MALACHI – CHAPTER 2

MESSAGE TO THE PRIESTS, CONT.,

Verses 1-9:

Priests Further Reprimanded

Verse 1 is a direct address from the Lord, to the priests, an address of grave judgment warning, to be respected by the priestly leaders of the restored remnant of the nation of Israel, Mal 4:4. For “if the blind lead the blind,” both fall into the ditch. Ministers cannot sin or suffer alone. They drag others down with them, if they fall, Mat 15:14; Luk 6:39.

Verse 2 warns that a Divine curse will be sent upon the priests if they will not “to hear” or to give glory to the name of the Lord. The curse is pronounced upon their blessings; Even physical prosperity will be taken away, their very livelihood, as forewarned Deu 27:15-26; Deu 28:3-35; Psa 106:15.

Verse 3 further warns the priests that for their willful disobedience to the Lord He will corrupt their seed; cause it to rot in the field, or mould in the bag, to their hurt, Joe 1:17; Hag 1:11. He would cause the dung in the maw of the sacrifice to be spread on their faces, as a sign of shame. You will get the dung, instead of the maw for your pay, wherever you go, Deu 18:3; 1Ki 14:10; Jer 16:4; Jer 22:19; Exo 29:14; Lev 16:27.

Verse 4 advised the priests that in judgment they will be made to realize, recognize, or acknowledge that the Lord had sent His commandment to them, that His covenant might exist with Levi. By bitter experience they would come to know this, Num 25:11-13.

Verse 5 asserts that the Lord gave to Levi and his tribe the covenant of life and peace, because of Levi’s reverential fear of Him, for His name’s sake, Num 23:12; Deu 33:8; Isa 8:12-13. His was a covenant of an “everlasting priesthood,” which Levi of old had respected. The keeping of the law of the Lord is (exists as) life and peace; For obedience to it has its own rewards, Psa 19:11.

Verse 6 reports that in ancient days of Levi, or his priesthood, he was true to God in teaching the people the law of the Lord and walking according to it themselves, as expounders of the Law, Deu 17:8-9; Deu 19:17. He walked in equity and did, in such, turn many from iniquity or lawless ways, Jer 2:23; Dan 12:3; Luk 1:16-17; Jas 5:10. Levi did not walk in crooked ways in olden days and God blessed him.

Verse 7 concluded that the priest’s lips should keep or guard, safeguard, knowledge of the law, of its positive and negative precepts, and of its doctrines, Lev 10:10-11; Deu 24:8; Jer 18:18; Hag 2:11. And the people should seek to understand and to obey the law at his direction, and interpretation, as he obeyed God, Hag 1:13. Even as the pastors or overseers of the seven churches of Asia are called as “Ambassadors” or “messengers”, Gal 4:14; 1Th 4:8; Revelation ch. 2, 3.

Verse 8 reminds the priests of that day, v. 1, that they had departed or gone aside, apostatized out of the way of the Law of the Lord of hosts. They have caused many to stumble, scandalously be offended, and go astray from God and His law, 1Sa 2:17; Jer 18:15; Mat 18:6; Luk 17:1. They are charged with personally corrupting the covenant of Levi, of their own office; They had used it as a license for sin, Zec 11:10. They had defiled the priesthood of the Lord.

Verse 9 further concludes that the Lord has made, or caused the priesthood to be, despised as base and contemptible to both the masses of Israel and to the heathen. It was because they had been carnally covetous and partial in their ministration of the religious phase of the law that was committed to them, Lev 15:15; Jas 4:17. They had respected the faces or persons of some while abusing the faces or persons of others, a contemptible thing. See also 1Ti 5:21; Jas 2:4; Jas 3:17.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

Though the priests did not sin alone, yet it is not without reason, as we have said, that they were regarded as the first in wickedness; for it was their office to correct what the people did amiss. Their dissimulation had the effect of encouraging the common people to sin: hence the Prophet accuses them especially as the authors of impiety; and this is what the words intimate, if they are rightly considered.

To you, he says, O priests. They might have indeed exonerated themselves, or at least transferred a part of their guilt to others: “Oh! what can we do? for we see that the people are growing cold in God’s worship; it is better that imperfect sacrifices should be offered than none at all.” As then they might by evasion have somewhat extenuated their guilt, the Prophet the more sharply reproves them and says, To you especially is addressed this command, as they ought to have shown to others the right way; for when they dissembled, their connivance was nothing else but a consent; and thus they divested the people of God’s fear, and allowed them to corrupt the whole of religion by offering spurious sacrifices. To you then, he says, that is, “Though the whole people is guilty before God, think not that ye are on this account excused; for it behoves you to check this wickedness, for God has set you over the people as their teachers and guides: as then ye have neglected your duty, whatever others have done amiss, falls justly on your heads. For how has it happened that the people have dared to proceed so far in impiety? even because you have no concern for religion; for God has promoted you to the priesthood for this end — to preserve in integrity the worship of his name; but ye know of all the prevailing profanations, and ye hold your peace: To you then is this command. ”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

MALACHIOR A MINOR PROPHETS MESSAGE TO MODERN BELIEVERS

Mal 1:1 to Mal 4:6.

IN discussing the Book of Malachi, I do not propose to give special time to the two subjects which students of this Book have made the occasion of much dispute, namely, the authorship, and the time of its origin. Suffice it to say that the so-called advanced critics, with a few notable exceptions, believe that no such person as Malachi lived, that the volume is anonymous, and the name came from the words, Behold, I will send My messenger where mal-akhi was the term chosen at a later time for the title. While the more conservative students, with a few exceptions, believe that Malachi was not only the name of a Prophet, but also of that Prophet who gave the world this Book. And these latter fix the dates for his work as between 436 and 347 B. C. In passing, permit me to remark that I believe that Malachi was a man, the last of the Minor Prophets, Gods messenger indeed to Israel, and also to us; and that this volume was his message.

