Malachi 3:7

Bible in Basic English (1941)

From the days of your fathers you have been turned away from my rules and have not kept them. Come back to me, and I will come back to you, says the Lord of armies. But you say, How are we to come back?

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

לְמִימֵ֨י אֲבֹתֵיכֶ֜ם סַרְתֶּ֤ם מֵֽחֻקַּי֙ וְלֹ֣א שְׁמַרְתֶּ֔ם שׁ֤וּבוּ אֵלַי֙ וְאָשׁ֣וּבָה אֲלֵיכֶ֔ם אָמַ֖ר יְהוָ֣ה צְבָא֑וֹת וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֖ם בַּמֶּ֥ה נָשֽׁוּב׃

Transliteration

Le-mime ʾavotekhem sartem me-ḥuqqay we-loʾ shemartem shuvu ʾelay we-ʾashuvah ʾalekhem ʾamar YHWH tsevaʾot wa-ʾamartem bammeh nashuv.

Grammar Details

• *Le-mime*: preposition + noun, masculine plural construct - from/since the days of
• *ʾavotekhem*: noun, masculine plural with 2nd masculine plural suffix - your fathers
• *sartem*: Qal perfect, 2nd masculine plural - you have turned aside
• *me-ḥuqqay*: preposition + noun, masculine plural construct with 1st person singular suffix - from my statutes
• *we-loʾ*: waw conjunction + negative particle - and not
• *shemartem*: Qal perfect, 2nd masculine plural - you have kept
• *shuvu*: Qal imperative, masculine plural - return
• *ʾelay*: preposition with 1st person singular suffix - to me
• *we-ʾashuvah*: waw consecutive + Qal imperfect, 1st person singular - and I will return
• *ʾalekhem*: preposition with 2nd masculine plural suffix - to you
• *ʾamar*: Qal perfect, 3rd masculine singular - says/said
• *YHWH*: divine name - Yahweh/LORD
• *tsevaʾot*: noun, feminine plural - hosts/armies
• *wa-ʾamartem*: waw consecutive + Qal perfect, 2nd masculine plural - and you say
• *bammeh*: preposition + interrogative pronoun - in what/how
• *nashuv*: Qal imperfect, 1st common plural - shall we return

Word Meanings

• *mime*: days/time
• *ʾavotekhem*: your fathers/your ancestors/your forefathers
• *sartem*: turned aside/departed/deviated
• *ḥuqqay*: my statutes/my decrees/my ordinances
• *shemartem*: kept/observed/guarded
• *shuvu*: return/turn back/repent
• *ʾashuvah*: I will return/I will turn back/I will restore
• *bammeh*: in what way/how/by what means
• *nashuv*: shall we return/should we turn back/how can we repent

