Albert Barnes Commentary Malachi 3:6

"For I, Jehovah, change not; therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed." — Malachi 3:6 (ASV)

I am the Lord, I change not—, or, to put it better and more concisely, “I, the Lord—

I change not—.” The proper name of God, “He who Is,” involves His unchangeableness. For change implies imperfection; it changes to that which is either more perfect or less perfect: to something which that being, who changes, is not or has not. But God has everything in Himself perfectly. “You Alone, O Lord, Are what You Are, and You Are Who Are. For what is one thing in the whole and another in parts, and in which anything is subject to change, is not altogether what Is.

And what begins from not being, and can be conceived as not being, and only subsists through another thing, returns to not-being; and what has a ‘has been,’ which now is not, and a ‘to be,’ which is not yet, that is not, properly and absolutely. But You Are what You Are. For whatever You Are in any time or “way,” that You Are wholly and always; and You Are, Who Are properly and simply, because You have neither ‘to have been’ nor ‘to be about to be;’ but only to be present; and cannot be conceived ever not to have been.” “There is only one simple Good, and, therefore, One Alone Unchangeable, which is God.”

“Our” life is a “becoming” rather than a simple “being;” it is a continual losing of what we had, and gaining what we had not, for “insofar as anyone is not what he was, and is what he was not, thus he dies and arises;” dies to what he was, arises to be something otherwise.

“Increase evidences a beginning; decrease, death and destruction. And, therefore, Malachi says, ‘I am God, and I change not,’ ever retaining His own state of being; because what has no origin cannot be changed.”

So the Psalmist says (Psalms 102:27), “As a vesture, Thou shalt change them and they shall be changed, but Thou art the Same, and Thy years shall not fail;” and Balaam, controlled by God (Numbers 23:19), “God is not a man, that He should lie, or the son of man, that He should repent;” and it is written (James 1:17), “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

Of this unchangeableness of God, His holy ones partake, insofar as they fix themselves on God.

“The soul of man hangs upon Him, by whom it was made. And because it was made, to desire God Alone, but everything which it desires below is less than He, rightly that does not suffice it, which is not God. Hence it is that the soul is scattered here and there, and is repelled from everything, toward which it is borne, through satiety of them.

“But holy men guard themselves by cautious observation, lest they should be relaxed from their intentness by change, and because they desire to be the same, wisely bind themselves to the thought by which they love God. For in the contemplation of the Creator, they will receive this, that they should ever enjoy one stability of mind. No changeableness then dissipates them, because their thought ever perseveres, free from unlikeness to itself. This therefore they now imitate, striving with effort, which in the future they shall with joy receive as a gift.”

To which unchangeableness the prophet had bound himself by the power of love, when he said (Psalms 27:4), “One thing I required of the Lord, which I will require, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord.” To this unity Paul clung intently, when he said (Philippians 3:13–14): “One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and stretching forth to those things which are before, I press forward toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

And you sons of Jacob are not consumed—Man would often have become weary of man’s wickedness and waywardness. We are impatient at one another, readily despair of one another. God might justly have cast off them and us; but He changes not. He abides by the covenant which He made with their fathers; He consumed them not; but with His own unchangeable love awaited their repentance. Our hope is not in ourselves, but in God.