While it does not make mention of him, there are in the Book internal evidences that his ministry practically coincided with Nehemiahs administration. Dr. Angus, in his Bible Handbook calls attention to what a good student of this Prophet would see, namely, that the second Temple was now built, and the services of the altar, with the sacrifices and offerings were established. And the very evils which Nehemiah, in the thirteenth chapter of his volume, so vigorously condemns, Malachi excoriates. The definite purpose of the volume seems to be the correction of Israel who had lapsed into a practical infidelity, and whose continued forms and ceremonies were in flagrant violation alike of the letter and the spirit of Gods Law, and therefore an offense unto Him! This apostasy had so far proceeded that even the priests of the Temple were putrid, and the people polluted and polluting.

Gods Prophet would have sung his song in a minor key, but for the single circumstance that prophets are also seers; and, distant as was the day of the Lord from where Malachi stood, a vision of the same was yet vouchsafed him, and he finishes with a forthsetting of its beauty, and victory for its banners.

Now shall we search the Book and see what Malachi had to say, and how much of this minor Prophets message is applicable to moderns.

The volume opens with a discussion of

THE INFIDELITY OF ISRAEL

The burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.

I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast Thou loved us? (Mal 1:1-2).

That infidelity then expresses itself in the first instance by questioning Gods love. Yet ye say, Wherein hast Thou loved us? The remaining text to verse five included Gods answer and argument in proof of His demonstrated affection for them. He had made a distinction between Jacob and Esau and all His favors had gone to the former the father of this people; yea, to this people themselves, for were they not Israeli sons and daughters Israelites? It is bad enough when the unregenerate are infidel and in their folly say, There is no God. It is vastly worse when those who have once had a true knowledge of God turn away from the same. Hear Paul speak of the fate of such It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the Heavenly Gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame. I do not profess to understand the full meaning of these words of the Apostle, but I have found that when a man who has once counted himself a child of the King, becomes a scoffer, it is easier to win a thousand sinners to the Saviour than to convert him from the error of his way. There is something so unnatural in his infidelity; something so strange in his skepticism that neither reason nor revelation seem to reach his heart.

Have you not noticed that the greatest ingratitude is sometimes shown by those who have received the most signal favors? There is a man who was bankrupt and you went and stood at his side and gave him your sympathy, and freely offered your silver and gold; joined with him in his struggle and never left off until he was lifted up and prosperity came instead of poverty, and singing instead of sighing. And yet he soon forgot the favor and if one so much as makes mention of it he meets that mention with these questionsWherein did you ever love me? What did you ever do for me? What kindness did you ever show me? Such is the ingratitude born of the spirit of infidelity! And such is Israels state of mind when Malachi Gods messengerflashes the searchlight of newborn Scripture into her unbelieving bosom. But what man ever laid his fellow under such obligation as God has put every living soul? And yet they say, Wherein hast Thou loved us?

Again, that infidelity was evidenced in the transgression of Gods Law. He had said concerning the offerings,

All the firstling males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep.

Thou shalt eat it before the Lord thy God year by year in the place which the Lord shall choose, thou and thy household.

And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the Lord thy God (Deu 15:19-21).

But, despising that plain statement and the Name of Him who made it, He says,

Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar: and ye say, Wherein have we polluted Thee?

And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person?

Again, God had His Law concerning marriage. They were not to take a wife from strangers, nor to put one away save they had found some uncleanness in her. But here they have divorced the wives of their youth, against whom they had dealt treacherouslythe companions of covenant, whom God had made to be one with them; and taken unto themselves wives from the mixed nations round about, that they might gratify at once the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

When Israel was carried captive to Babylon some of the weakest and least favored of her fold were left in the land. Cut off from their fellows in the faith, widely scattered among the heathen, they soon accepted the adage of doing as the Romans about them, and amalgamated with the nations. They possessed much land, were well regarded socially, and really seemed a superior class to that Israel which was now recovered from the long captivity. And so Gods people saw an opportunity in such alliances to wealth and political influence, and defended the step by reminding themselves that these Samaritans were, after all, their forty-second cousins. The consequence was easy divorce, domestic disorder, and Divine offense.

It is perfectly apparent also from the text that the priests of the time had sanctioned and participated in these sins, and had attempted to supplant the spirit of service with mongrel ceremonies. It is little wonder that Malachi exposes this transgression! It is a true picture of ancient Israel; it is a clean-cut portrait of the modern church. We sometimes read from Genesis the words, The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose, to imagine that that speech is centuries old. And so it is,the old is often new. It is just what is being done todaythe sons of God are forming alliances with the daughters of men. The children of the church, while wearing the Name of Christ, are being unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And the mongrel society,in the church and out,silence every prophet who would dare speak against this agreeable and profitable arrangement. But let it be remembered that if the last John the Baptist was beheaded, the Book of God would remain, and every professed Christian man, and every professed Christian woman consorting with the world, or sending their children to do the same, must either leave it unstudied, or open it to read the condemnation of their conduct.

And yet again,the infidelity of Israel is expressed in that

They are withholding Gods offering. We learn in chapter one, verses seven and eight, that they brought the lame and sick instead of the firstlings of the flock, healthy and without blemish. We learn by referring to verses twelve to fourteen of this same chapter, that they even defended the practice by saying, The table of the Lord is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even His meat, is contemptible (Mal 1:12). And so the torn, and the lame, will suffice, while they kept back the male of the flock and offered in sacrifice a corrupt thing.

