Malachi Chapter 2:1-16/Commentary

Malachi Chapter 2:1-16

2:1 “And now, this commandment is for you, O priests” Because of their disrespectful attitude the priests merited punishment from the Lord. The threat or announcement of judgment is called a “commandment” because God ordained it and issued orders for its execution. God holds leaders among His people responsible for seeing that His nature and His truth are respected. Any attempt to persuade the elders, deacons, teachers or the preacher to water down the message, is an attempt to bring them into condemnation (Hebrews 13:17; 2 Timothy 4:2-4). Love for the souls of those who lead God’s people is manifested by encouraging them to preach and support sound doctrine.

2:2 “If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to give honor to My name”: Here is choice. Such priests were not predestined to obey and neither were they predestined to rebel. How they were to honor Him is clear from the ways they had failed Him (1:6-14). Honoring would include rejecting all blemished sacrifices, insisting that the people only give the best, and appreciating the role that God had given them. Do we give honor to God’s name? Our purpose as Christians is to glorify Him (Matthew 5:16; 1 Peter 2:910). Is God honored by our lives or is God ridiculed?

2:2 “Then I will send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings”: Failure to honor God and change their ways would result in their experiencing a curse (hardships). The Law contained many curses for those who disobeyed God (Deut. 27:15-26; 28:15-68). These curses were concerned with the people’s physical, mental, spiritual, and material welfare. God said He would curse “your blessings”, which may refer to blessings such as their income from the people’s tithes and offerings. It may refer to each individual blessing, or all the things that would be considered blessings (i.e., health, family, prosperity, etc).

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2:2 “And indeed, I have cursed them already, because you are not taking it to heart”: The curse had already begun to work. God is longsuffering, but that doesn’t mean that we have all sorts of second chances. God expected swift and immediate repentance (Acts 8:20-22).

2:3 “Behold, I am going to rebuke your offspring”: The Hebrew word rendered “offspring” means either “grain” or “descendants”. Some feel that this is a curse on the grain and that God was hitting these selfish priests where they were most vulnerable, in the belly. In view of the covenant mentioned in verse 4, this could be a threat to cut off unfaithful priestly families. Priests who do not repent will not have any descendants who are priests.

2:3 “I will spread refuse on your faces”: The “refuse” is the undigested food and stomach juices in the sacrificial animal. This would render the priests unclean and unfit for service. Some take this clause to be figurative for the contempt that the priests would come to have in the eyes of the people. This could be another way of saying that God would remove them from His service.

2:3 “The refuse of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it”: Observe that God calls the “feasts”, “your feasts”, for at the present, such feasts did not honor Him. There are religious celebrations that God does not claim nor endorse. According to the Law the dung of sacrifices was to be burned without the camp (Exodus 29:14). Thus, disobedient priests will be swept away in God’s judgment.

2:4 “Then you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant my continue with Levi, says the Lord of hosts” The carrying out of this threat will stand as proof that God spoke through Malachi and that this wasn’t just an idle threat. The priesthood was not an institution, which they were free to twist and bend according to their own whims (people need to learn this lesson concerning the New Testament church as well).

God had made a specific covenant with the tribe of Levi; therefore, to pervert this covenant would be to dishonor God. Secondly, the removal of unfaithful priests was God’s way of seeing that this covenant did continue with the tribe of Levi.

God is able to weed out unfaithful priests, just as He is able to weed out spots and blemishes among God’s people today. Covenant with Levi is found in such passages as Numbers 18:7-21.

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2:5 “My covenant with him was one of life and peace”: Levi stands in this verse for the whole priestly class. God had said to Phinehas, “Behold, I give him my covenant of peace” (Numbers 25:12). “Moses summarized the responsibility of Levi to keep the covenant, teach the law, observe the sacrifices, and bless in and by their faithfulness (Deut. 33:8-11)” (Hailey p. 413). God had intended for the priesthood to bless the nation, and bring spiritual life and peace to the people through teaching, instruction, example, and sacrifices which would maintain their relationship with God so that He could bless them. Do we forget that the New Covenant offers us life and peace? (1 Peter 3:10ff) Are we trying to find “life” and “peace” in something other than Christianity?

2:5 “And I gave them to him as an object of reverence; so he revered Me, and stood in awe of My name” Here is a good description of a faithful priest. A faithful priest is one who stands in awe, not of himself or men, but of God, and one who is impressed more by God than anything else. Do we stand in awe of God? Here is also a good description of worship which is in spirit and truth. “Malachi is suggesting that those original priests took their responsibilities seriously and carried out their functions reverently” (Smith p. 634). “I gave them”, “them” probably refers to the blessings of life and peace. The very thought of losing such blessings and such a high honor will spark respect for God in faithful priests. Do we appreciate our blessings?

2:6 “True instruction was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found on his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many back from iniquity” “They taught not their own views, human theories, and speculations, but the infallible, invariable truth the Lord had revealed in His Word. This they taught without addition or diminution, without fear or favor. They were reliable, trustworthy witnesses of God’s will” (Laetsch p. 522). They had found security in being faithful to God’s will, they were at peace because they knew they were doing the right thing, and as a result they brought people back from destruction.

