger of and purge them as gold and the covenant, whom ye delight silver, that they may offer unto in; behold, he shall come, the LORD an offering in rightesaith the LORD of hosts. 2 But who may abide the 4 Then shall the offering of day of his coming? and who Judah and Jerusalem be pleashall stand when he appeareth? sant unto the LORD, as in the for he is like a refiner's fire, days of old, and as in former

and like fuller's sope:

3 And he shall sit as a re

ousness.

years.†

5 And I will come near to

* The remarks, which it appeared necessary to make on this important prophecy, involved so much consideration of other parts of scripture, (which seemed, however, not only to bear on the present passage, but also to be subservient to the general design of this work as an introduction to the study of the New Testament,) that it was thought better to place them at the end, than to interrupt, by several pages, the short remainder of the text.

On a first view of these words, the question may arise, What days of old, what former years can here be meant? when was there any time, before the coming of Christ, when the religion and morals of Judah and Jerusalem were in such a happy and spiritual condition as to be worthy to be held up as an example of the blessed times here predicted? But this difficulty vanishes by considering that the term "pleasant unto the Lord," may be used merely in the sense of being the peculiar choice of the Lord; thus in Isa. v. 7, "The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression," where the term " pleasant" can mean nothing more than chosen. The present passage therefore may signify that Jerusalem shall again be as she was "in former years," the place peculiarly chosen by the LORD "to place his name there :"but that she shall be really, spiritually, and permanently what in days of old she was typically, carnally, and temporally ; and *Heb. vii. 16, and ix. 10.

*

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