Beloved, here Gods minor Prophet presents again a message of which the so-called church of Christ stands in sore need. We may profess whatever faith we will, but we will never believe in our own profession, nor convince the world of our serious convictions while we treat the treasury of the Lord with neglect or contempt. The crucible for a good profession of faith is the contribution box. The man who is hunting for a church where no offering will be made, no sacrifice expected, or where, instead of giving the most, he may give the least to God, is hunting for an institution from which Gods Spirit has long since departed, and is himself controlled by an idea that crucifies Christ, who Being rich, yet for our sakes became poor, and sets up in His stead an image to covetousness.

Such was the infidelity of Israel! To question Gods love; to transgress Gods Law; to keep back Gods offering! The infidelity of this hour will repeat these processes! And its existence makes Malachis prophecy a reminder to the Church of our century.

Passing on in our study I call your attention to another fact, namely,

JUDGMENT IN NATURAL EFFECTS

It is painfully and yet extremely interesting to follow these lines of infidelity in Israel to see what fruits they bring forth. The Apostle Paul might have been thinking of the Minor Prophets message when he said, Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. You will see that the judgments made against Israel were according to natural law in the spiritual world.

His love was given to others. Seeing that they would not serve Him He said,

I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of Hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.

For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same My Name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My Name, and a pure offering: for My Name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts (Mal 1:10-11).

Beloved, is God to be blamed?

A few years since the newspapers narrated the history of a woman to whom one of our noblest presidents proffered his hand in marriage while they were yet young. She rejected it. He grieved over the refusal, and went his way to woo and win another. When the time came that this second choice shared with him the first place in the land, and his first love found herself without property or position, no one thought to complain against the great man.

I have sometimes wondered if the Jews of the world, scattered and persecuted as they are, were not patient in their sufferings because they knew that they were without a cause of complaint, having rejected God, whose first choice they were, to see the Gentiles come into the Fathers fellowship and enjoy the Divine favor of centuries.

Let us not be blind to parallelisms. History is repeating in substance the very suggestion of the above quoted text. The great denominations of the past have fallen from their favored heights; and humble, despised folk have been exalted above them.

There was a day when Romanism looked with contempt upon Luthers movement. The great hierarchy with its head beside the Tiber was confident that it was the chosen of the Lord. But its very conduct was so much akin to that of this Israel to whom Malachi delivers his message that God could not remain their Friend, but turned rather to Luther and his humble followers, and made His Name great among them.

There was a time when the established Church of England scorned the pretentions of John Wesley and the ragged crowd who walked in his wake.

But the infidelity of the Establishment contrasted the fidelity of the Wesleyans, and Ichabod was written for the Church of England, and the words, Arise, shine; for thy Light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee expressed at once Gods command and commendation of the plain Methodist brethren.

Beloved, do you know the biggest fear that finds a place in my heart today? It is that these denominations of ours that number now over millions, should be puffed up with pride and become Laodicean indeed,lukewarm in love, insane in selfesteem, saying, We are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing! Lost, except they repent and invite into their lives and labors Him who stands at the door and knocks, saying, If any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.

It is not a strange circumstance that the Christian Alliance movement, originating but a little more than fifteen years ago, should have enjoyed such a growth and proven itself such a world-missionary power. Gods love and Gods great power are alike the heritage of them that humble themselves before Him, and undertake for Him.

He expressed contempt for their ceremonies.

But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the Law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts.

Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept My ways, but have been partial in the Law (Mal 2:8-9).

Few things are more offensive to God, the Father, than ceremonies when they have no spirit of service in them. Before Malachis day the Lord had said by Isaiahs lips concerning this custom, This people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour Me, but have removed their heart far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men (Isa 29:13).

And Ezekiel had also declared And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as My people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness (Eze 33:31).

One of the most difficult things in the Christian life is to keep form from displacing affection; and ceremony from killing the spirit. It is so much easier to bend the knee than to bow the heart, and to say prayers than to pray; to sing songs than to make a joyful noise unto the Lord; and to look pious while the offering passes than to part with our substance. Did I say it was much easier? No! It only seems to be! It is much harder! The man whose religion troubles him most is the one whose true spirit amounts to the least. It is better to have none than not enough. The out and out unbelievers of Christs time never incited His criticism as did the pious pretenders.

In Dr. Piersons volume on Gordons dream, How Christ Came to Church he tells the story of an aged and venerable clergyman whose son had gone over to the extreme of Roman ritualism. The boy importuned the father to come and preach in his chapel of ease. He finally yielded, but startled the congregation by choosing as his text, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is a lunatick.

And then he proceeded to show the utter insanity of the modern methods which had robbed us of simplicity and given place to elaborate ceremonials. We may question the propriety of the fathers procedure, and yet, we cannot rid ourselves of the Saviours declaration concerning the ceremonials of His time, In vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

And yet again,

This judgment expresses itself in the failure of the fruits of earth. Mark you here, God is following natural law again. They withheld from Him, and shortly they had nothing to give. There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty (Pro 11:24).

Will a man rob God? Yes, and without knowing it rob himself at the same time by severing himself from the source of all good. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? He answers,

In tithes and offerings.

Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed Me, even this whole nation.

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine House, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of Hosts (Mal 3:8-11).

Beloved, I often wonder how much of our poverty is self-imposed? I often question whether the Church of Jesus Christ has not shorn herself by covetousness? And often have I wondered whether many of the deserts of earth would not long since have rejoiced and blossomed as the rose in fair fruitfulness, had men cheerfully contributed to every call of Him who is the Giver of every good and perfect gift.

