Malachi 2:17

"Ye have wearied Jehovah with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? In that ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of Jehovah, and he delighteth in them; or where is the God of justice?"

Malachi concluded the argument and commandment against divorce in Malachi 2:16, and in this he takes up a new subject. It is the old problem of the prosperity of the wicked. Where is the justice of God? when the wicked prosper and the righteous are having a hard time of it ?

"Ye have wearied Jehovah with your words ..." God is displeased with all complainers against his justice. The eternal fairness and justice of God must be held as axiomatic. Questioning the goodness or righteousness of God distinguishes the questioner as having an evil heart. Souls born into an evil world as members of a race of men already launched on a full-speed-ahead rebellion against the Creator do not have the right to expect that things will be a bed of roses for those who love God. Quite the opposite is assured. A critical and peevish attitude toward God is the surest indication that the possessor of it is in sympathy with the rebellious, not with God. No wonder such complaints wearied God!

Deane explained the attitude of Jews in Malachi's day as the following query: "Why does not God perform his promise to Israel, and execute vengeance on the enemy?"[33] "The people were cynical and had stopped taking right and wrong seriously. Practically, if not theoretically, they doubted the justice of God."[34] Hailey was correct in seeing this condition "in the large majority who had lost their faith in God";[35] but a minority, called the remnant, were true to God; and they will be mentioned in Malachi 3:16. Under Malachi 3:6, below, a fuller discussion of why the Lord allows the wicked to prosper will be included.