Albert Barnes Commentary Malachi 3:9

"Ye are cursed with the curse; for ye rob me, even this whole nation." — Malachi 3:9 (ASV)

You have been cursed with the curse - (not “with a curse”). The curse threatened had come upon them; but, as presupposed in Leviticus by the repeated burden, If you still walk contrary to Me, they had persevered in evil.

God had already shown His displeasure. Yet they, so far from being reformed by it, were all the more hardened in their sin.

Perhaps as people do, they pleaded their punishment as a reason why they should not reform. They defrauded God under false pretenses.

They claimed that because they were impoverished by His curse, they could not afford to pay the tithes—just as people say, “The times are bad, so we cannot help Christ’s poor.”

The charge from God was direct: And Me you still are defrauding—Me, you; man, God. And this applied not merely to one or another, but to this whole people.

It was a retribution for that in which they had offended.

“Because you have not given tithes and first-fruits, therefore you are cursed with famine and poverty.” “Because the people did not give tithes and first-fruits to the Levites, the Lord says that He Himself suffered fraud, whose ministers, constrained by hunger and poverty, deserted the temple. For, if He is visited by others in prison, and when sick, is received and cared for, and, when hungry and thirsty, receives food and drink, why should He not receive tithes in His ministers, and, if they are not given, be Himself deprived of His portion?”