David M. Torrey says, Having found God my Saviour, I thought I would try Him in temporal things, as I was out of business. The first day He allowed me to make 85. Then Mr. Torrey continues by telling how he went on tithing and God went on blessing, until thousands of dollars were poured into his lap.

The history of Wm. Colgate reads like a romance. His gifts were munificent, sacrificial; but Gods gifts to him were greater still, illustrating the words of Jesus, Give, and it shall be given unto you.

In the study of this Book I am profoundly impressed by a single verse in it, and believe it to contain a suggestion worthy definite notice, namely,

THE AFFECTION OF THE FAITHFUL

To me there are two beautiful touches in this Book of Malachi, aside from the bright prospect shown in the last chapter. One is the picture of an ideal priest, Mal 2:7,The priests lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the Law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts. The other is the verse referred to, and compasses the fellowship of the saints, Mal 3:16-17,Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His Name. And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.

It is a blessed fact that the Lord is never without true followers. No matter how many speak against Him there are those to speak for Him. When Elijah, in his dejection, supposed himself to be left alone of all Gods followers, he was corrected by the assertion of the Divine One, Yet I have left Me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. And you will find that when the time of the antichrist comes, and that enemy of our God rules in all the world, there will be knees that will not bow to him; hands and foreheads that will refuse his mark. In the day of Malachi, miserable as was the situation of Israel, there were some saints, and they spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it.

They must have received strength by exchange of sympathy. Did you ever try to picture what it surely meant to the early disciples of Jesus at the time when they were enduring cruel mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonments; when they were sawn asunder, tempted and slain; when they wandered about in sheepskins and were destitute, afflicted and tormented, living in deserts and in caves of the earth? What strength they got from speaking often one to another; from exchange of sympathy! It is difficult to serve God alone. The very desolation of it incites despair. But to meet with kindred spirits and listen to their story of suffering or recitations of victory, and to know that they have learned the fellowship of Christs suffering! Ah, who is not made strong by that exchange?

If you have a friend worth loving

Love him,yes, and let him know

That you love him, ere lifes evening

Tinge his brow with sunset glow.

Why should good words neer be said

Of a friend till he is dead?

If you see the hot tears falling,

Falling from a brothers eyes,

Share themand thus by the sharing

Own your kinship with the skies.

Why should any one be glad

When a brothers heart is sad?

Courage also would come out of this conference of believers. Do you not suppose that is why Jesus commissioned His disciples to go out two by two? Have you not had hours when your heart sank within you; when you felt baffled, defeated; when you said, I am undone! when the coming of some Christian friend, and the converse that followed, filled you with fresh spirit, and caused you to stand forth again, saying, I can, and, God helping me, I will? Where one can chase a thousand, two can put ten thousand to flight.

Here again in this verse,

The communion of the saints called the Lord into the company.

And the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a hook of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His Name.

And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels (Mal 3:16-17).

We have long been accustomed to the thought that when the knees of two were bowed together in prayer God was there to hearken to the petition and to grant the request according to His promise.

Have we also forgotten His pledge that where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them? Did it ever occur to you to ask why Jesus appeared to the two on the way to Eramaus? It was because of the subject which engaged them in conversation. And I do not believe that His saints ever assemble anywhere and talk of high and holy things, but there sitting in the midst of them, is the Saviour Himself, taking note of all that is said and standing ready, when we have finished our conversation, to reveal Himself as He did to the two in the way, and teach us truths that no mortal tongue could ever tell. I know not what the fellowship of the saints may have meant to others but to me it has been strength, and courage, and holy communion, and Divine instruction!

But to finish the study of this Book, let me call attention to the fourth lesson.

THE FUTURE OF FIRE AND FAVOR

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall bum as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall bum them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

But unto you that fear My Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts.

Remember ye the Law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse (Mal 4:1-6).

Fire is Gods symbol of separation. That is taught not alone in this passage where all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: torn up root and branch, and trodden like ashes under the feet of Gods children, but many other Scriptures suggest the same thought. In Daniel it was fire that slew those men that took up Shadrack, Meshach, and Abed-nego to cast them into the burning fiery furnace; but Gods servants it preserved instead, and they walked in it without hurt, attended by the Son of God Himself.

There is an interesting passage in Isa 33:13-15, illustrating this,

Hear, ye that are far off, what I have done; and, ye that are near, acknowledge My might.

The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?

He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.

And this illustration is not unnatural, it is the action of fire. When gold goes into fire it comes out refined, having lost nothing of its real value. When dross goes in it comes out a cinder. The very sun in the heavens is growth to the living trees, but destruction to the dead ones. When Jesus wanted to conclude His discourse of the end of the age, and declare the fate of infidel and faithful alike, He said to the latter, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, but to the former, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

But I will not dwell upon this imagery, with the Scripture extent of which you are familiar. It is a solemn warning against sin. And I hasten from the awful suggestion to remind you that,

Favor is Gods purpose and promise to them that fear Him.

But unto you that fear My Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall he ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts (Mal 4:2-3).

It is the Old Testament history; it is the New Testament teaching. When fire consumed Sodom, Lot was saved out of it only because he feared the Lord. When fallen Jericho was touched with a thousand flames, Rahab, the harlot, and hers, were preserved alive for the very same reason,she feared the Lord. As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. The fear of the Lord is not only the beginning of wisdom but the secret of Gods favor forevermore.

But the crowning blessing belongs here with the coming of the Son. It is when He arises with healing in His wings that we are to grow up as calves of the stall; that we are to tread down the wicked until they shall be as ashes under the soles of our feet. And before the day of the Lord He shall send Elijah, the Tishbite, And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Beloved, it is beautiful to me to see how though the Scripture conception of the end of the age is characterized by the supremacy of the antichrist, for a short time, that darkness will soon pass, as the hours of the night swiftly receive them, and, though with the rising of the Son of God,who is the Prophets Sun of Righteousness,the day of the Lord is on, and what a day it will be!

