I will even send a curse; Revised Version, then will I send the curse. St. Jerome, regarding the temporal effect of the curse, translates, egestatem "scarcity" (comp. Deuteronomy 27:15-26; Deuteronomy 28:15, etc.
). I will curse your blessings. The blessings which as priests they had to pronounce upon the people (Le 9:22, 23; Numbers 6:23-27). These God would not ratify, but would turn them into curses, and thus punish the people who connived at and imitated the iniquities of the priests.
Or the expression may refer to the material benefits promised by God to the Israelites on their obedience. But as the announcement is made specially to the priests, this explanation seems less probable.
I have cursed them already. The curse has already begun to work. Dr. S. Cox ('Bible Educator,' 3.67, etc.) points out here an allusion to Nehemiah 13:1, Nehemiah 13:2, wherein it is recorded that they reed from the Book of Moses how that the Moabites "hired Balsam against them that he should curse them; howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing."
Malachi, who, as he thinks, was present on this occasion, may have been deeply impressed by these words; and it is probable that we hear an echo of them in the threat of verse 2. "That of old God had turned a curse into a blessing, may have suggested the menace that he would now turn a blessing into a curse."