Let us remember that we can’t save anyone, unless we are speaking the truth (Romans 1:16). The real test of success is not how many people a congregation draws, but how many are actually saved. “They were not to twist the law to fit their own fancies. Their legal decisions were to be made without prejudice” (Smith p. 634). Compare to 1 Timothy 5:21.

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2:7 “For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts” Consider the word “preserve”. The same command is given to preachers to “preach the word” (2 Timothy 4:2), and hand down the truth without blemish to the next generation (2 Tim. 2:2). Do we feel the responsibility of “preserving” the right view of God, the Scriptures, and all other Biblical doctrines? God expected the priests to be able to answer questions about spiritual things; the people should be able to find the answers they need from him. How sad when a preacher will refuse to tell anyone what they believe about a particular Bible subject, even sadder, when he will refuse to instruct people about a Bible subject.

Only here are the priests are “messengers” of God. Preachers need to feel the responsibility of accurately instructing people in the Word of God (2 Tim. 2:15; 1 Peter 4:11), and in being a dependable and faithful messenger (2 Tim. 4:2).

2:8 "But as for you, you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by the instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi," says the LORD of hosts” God did hold priests in the Old Testament responsible for not teaching the truth.

“By their example and teaching they had made the law a stumbling block, causing many to disregard and disobey it” (Smith p. 635). Observe the trend, that the people became like their leaders. If the priests did not manifest faith in the Word of God and respect for its authority, then neither did the people. Laxity in applying the Law of God will naturally lead to contempt of the Law, to everbolder transgressions and ever wider spread of illegal practices. People do not become mature and spiritual Christians by watering down the truth.

2:9 “So I also have made you despised and abased before all the people, just as you are not keeping My ways, but are showing partiality in the instruction” Partiality in applying truth is always a temptation even among God’s people.

Today people are tempted to ignore Jesus’ teachings on church discipline (Matthew 18:15), morality, or marriage and divorce for the sake of some friend or family member. Let us remember that God expects us to apply His truth without partiality. Be impressed that, people do not respect a leader who waters down the truth.

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2:10 "Do we not all have one father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously each against his brother so as to profane the covenant of our fathers?”

“Do we not all have one father?”: This does not teach that everyone is a child of God by mere birth. Rather, God was the father of Israel, and every Israelite should have seen themselves as part of one family, which meant that their Israelite wives were fellow-citizens and joint-heirs of the grace of life (1 Peter 3:7).

The treachery in this context, is divorcing a Jewish wife and marrying a pagan woman (2:11,14). “If Malachi had regarded all mankind as children of the universal Father, he certainly would not and could not have used this universal brotherhood as an argument against the marriage of Jews to heathen women” (Laetsch p. 524). The “creation” under consideration in the above verse, is when God “created” the Israelite nation as His distinctive people (Exodus 19:5-6; 24:8).

Such marriage would profane the covenant, for the covenant condemned them (Deut. 7:1-4).

2:11 "Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD which He loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god” From other passages we learn that intermarriage with heathen women was a big problem after the Captivity (Ezra 9; Nehemiah 13:23-29). The expression, “daughter of a foreign god”, refers to a woman who is an idolatress, the worshipper of a heathen deity. Intermarriage with idol worshippers was specifically forbidden in the covenant (Exodus 34:16).

“Profaned the sanctuary”: Either priests had actually married such women, priests who worked in the temple, or these women had actually been used in temple worship. God doesn’t call such marriages merely an unwise move, rather, they were an abomination, treachery, and were profaning the temple. What man tries to downplay, God views as a big deal. Let us be careful that we don’t downplay the evil influence that an unbeliever can have on a child of God. 2:12 "As for the man who does this, may the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob everyone who awakes and answers, or who presents an offering to the LORD of hosts”

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God here pronounces a curse upon anyone who would marry an idol worshipper. To be cut off from the tents of Jacob would either mean that the man would die or that his line would cease and he would have no descendants in Israel. The expression, “every one who awakes and answers”, “is probably a military phrase derived from the challenge of sentinels and the answer thereto.

In time the phrase became a proverbial expression denoting all the inhabitants of a city” (Smith p. 637). Men who did this would be cut off, even if they continued to worship God! No amount of sacrifice could make up for continued defiance in this area. ”One is shocked to read that despite the abomination such a person committed, he still brought offerings to seek the Lord’s favor” (Bible Knowledge Comm. p. 1581). Yet, nothing has changed. Today people divorce and remarry without Scriptural cause, and then expect the congregation, among whom such crimes were committed, to embrace them.

So what if a man had already married an idol worshipper? What did repentance require? Could he ask for forgiveness, say he was really sorry, promise to never do it again, and yet keep such a woman? God made it clear, repentance required the sundering of such relationships (Ezra 10:11).