It has seemed to me that Joseph Parkers idea that this Scripture is a figure which signifies the inexpressible vigor of life, is justified by the whole text, Grow up as calves of the stall. Parker interprets by saying, Ye shall be sportive, ye shall realize the idea of youthfulness; you shall be vivacious, you shall not be old, cold, dead things; ye shall be as calves of the stall, full of life, leaping because of the very redundance of vitality. There is a hint here of spiritual enthusiasm. This is not an animal vivacity, it is a spiritual impulse and ambition; it is the new and deeper magnetism, it is the effect of being in touch with God.

But when one comes to believe, even this familiar language seems limited. Whose imagination can ascend with Prophet and Apostle to the heights of glory depicted for the day of the Lord, or sound the depths of its joy? All that one can do is to rejoice with the Prophet, and sing with the poet, the prayer:

Thou, glorious Sun of Righteousness,

On this day risen to set no more,

Shine on me now to heal, to bless,

With brighter beams than eer before.

Shine on, shine on, eternal Sun!

Pour richer floods of life and light,

Till that bright Sabbath be begun,

That glorious day which knows no night.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL NOTES.] The charge is still urged against the priests, who are warned if they do not reform they will be deprived of enjoyments, and made objects of shame.

Mal. 2:2. A] Lit. the curse denounced (Deu. 27:15-26). Have oursed] Lit. have cursed them severally. The curse has already begun in each one of their blessings. Blessings pronounced by the priests upon the people are intended, say Keil and others, and not tithes, revenues, and portions of sacrifices. The word may be taken generally.

Mal. 2:3. Corrupt] Lit. rebuke the seed] i.e. forbid its growth, and bring failure in crops (cf. Joe. 1:17; Hag. 1:11). Though priests did not cultivate land, yet they would suffer from dearth. Some give, rebuke the arm, i.e. dry up the strength, neutralize the duties performed by priests at the altar. Dung] of victims, which should be burned outside the camp (Exo. 29:14; Lev. 16:27), would be spread upon their faces; a sign of ignominy and contempt. One] Lit. they (indefinite) will carry you away to it (where it is deposited); and treat you as dung (1Ki. 14:10).

Mal. 2:4. Know] by experience, that this commandment] i.e. the decree to punish, shall henceforth be substituted for my covenant with Levi, or the priesthood. They forfeited the blessing, and turned the covenant of peace into woe. Better understand, that they were warned to take heed that the covenant] might continue with the priestly tribe as in the beginning, and not become null or void.

Mal. 2:5.] Nature of the covenant described. Life and peace] Nouns not in the genitive case. Peace is the sum of all the blessings requisite for well-being. Jehovah granted life and salvation to Levi, i.e. to the priesthood, for fear, viz. as the lever of the fear of God; and Levi, i.e. the priesthood of the olden time, responded to this Divine intention. He feared me [Keil]. Afraid] Often united to fear, expressing terror, which men are forbidden not to feel before men (Isa. 8:12-13) [Pusey].

HOMILETICS

PRIESTLY BLESSINGS TURNED INTO A CURSE.Mal. 2:1-5

The rebuke to the priests is followed by an admonition to hear the Word and reverence the name of God, lest he curse their blessings and dishonour their persons.

I. The nature of the curse upon the blessings. In whatever sense the curse may be taken, it is an awful judgment, a solemn warning to all.

1. Their own persons were cursed. I will even send a curse upon you. This was a reversal of the original promise for obedience, I will command my blessing upon you.

2. Their blessings were cursed. He does not say, I will send you curses instead of blessings, but I will make the blessings themselves a curse [Pusey]. (a) Spiritual blessings may be cursed; the ministry of the Word, and the means of grace; Sundays and sermons may be despised, increase the guilt and aggravate the condemnation of men. (b) Temporal blessings may be cursed. Corrupt your seed. Riches, children, and the very food we eat may do us no good. The curse from heaven may fall upon them. Let their table be made a snare before them, and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.

II. The reason for the curse upon the blessings.

1. They neglected the Word of God. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart. The Word was personal in appeal; this commandment is for you; and solemn in authority, yet they heeded not. The Word must not simply be heard, but pondered in the mind. Gods authority must be seen and felt in it. It is a matter of life or death, and must not be trifled with. Ye do not lay it to heart.

2. They despised the Name of God. Give glory unto my Name. Glory is due to God, and should be the aim of priestly and Christian conductthe rule of life for the house of Aaron and the house of Israel. But God is dishonoured by despising the ordinances of his house and living heedless of his Word. To the greater glory of God, was the motto of Ignatius Loyola.

III. The design of the curse upon the blessings. Ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you (Mal. 2:4.).

1. They were admonished to return to God. God desired to keep his covenant with them, and punishment was intended to reform them. This would they feel, and bitterly confess. God ever designs to make men happy, and keep them from misery.

2. They were admonished for the sake of others. God willed to punish those who at that time rebelled against him, that he might spare those who should come after them. He chastised the fathers, who showed their contempt towards him, that their sons, taking warning thereby, might not be cut off. He continues to say what the covenant was, which he willed to be if they would repent [Pusey]. Every warning given to men concerning their sins, is a proof of Gods mercy, and will convince them that their destruction results from their own ways. I have sent this commandment unto you.

FAILURE IN OFFICIAL DUTIES.Mal. 2:2-3

By cursing blessings, God means that he will render the instructions and efforts of the priests ineffective. When they raised the hand to bless, he would manifest displeasure. He would neutralize their duties performed at the altar [cf. Keil].