Referenced Verses

• Zech 1:3 : 3 And you are to say to them, These are the words of the Lord of armies: Come back to me, says the Lord of armies, and I will come back to you.
• Deut 31:20 : 20 For when I have taken them into the land named in my oath to their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they have made themselves full of food and are fat, then they will be turned to other gods and will give them worship, no longer honouring me or keeping my agreement.
• Neh 9:28-30 : 28 But when they had rest, they did evil again before you: so you gave them into the hands of their haters, who had rule over them: but when they came back and made their prayer to you, you gave ear to them from heaven; again and again, in your mercy, you gave them salvation; 29 And gave witness against them so that you might make them come back again to your law: but their hearts were lifted up, and they gave no attention to your orders and went against your decisions (which, if a man keeps them, will be life to him), and turning their backs on you, made their necks stiff and did not give ear. 30 Year after year you put up with them, and gave witness against them by your spirit through your prophets: still they did not give ear: and so you gave them up into the hands of the peoples of the lands.
• Mal 1:6 : 6 A son gives honour to his father, and a servant has fear of his master: if then I am a father, where is my honour? and if I am a master, where is the fear of me? says the Lord of armies to you, O priests, who give no value to my name. And you say, How have we not given value to your name?
• Luke 15:16 : 16 And so great was his need that he would have been glad to take the pigs' food, and no one gave him anything.
• Ezek 20:21 : 21 But the children would not be controlled by me; they were not guided by my rules, and they did not keep and do my orders, which, if a man does them, will be life to him; and they had no respect for my Sabbaths: then I said I would let loose my passion on them to give full effect to my wrath against them in the waste land.
• Rom 10:21 : 21 But about Israel he says; All the day my hands have been stretched out to a people whose hearts were turned away, and who put themselves against my word.
• Deut 4:29-31 : 29 But if in those lands you are turned again to the Lord your God, searching for him with all your heart and soul, he will not keep himself from you. 30 When you are in trouble and all these things have come on you, if, in the future, you are turned again to the Lord your God, and give ear to his voice: 31 Because the Lord your God is a God of mercy, he will not take away his help from you or let destruction overtake you, or be false to the agreement which he made by an oath with your fathers.
• Deut 30:1-4 : 1 Now when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse which I have put before you, if the thought of them comes back to your minds, when you are living among the nations where the Lord your God has sent you, 2 And your hearts are turned again to the Lord your God, and you give ear to his word which I give you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul: 3 Then the Lord will have pity on you, changing your fate, and taking you back again from among all the nations where you have been forced to go. 4 Even if those who have been forced out are living in the farthest part of heaven, the Lord your God will go in search of you, and take you back;
• 1 Kgs 8:47-49 : 47 And if they take thought, in the land where they are prisoners, and are turned again to you, crying out in prayer to you in that land, and saying, We are sinners, we have done wrong, we have done evil; 48 And with all their heart and soul are turned again to you, in the land of those who took them prisoners, and make their prayer to you, turning their eyes to this land which you gave to their fathers, and to the town which you took for yourself, and the house which I made for your name: 49 Then give ear to their prayer and to their cry in heaven your living-place, and see right done to them;
• Neh 1:8-9 : 8 Keep in mind, O Lord, the order you gave your servant Moses, saying, If you do wrong I will send you wandering among the peoples: 9 But if you come back to me and keep my orders and do them, even if those of you who have been forced out are living in the farthest parts of heaven, I will get them from there, and take them back to the place marked out by me for the resting-place of my name.
• Isa 55:6-7 : 6 Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near: 7 Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him.
• Isa 65:2 : 2 All day my hands have been stretched out to an uncontrolled people, who go in an evil way, after the purposes of their hearts;
• Jer 3:12-14 : 12 Go, and give out these words to the north, and say, Come back, O Israel, though you have been turned away from me, says the Lord; my face will not be against you in wrath: for I am full of mercy, says the Lord, I will not be angry for ever. 13 Only be conscious of your sin, the evil you have done against the Lord your God; you have gone with strange men under every branching tree, giving no attention to my voice, says the Lord. 14 Come back, O children who are turned away, says the Lord; for I am a husband to you, and I will take you, one from a town and two from a family, and will make you come to Zion;
• Hos 14:1 : 1 Samaria will be made waste, for she has gone against her God: they will be cut down by the sword, their little children will be broken on the rocks, their women who are with child will be cut open.
• Jer 3:22 : 22 Come back, you children who have been turned away, and I will take away your desire for wandering. See, we have come to you, for you are the Lord our God.
• Jer 7:26 : 26 But still they took no note and would not give ear, but they made their necks stiff, doing worse than their fathers.
• Ezek 18:30-32 : 30 For this cause I will be your judge, O children of Israel, judging every man by his ways, says the Lord. Come back and be turned from all your sins; so that they may not be the cause of your falling into evil. 31 Put away all your evil-doing in which you have done sin; and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit: why are you desiring death, O children of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him on whom death comes, says the Lord: be turned back then, and have life.
• Ezek 20:8 : 8 But they would not be controlled by me, and did not give ear to me; they did not put away the disgusting things to which their eyes were turned, or give up the images of Egypt: then I said I would let loose my passion on them to give full effect to my wrath against them in the land of Egypt.
• Ezek 20:13 : 13 But the children of Israel would not be controlled by me in the waste land: they were not guided by my rules, and they were turned away from my orders, which, if a man does them, will be life to him; and they had no respect for my Sabbaths: then I said that I would let loose my passion on them in the waste land, and put an end to them.
