Passage

Malachi 1.14

Book: Malachi · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

12. But ye profane it, in that ye say, The table of Jehovah is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even its food, is contemptible. 13. Ye say also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith Jehovah of hosts; and ye have brought that which was taken by violence, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye bring the offering: should I accept this at your hand? saith Jehovah.

14. But cursed be the deceiver, who hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a blemished thing; for I am a great King, saith Jehovah of hosts, and my name is terrible among the Gentiles. (Malachi 1:12-14, ASV)

WEB

12. “But you profane it, in that you say, ‘Yahweh’s table is polluted, and its fruit, even its food, is contemptible.’ 13. You say also, ‘Behold, what a weariness it is!’ and you have sniffed at it”, says Yahweh of Armies; “and you have brought that which was taken by violence, the lame, and the sick; thus you bring the offering. Should I accept this at your hand?” says Yahweh.

14. “But the deceiver is cursed, who has in his flock a male, and vows, and sacrifices to the Lord a defective thing; for I am a great King,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and my name is awesome among the nations.” (Malachi 1:12-14, WEB)

KJV

12. But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the LORD is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible. 13. Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the LORD of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the LORD. ^{and ye have: or, whereas ye might have blown it away}

14. But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the LORD of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen. ^{which: Heb. in whose flock is} (Malachi 1:12-14, KJV)

YLT

12. And ye are polluting it in your saying, 'The table of Jehovah, it is polluted, As to its fruit, despicable is its food.' 13. And ye have said, 'Lo, what a weariness,' And ye have puffed at it, said Jehovah of Hosts, And ye have brought in plunder, And the lame and the sick, And ye have brought in the present! Do I accept it from your hand? said Jehovah.

14. And cursed [is] a deceiver, who hath in his drove a male, And is vowing, and is sacrificing a marred thing to the Lord, For a great king [am] I, said Jehovah of Hosts, And My name [is] revered among nations! (Malachi 1:12-14, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: YHWH, whose word comes "by Malachi" (1:1, literally "by the hand of Malachi"), closing the section of the rebuke of the priests that begins at 1:6.
Audience: The worshipper who vows an offering and then substitutes a blemished animal, and, through the surrounding verses, the priests who accept such offerings (1:6-13).
Location: Jerusalem and its temple, in Yehud (Judah), a province of the Persian Empire. The "governor" of 1:8 bears the Persian-era title also given to Zerubbabel (Haggai 1:1) and to Nehemiah (Nehemiah 5:14).
Time period: The Persian period, commonly dated to the mid-fifth century BC (c. 460-430 BC). The book carries no dated heading, but the temple is standing and its sacrifices are running, so it follows the rebuilding completed in the sixth year of Darius (Ezra 6:15, c. 516 BC). The abuses it confronts, a careless priesthood, withheld tithes, and marriages to worshippers of foreign gods, are the ones Nehemiah deals with (Nehemiah 13:10-12, 23-29).

Theological reading

A cheated vow. The man described has a sound male in his flock, makes a vow, and then sacrifices "a blemished thing." The law was explicit that an offering made to fulfil a vow "shall be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no blemish therein" (Leviticus 22:21). The fault here is not poverty but calculation: he has the better animal and keeps it.

"I am a great King." The ground of the curse is the dignity of the one being cheated. Psalm 47:2 uses the same title: "He is a great King over all the earth." The rebuke echoes 1:8, where the priests are asked whether the governor would accept what they bring to God.

The name among the nations. "My name is terrible among the Gentiles" closes the section as 1:11 does, with the reverence of the nations set against the contempt found at Jerusalem's altar. "Terrible" here means awe-inspiring, worthy of fear, the reverse of the priests' "weariness" in 1:13.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

H0136 - adonai, adonai, Strong's H0136
H6635 - tzevaot, tzevaot, Strong's H6635
H8034 - shem, shem, Strong's H8034
H3068 - YHWH, YHWH, Strong's H3068

Quoted in

Lexicon:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.