2:13 "And this is another thing you do: you cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and with groaning, because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand” The weeping and groaning that these men had caused, may have been the tears of the Hebrew wives that they had divorced in order to marry pagan women.

That is, the tears of these rejected wives stood as a barrier between them and God (1 Peter 3:7). Or, these may have been the tears of men who had married pagan women, men who were asking for God’s favor, but God rejected such tears because these men were refusing to get rid of these wives. They were weeping and groaning and beseeching God’s mercy, while at the same time keeping these pagan women. The real test of repentance is whether or not the sin has been renounced and forsaken! Good acting doesn’t fool God.

2: 14"Yet you say, 'For what reason?' Because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant”

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‘For what reason?’: Once again the people manifest a hard heart by complaining, “We just can’t understand why God is displeased with us?” Or, “What’s the big deal? We said we are sorry.” “The guilty men denied any responsibility for the agonizing wailing at the altar” (Smith p. 638).

“The Lord has been a witness”: God has seen everything! God heard the vows and promises that these Jewish men had made to Jewish wives, the wives of their youth. Against such women these men had dealt “treacherously”. That is, such men had played the traitor, and put such wives away in favor of pagan women. 

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Is there any better word for an unscriptural divorce than “treachery”? To give your solemn oath to a woman and then leave her is the ultimate human betrayal. It is nothing more than being a bold-faced liar.

Such women were their companions (remember Genesis 2:18)? We even see more treachery when we realize the true meaning of marriage, an intimate relationship, the closest human relationship on the face of the earth. By using the word “companion”, God is inferring that His instructions in Genesis are still binding! Jesus made the same point (Matthew 19:4,8). “He has done this even though she is his ‘companion’, who has shared not only his joys, but helped him to bear his sorrows.

Added to all this, this Jewish wife was a fellow-believer, a member of the same covenant, and a sister in the same family. To divorce a fellowbeliever without any Scriptural cause, and to marry some pagan, is treachery indeed! In addition, the marriage relationship is a covenant, a solemn agreement between a man, woman, and God (Matthew 19:5-6).

2:15 "But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? Take heed then, to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth” “Remnant of the Spirit”: That is, no man who is truly spiritual would ever do such a thing. An unscriptural divorce is not an accident, rather, only someone hard-hearted, defiant, and unspiritual could ever do such a thing. To this Jesus agreed (Matthew 19:7-8).

“What did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring”: “Anyone desiring to have a godly or holy posterity, which God desires, would not have put away his Hebrew wife and married a heathen woman” (Hailey p. 417). This 7

is something that people forget about today as well. When you marry someone, remember, this person will have a tremendous influence upon your children and descendants! In addition, in view of how sinful divorces destroy the lives of children, anyone who really loves the souls of their children will never put away their mate for an unscriptural cause. Some say that the expression, “that one” applies to Abraham-- and that the Jews here were trying to argue that since Abraham married a foreign woman (Hagar), that they had the right to do the same. Yet, God rejected Hagar and her son as the “godly offspring”.

“Take heed then, to your spirit”: That is, their soul was not right with God! If this were not corrected, they would end up eternally condemned. In addition, trying to cover this up was the manifestation of a hard heart and a spirit that wasn’t pursuing God, but rather self.

“The wife of your youth”: Even after they divorced their Hebrew wives, such a woman was still the “wife of your youth”, and these men were still married to these women! (Romans 7:2-3) Consider the statement, “of your youth”. How many people try to justify a divorce on the basis of, “we married too young?”

Or, “we have grown apart”? God doesn’t buy these excuses. The truth of the matter is that the man who claims, “We have grown apart” has grown apart from God—and not just his wife. Time doesn’t change our commitments! God holds us responsible for vows that we have made in our youth.

2:16 "For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong," says the LORD of hosts. "So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously” God considers any unscriptural divorce to be treachery and “wrong/violence”.

“His divorce is like a filthy spot on is garment, his cloak, his reputation, stigmatizing him as guilty of violence, atrocious wickedness, outrageous criminality, a sin which brought on the Deluge (Genesis 6:11,13)” (Laetsch p. 530).

“The idea here is that divorce is like a filthy spot on a man’s garment, on his reputation, his life” (Smith p. 640).

God always tells us the truth, while the world tries to whitewash the true effects of divorce, God calls it what it is. It is violence. It destroys men, women and children. It destroys a man’s spiritual life and his relationship with God. Take a

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peek into modern divorce courts and you will discover that the word “violence” is none too strong.

The statement “I hate divorce” teaches us: 1. That God never approved of divorce for any cause, and hence Deut. 24:1-4 cannot be used to teach that God at one time approved of divorces for all sorts of causes. 2. God hates unscriptural divorces, yet commanded people to get out of unscriptural marriages (Ezra 10:11). Divorce for the sake of getting out of a sinful marriage is not something God hates, but rather that He commands.

Concluding Note

Chapter 2:17 will be included with the notes on chapter 3.

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