• Neh 9:16-17 : 16 But they and our fathers, in their pride, made their necks stiff, and gave no attention to your orders, 17 And would not do them, and gave no thought to the wonders you had done among them; but made their necks stiff, and turning away from you, made a captain over themselves to take them back to their prison in Egypt: but you are a God of forgiveness, full of grace and pity, slow to wrath and great in mercy, and you did not give them up.
• Neh 9:26 : 26 But they were hard-hearted, and went against your authority, turning their backs on your law, and putting to death your prophets, who gave witness against them with the purpose of turning them back again to you, and they did much to make you angry.
• Lev 26:40-42 : 40 And they will have grief for their sins and for the sins of their fathers, when their hearts were untrue to me, and they went against me; 41 So that I went against them and sent them away into the land of their haters: if then the pride of their hearts is broken and they take the punishment of their sins, 42 Then I will keep in mind the agreement which I made with Jacob and with Isaac and with Abraham, and I will keep in mind the land.
• Deut 9:7-9 : 7 Keep well in mind how you made the Lord your God angry in the waste land; from the day when you went out of Egypt till you came to this place, you have gone against the orders of the Lord. 8 Again in Horeb you made the Lord angry, and in his wrath he would have put an end to you. 9 When I had gone up into the mountain to be given the stones on which was recorded the agreement which the Lord made with you, I was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights without taking food or drinking water. 10 And the Lord gave me the two stones with writing on them done by the finger of God: on them were recorded all the words which the Lord said to you on the mountain out of the heart of the fire, on the day of the great meeting. 11 Then at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me those stones, the stones of the agreement. 12 And the Lord said to me, Get up now, and go down quickly from this place; for the people you have taken out of Egypt have given themselves over to evil; they have quickly been turned from the way in which I gave them orders to go; they have made themselves a metal image. 13 And then the Lord said to me, I have seen that this people is stiff-necked: 14 Let me send destruction on them till their very name is cut off; and I will make of you a nation greater and stronger than they. 15 So turning round I came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire; and the two stones of the agreement were in my hands. 16 And I saw that you had done evil against the Lord, and had made for yourselves a metal image of a young ox: you had quickly been turned from the way in which the Lord had given you orders to go. 17 And I let the stones go from my hands, and they were broken before your eyes. 18 And I went down on my face before the Lord, as at the first, for forty days and forty nights, without taking food or drinking water, because of all your sin, in doing evil in the eyes of the Lord and moving him to wrath. 19 For I was full of fear because of the wrath of the Lord which was burning against you, with your destruction in view. But again the Lord's ear was open to my prayer. 20 And the Lord, in his wrath, would have put Aaron to death: and I made prayer for Aaron at the same time. 21 And I took your sin, the image which you had made, and put it in the fire and had it hammered and crushed very small till it was only dust: and the dust I put in the stream flowing down from the mountain.
• Jas 4:8 : 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Make your hands clean, you evil-doers; put away deceit from your hearts, you false in mind.
• Ezek 20:28 : 28 For when I had taken them into the land which I made an oath to give to them, then they saw every high hill and every branching tree and made their offerings there, moving me to wrath by their offerings; and there the sweet smell of their offerings went up and their drink offerings were drained out.
• Acts 7:51-52 : 51 You whose hearts are hard and whose ears are shut to me; you are ever working against the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. 52 Which of the prophets was not cruelly attacked by your fathers? and they put to death those who gave them the news of the coming of the Upright One; whom you have now given up and put to death;
• Rom 7:9 : 9 And there was a time when I was living without the law: but when the law gave its orders, sin came to life and put me to death;
• Rom 10:3 : 3 Because, not having knowledge of God's righteousness, and desiring to give effect to their righteousness, they have not put themselves under the righteousness of God.
• Mal 3:13 : 13 Your words have been strong against me, says the Lord. And still you say, What have we said against you?
• Matt 23:27 : 27 A curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! for you are like the resting-places of the dead, which are made white, and seem beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and of all unclean things.
• Luke 11:48-51 : 48 So you are witnesses and give approval to the work of your fathers; for they put them to death and you make their last resting-places. 49 For this reason the wisdom of God has said, I will send them prophets and teachers, and to some of them they will give death and cruel pains; 50 So that punishment may come on this generation for the blood of all the prophets which was given from the earliest days; 51 From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zachariah, who was put to death between the altar and the Temple. Yes, I say to you, It will come on this generation.
• Ps 78:8-9 : 8 And not be like their fathers, a stiff-necked and uncontrolled generation; a generation whose heart was hard, whose spirit was not true to God. 9 The children of Ephraim, armed with bows, were turned back on the day of the fight. 10 They were not ruled by God's word, and they would not go in the way of his law;
• Deut 31:27-29 : 27 For I have knowledge of your hard and uncontrolled hearts: even now, while I am still living, you will not be ruled by the Lord; how much less after my death? 28 Get together before me all those who are in authority in your tribes, and your overseers, so that I may say these things in their hearing, and make heaven and earth my witnesses against them. 29 For I am certain that after my death you will give yourselves up to sin, wandering from the way which I have given you; and evil will overtake you in the end, because you will do evil in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath by the work of your hands.