Discovery BoxMalachi 2:15 
Context2:15 No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. 1 What did our ancestor 2 do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth. 3
Malachi 4:1
Context4:1 (3:19) 4 “For indeed the day 5 is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant evildoers will be chaff. The coming day will burn them up,” says the Lord who rules over all. “It 6 will not leave even a root or branch.
1 tn Heb “and not one has done, and a remnant of the spirit to him.” The very elliptical nature of the statement suggests it is proverbial. The present translation represents an attempt to clarify the meaning of the statement (cf. NASB).
2 tn Heb “the one.” This is an oblique reference to Abraham who sought to obtain God’s blessing by circumventing God’s own plan for him by taking Hagar as wife (Gen 16:1-6). The result of this kind of intermarriage was, of course, disastrous (Gen 16:11-12).
3 sn The wife he took in his youth probably refers to the first wife one married (cf. NCV “the wife you married when you were young”).
4 sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:6 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:19 HT, 4:2 ET = 3:20 HT, etc., through 4:6 ET = 3:24 HT. Thus the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible has only three chapters, with 24 verses in ch. 3.
5 sn This day is the well-known “day of the
6 tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.
