Malachi Chapter Three, The Windows of Heaven

 

Malachi 3:9 You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation. [10] Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.

 

The English translation doesn’t quite do the beginning of verse 9 justice. The two words translated “curse” and “cursed” are different in the original Hebrew, as was discussed during Malachi 1:14. The first usage is “arar” which again means a judicial pronouncement on covenant breakers. In this instance all of mankind could be described as being cursed in this fashion, since we all fall under the just judgment of breaking God’s moral standard. In a more limited sense, Israel as a nation is under this curse since they withhold the tithe and offering from temple service. The second instance of the word in verse 9 is an execration. Israel is cursed (has judgment passed on their lawlessness) with a curse (the malediction God foretold would happen to them as a people when they did not obey).  The reason cited is their unwillingness to bring to God the tithe. Being carnally minded makes us flaccid when it comes to the things of God: a condition every Christian suffers periodically. Paul opined about this self-mindedness when he wrote, “For I have no one like-minded, who will sincerely care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus,” Philippians 2:20, 21. Caught up in worldly, daily life, religious duty appears as obligation, and the carnal mind detests and rebels against the idea. To be obligated implies owing someone something.

Rather than viewing service as obligation, we should consider it blessing. Our calling and election are to some function within the body, not to our position in it. The family of Israel, had they viewed one another as a genuine family with Yahweh as their Father, would have transcended the drudgery of obligation and cared for one another with filial love. Because they did not devote themselves to service, seeing their activity not as religion’s outgrowth but a healthy expression of love for God and neighbor, abandonment resulted. Are we more inclined to give to strangers or to family? Though Malachi pleaded that Israel had a single Father in God (Malachi 1:6, 2:10) it did nothing to settle the unruly human heart. Truth received by only the intellect is nothing more than the transmission of information from one carrier to another. The carrier need not even utilize the information gained; they may in fact disbelieve it. Faith must be mingled with truth for it to have a transformative effect in its recipient, Hebrews 4:2.

 

God suggests a test. He challenges Israel to bring all of the tithes into the storehouse, to see experientially the result. He tells the Jews that if they simply comply and do as they have been commanded, He will open up the “windows of heaven” to pour out such blessing that they would be unable to contain it.

 

The phrase “windows of heaven” has certainly seen its fair share of hecklers, even in the church, for a long while. Since the contention about the universe being geocentric and the earth flat, a rising tide within and without the church has accused Christians and Jews of believing such fallacies. Like the four corners of the earth, or the rising of the sun, the verse is not meant to depict scientific accuracy. The phrase, found first in Genesis 7:11 and again in 8:2, denotes a torrential fall of water, appearing from an earth-bound, human perspective as if someone opened a window from above and rainfall came gushing down. The word “window” can apparently also mean “floodgate,” and comes from the Hebrew “arubbah,” meaning “window, chimney or sluice,” and comes from “arab,” which can mean, “to lurk or lay in wait.”

 

The first use of the word (the same word employed in Malachi) seems to have its explanation in the verse that contains it. We read: “on that day the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened,” Genesis 7:11. In Genesis 8:2 the same causal order is established: the fountains of the great deep ceased, then the windows of heaven, restraining the extreme rainfall. The causation of the windows of heaven (apart from God’s providential action) was the fountains of the great deep bursting forth. We know that before Adam was created God had yet to cause rain to fall, Genesis 2:5. In essence, the normal hydrologic cycle hadn’t begun. Instead, a mist rose from below the land and “watered the whole face of the ground,” verse 6. It seems apparent that God stored much of the waters beneath the expanse (firmament, NKJV) or ground. We can reasonably argue this because Genesis 7:11 says first that the fountains of the “great deep” burst open followed by incredible torrential rainfall. The windows of heaven, then, appear to be a result of this amazing eruption of water at least in part since what went up, violently erupting out of the earth, came back down in the form of rain. While rainfall contributed without doubt, the bulk of the windows of heaven came from the reservoir God held in wait for that moment in time. Sound incredible? I read once that if the earth was flat its surface could be inundated by 1.6 miles of water in depth. The waters prevailed only 15 cubits above the mountains (Genesis 7:20), and if the topography of the pre-Flood world differed greatly from our current state (which it certainly may have after such massive seismic upheavals) we have every reason to accept as factual the events related in these chapters of Genesis.

 

The “windows of heaven” was used as a descriptive phrase when Moses transcribed Genesis, and the earth’s history was disseminated amongst the Jews. In Elisha’s day Ben-hadad besieged Samaria, causing severe famine that led to cannibalism of the dead. The king sent soldiers to kill Elisha, provoking the prophet to foretell of great blessing soon to come at the hands of Yahweh. Disbelieving, a soldier asked, “If the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” 2 Kings 7:2. Clearly the allusion is to the Flood and God’s judgment, only in this instance the soldier wondered if food enough to stave the famine could be supplied if God chose such an outlet for blessing rather than judgment. Elisha answered in the affirmative. The inference seems clear when the soldier made reference to it. Malachi likewise utilizes the phrase, again speaking of abundant blessing pouring down from God’s beneficence. If only they would trust Him, demonstrating that faith in their actions, He would pour down blessing that would overwhelm.