I. By rendering them incapable of official duties. He will rebuke their arm, i.e. dry up their powers, like the waters of the sea. The arm is the symbol of strength and active labour. From him that hath may be taken away what he hath, if abused. God can wither the force and fervour of ungodly ministers. Power is lost by continuance in office for which men are not qualified. Their prayers are sin, their knowledge hardens, and their arm shall be clean dried up.

II. By righteous punishment in discharging official duties. God threatens sore evils.

1. They would be treated with contempt. As they had despised him, so they would be repaid in ignominy and shamebe made as the refuse of their sacrifices.

2. They would be swept out of office. As mere cumber, and unworthy of the temple, One shall take them away with the dung. I will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till all are gone (1Ki. 14:10).

HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Mal. 2:2. Curse. Things which should bless, become an occasion of falling; to the proud, the things which lift them up; to the gluttonous, their abundance; to the avaricious, their wealth; which, if used to the glory of God, become blessings, do, when self, not God, is their end, by Gods dispensation and providence, become a curse to them [Pusey]. I have cursed them, Lit. it, i.e. each blessing. Hence

1. The minuteness of the curse.

2. The gradual operation of the curse. Cursed already; and will continue until you repent.

3. The insensibility under the curse. Ye do not lay to heart.

4. The severity of the curse. Curse blessings.

Whom oils and balsams kill, what salve can cure?

Mal. 2:5. The covenant.

1. Its blessings. Life and peace; i.e. of being and well-being; for all the blessings that make up human welfare, were summed up for the Hebrew in one wordpeace [Cox].

2. Its conditions. Forbear. Jews claimed its privileges, while neglecting its conditionsthought God would bless them, while they were free from obligations to obey him.
3. Its influence. He feared me, had great reverence, and was afraid; had profound and holy terror before me. He received the fear of God in his whole heart and soul. For these reduplications and emphases suggest to the hearer how rooted in virtue are those thus praised [Pusey]. It is better to fear too much than to presume but a little [Abp. Abbot]. Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself (venerate his glorious majesty), and let him be your fear (be not dismayed at man), and your dread (lest ye provoke him by distrust) (Isa. 8:13).

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2

Mal. 2:1-4. Curse blessings. Those who despise the upper springs of grace, shall find the nether springs of worldly comfort prove their poison. To the rejecters of Christ even those things which are calculated to work their spiritual and eternal good become occasions for yet greater sin. Wretched are those men who not only have a curse upon their common blessings, but also on their spiritual opportunities [Spurgeon].

Mal. 2:5. Fear. All fear but fear of heaven betrays guilt, and guilt is villany [Dr. Lee].

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

ISRAEL IS UNFAITHFUL . . .Mal. 1:6 to Mal. 2:9

RV . . . A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master; if then I am a father, whereis mine honor? and if I am a master, where is my fear? saith Jehovah of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? 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. And when ye offer the blind for sacrifice, it is no evil! and when ye offer the lame and sick, it is no evil! Present it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee? or will he accept thy person? saith Jehovah of hosts. And now, I pray you, entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious unto us; this hath been by your means: will he accept any of your persons? saith Jehovah of hosts. Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that ye might not kindle fire on mine altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the Gentiles, saith Jehovah of hosts. But ye profane it, in that ye say, The table of Jehovah is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even its food, is contemptible. Ye say also, Behold what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith Jehovah of hosts; and ye have brought that which was taken by violence, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye bring the offering; should I accept this at your hand? saith Jehovah. But cursed be the deceiver, who hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacarificeth unto the Lord a blemished thing; for I am a great King, saith Jehovah of hosts, and my name is terrible among the Gentiles. And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith Jehovah of hosts, then will I send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and ye shall be taken away with it. And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant may be with Levi, saith Jehovah of hosts. My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him that he might fear; and he feared me, and stood in awe of my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips; he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity. For the priests lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of hosts. But ye are turned aside out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble in the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith Jehovah of hosts. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have had respect of persons in the law.
LXX . . . A son honours his father, and a servant his master: if then I am a father, where is mine honour? and if I am a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord Almighty. Yet the priests are they that despise my name: yet ye said, Wherein have we despised thy name? In that ye bring to mine altar polluted bread; and ye said, Wherein have ye polluted it? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted, and that which was set thereon ye have despised. For if ye bring a blind victim for sacrifices, is it not evil? and if ye bring the lame or the sick, is it not evil? offer it now to thy ruler, and see if he will receive thee, if he will accept thy person, saith the Lord Almighty. And now intreat the face of your God, and make supplication to him. These things have been done by your hands; shall I accept you? saith the Lord Almighty. Because even among you the doors shall be shut, and one will not kindle the fire of mine altar for nothing, I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord Almighty, and I will not accept a sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down thereof my name has been glorified among the Gentiles; and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord Almighty. But ye profane it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted, and his meats set thereon are despised. And ye said, These services are troublesome: therefore I have utterly rejected them with scorn, saith the Lord Almighty: and ye brought in torn victims, and lame, and sick: if then ye should bring an offering, shall I accept them at your hands? saith the Lord Almighty. And cursed is the man who had the power, and possessed a male in his flock, and whose vow is upon him, and who sacrifices a corrupt thing to the Lord; for I am a great King, saith the Lord Almighty, and my name is glorious among the nations. And now, O priests, this commandment is to you. If ye will not hearken, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name, saith the Lord Almighty, then I will send forth the curse upon you, and I will bring a curse upon your blessing; yea, I will curse it, and I will scatter your blessing, and it shall not exist among you, because ye lay not this to heart. Behold, I turn my back upon you, and I will scatter dung upon your faces, the dung of your feasts, and I will carry you away at the same time. And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant might be with the sons of Levi, saith the Lord Almighty. My covenant of life and peace was with him, and I gave it him that he might reverently fear me, and that he might be awe-struck at my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked before me directing his way in peace, and he turned many from unrighteousness. For the priests lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty. But ye have turned aside from the way, and caused many to fail in following the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord Almighty. And I have made you despised and cast out among all the people, because ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.

