Malachi 1:7

"Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar. And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of Jehovah is contemptible."

"Polluted bread upon mine altar ..." The word "bread" here is a reference to the bloody sacrifices of the Mosaic law, and not to "bread" as ordinarily used. "The offerings of Jehovah made by fire, the bread of their God" (Leviticus 21:6), and "My bread, the fat and the blood" (Ezekiel 44:7), as cited by Hailey, indicate clearly that the "table of Jehovah" is the altar, a fact also inherent in the words of this first clause.

"The table of Jehovah ..." suggests "The Lord's table" of the New Testament. "This expression is used only by Malachi in the Old Testament, though the idea is present in Psalms 23:5, and Ezekiel 44:16."[24] Note than an offense committed against the Lord's table was an offense against God Himself. "Wherein have we polluted thee?" The touching of anything unclean made the one who touched unclean; and the wicked priests at once applied the principle by their denial that they had polluted God. In a figure, of course, they had; and the New Testament applications of this principle are startling. Infidelity at the Lord's table is actually called an insult against the Holy Spirit, "One who hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing ... hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace" (Hebrews 10:29).

If those ancient priests offended God by their lack of respect for the necessity of the proper offerings upon the Lord's table in their generation, how much more serious is the offense in our own day when Christians despise their obligations with reference to the Lord's table in his kingdom!