COMMENTS

Gods love and faithfulness to His covenant people stands in stark contrast to their unfaithfulness to Him. They neither fear Him as a master nor honor Him as a father . . . and their priests are the chief offenders.
The severe reproof of the priests is a just one. They have profaned the holy things of God with which they were intrusted. It was their sin that was leading the people to be unfaithful.
They took His name in vain, not by pronouncing it in profanity, but by offering unacceptable sacrifices to him. They are accused of polluting the altar.
When they deny the charge, saying, Wherein have we polluted thee?, Jehovahs answer is In that ye say the table of Jehovah is contemptible.

The term bread of God is synonymous with sacrifices to God (Lev. 21:8), so we should not think here of the table of shewbread, but of the sacrificial flesh offered upon the altar.

The priests have declared the table of God contemptible by sanctioning the offering of skimpy and blemished sacrifices. The sacrificial animals Darius, and no doubt his successors had provided Israel as a vassal state were kept to replenish their own flocks and only the culls were brought to God.
Such cheap religion is less than worthless, it is an affront to God.

The law said such animals were not to be offered as sacrifice (cp. Lev. 22:17-25, Deu. 15:21) yet the priests addressed here saw no harm in it.

The governor appointed by the Gentile emperor would not eat the meat they offered to God, yet they presented it as an act of worship and said, it is not evil.

Their real error in offering blemished sacrifices lies in the fact that such animals could not do what the sacrifices were designed to do, namely, typlify the ultimate Sacrifice, without spot or blemish. (1Pe. 1:19) It was to keep this prophetic object lesson before the people that the temple had been rebuilt. It was to maintain this constant covenant reminder in the eyes of the people that the sacrifices must be made according to divine directive. A blemished animal could not possibly portend the coming Lamb of God, and without that portent the entire sacrificial system was meaningless.

The scathing irony of verse nine underscores this truth. Malachi challenges the unfaithful priests to try it, if they think such unacceptable sacrifices will win them the favor of God.
The entire passage draws a vivid contrast between mans religion and Gods sacrificial scheme of redemption. Men, in their religious efforts to curry Gods favor, always think of themselves as bringing Him something. The advent of the Christ, toward which the sacrificial system pointed, is the exact opposite. God was bringing the Real Sacrifice to man.
From the beginning God has not been served by mens hands as though He needed anything. (cp. Psa. 10:1-12, Act. 17:25) In demanding the presentation of the very best of Israels flocks to be slain upon the altar, God intended that they learn something of the price He would pay for our redemption when He offered the Choice Jewel of Heaven on Calvary. If He were to tolerate a lesser offering, the whole point of the sacrifices would be missed.

GOD DESPISES INFIDELITY . . .

(Mal. 1:10) Calvin points out that, in the temple, one priest was stationed at the doors of the court of burnt offerings for the express purpose of keeping out animals unfit for sacrifice. In this verse, God cries out in anguish for just one priest whose concern for Gods law would cause him to shut the door against such blemished sacrifices as were being offered daily. It would be better to let the fires go unkindled than to continue to desecrate the altar and mar the meaning of Gods covenant by offering animals unfit to depict the coming Real Sacrifice. Better none at all than these. (cp. Isa. 1:11-15)

Since no such priest stood at the door, God would Himself refuse to accept their sacrifices.

(Mal. 1:11) This verse is reminiscent of Pauls attitude toward those Jews who rejected the preaching of the Gospel. (Act. 13:46) God, Who lives in eternity and so is much less pre-occupied with time than we, treats the acceptance of His Sacrifice by the Gentiles as an already accomplished fact. He Who knows the end from the beginning is able of. the very stones to raise up children to Abraham (Mat. 3:9). Other sheep He has which are not of this fold (Joh. 10:16). For when the Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves . . . (Rom. 2:14) and God is glorified. His name is, in fact, great among the nations. (cp. Isa. 1:-11-15)

Sacrifice, in Mal. 1:11, is used figuratively as in Psa. 51:17, Heb. 13:10; Heb. 13:15-16 and 1Pe. 2:5; 1Pe. 2:12, but the truth is that in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him. (Act. 10:35)

(Mal. 1:12-13) Whereas the ineffable name of God is thus glorified among the nations who have not the law and are thus separated from the Messianic hope, foreigners in the commonwealth of Israel, oblivious of the promises of God and unaware of any hope as yet (Eph. 2:12), that same name is made a mockery among those who have for centuries been His covenant people.

They offer to God what they would not eat themselves, and even this is a drag, irksome service! Isaiah had informed their fathers that it was God Who is wearied by such service and not they. (Isa. 43:22 -f)

Meat taken by violence, i.e. torn by animals, was not even lawful for human consumption, yet they offered it to God. (cp. Exo. 22:31)

(Mal. 1:14) For deceiver here, read hypocrite. It was not poverty, as some pretended, which caused such niggardly sacrifices. It was greed which placed personal gain above Gods required service. They possessed a male, i.e. such as required by law sacrifice, yet they offered God blemished animals. (cp. Lev. 1:3-10) Even the Gentiles would be too fearful of God to do such things.

ESPECIALLY FOR PRIESTS . . .

(Mal. 2:1-2) Here begins a special decree for the priests of Israel who are the cause of Israels infidelity. Ministers, Moore points out, cannot sin or suffer alone. They drag down others if they fall. Thus does God, for the sake of His people, pronounce a curse on their unfaithful spiritual leaders. That which had been their special blessing as priests would become a curse.

(Mal. 2:3) The maw of the sacrificial victims was, on feast days, the special food of the priests. (Deu. 18:3) The stomach, or maw, was regarded as one of the choice delicacies. Instead of receiving this, God threatens to fling dung in their faces because of the defiled offerings from which it came.

By law, the dung of the sacrifices was to be carried outside the gate and disposed of. Because of the awful way the priests insulted God in the offering of blemished animals, they were to be carried with it.
Whether the threat to fling dung in their faces and to carry themselves to the dung heap is to be understood literally or not, it leaves little doubt as to how much God despises those who make a sham of His services. They are to be banished from His presence.

(Mal. 2:4) The reason for Gods rebuke of the priests is that the special priestly covenant which He had made with Levi, the priestly tribe, must be maintained.

(Mal. 2:5-9) Here Malachi describes the promises and conditions of the Levitical covenant, Levis former observance of this covenant, and the rewards of such observance. Over against these he sets the consequences of violating this covenant as these priests were doing.

Formerly, God had bestowed life and prosperity upon Levi (the priestly tribe). On him God laid the duty of reverence. In return the priests had revered God and respected His name. They had given true instructions to the people and had spoken no injustice. They had lived in accord with Him and in so doing had turned many people from sin to God. Men then stood in respect of the priests and sought to learn from them because they recognized in them Gods messengers.
The unfaithful priests of Malachis time, in contrast, have left off the righteous practices of their predecessors. Instead of leading many from sin to God, they have caused many to fall into sin. Whereas the former priests of Levi had taken their special relationship to God very much to heart, these have treated it as of no consequence.

As a result, God will make them despicable in the eyes of the people. Because of their sinful lives and unjust application of the law for favor (cp. Lev. 19:15) the people would no longer respect them as a special class and their special privileges would cease.

The principles underlying God’s denunciation of the priests through Malachi merit our attention. We, as Christians, are all priests of God (1Pe. 2:9). As such, we enjoy blessings those outside of Christ never dream of. We, too, are charged to offer sacrifices to God, holy and acceptable (Rom. 12:1-2). To do less is to make a mockery of His name before the world.

If we do not offer ourselves as holy and acceptable sacrifices to God, we may be assured that our relationship to Him will become a curse rather than a blessing. Un-Christian men will be able to point at us and say they have more fear of God than do we. We shall then be stumbling blocks, leading them deeper into sin rather than teaching them God’s truth, for they will not heed the words of priests whose lives do not match their doctrines.

Chapter XLIVQuestions

Denunciation of Unfaithfulness

1.

The prophet ______________ is considered by Jewish tradition as the seal of prophecy.

2.

The traditional Christian view is that Malachi is the bridge between the

_____________ and the _______________.

3.

Malachi probably wrote about _______________.B.C.

4.

Malachi means _______________.

5.

Malachis prophecy coincides with the _______________ period of Daniels seventy weeks.

6.

Malachis central concern is _______________.

7.

Discuss the corruption of the priesthood as addressed by Malachi and show its effect upon the people.

8.

Why does Malachi immediately precede the New Testament in our English versions of the Bible?

9.

Outline the book of Malachi.

10.

The next word from Jehovah to His people after Malachi would be spoken by _______________.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(1) Commandment.Better, decree. (Comp. the use of the verb from which this substantive is derived in Nah. 1:14; Psa. 7:6; Psa. 42:8.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

II.

(1-9) The decree against the priests.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

A curse pronounced upon the faithless priests, 1-9.

The condemnation of priests and people in Mal 1:6-14, is followed by the announcement of a curse upon the priests, who have proved disloyal to Jehovah and to their high calling.

Mal 2:1 is introductory, announcing to the priests that the succeeding oracle is intended in a special manner for them. The order of the words in the original makes the announcement more emphatic: “And now, this commandment is for you, O priests.”

And now Your guilt having been established.

O ye priests The message is addressed directly to the priests.

This commandment Includes the entire message contained in Mal 2:2-9. No command of any sort is found in these verses, not even an exhortation to repentance, though such exhortation is implied in Mal 2:2; hence the word cannot be understood in the narrow sense of commandment, but as meaning purpose or decree. The divine decree, shown by the succeeding verses to be one of destruction, is for the priests.

The case is put very clearly in Mal 2:2. Either they must give glory to the name of Jehovah or destruction will be their portion.

If ye will not hear That is, pay attention to the words of warning already spoken or to any that may yet be spoken.

Lay to heart The same message of warning; so as to profit by it.

Give glory unto my name As the result of laying the message to heart. How they may give glory to the name of Jehovah may be seen from Mal 1:6-14, by rendering to him the service which is his due. If they fail to reform, and reform quickly; disaster will overtake them.

I will even send a curse R.V., “then will I send the curse.” The article is emphatic; the curse threatened for such disobedience (compare Deu 27:15-26; Deu 28:15 ff.).

I will curse your blessings The blessings are not those “pronounced by the priests upon the people by virtue of their office,” which God will make ineffective or turn into the very opposite; nor are they the priestly income, the sacrificial portions belonging to the priests; but, in a more general sense, the blessings, favors, and privileges bestowed upon their order and tribe by Jehovah; from their honorable position he will reduce them and their posterity and make them “contemptible and base before all the people” (Mal 2:9). LXX. reads “your blessing” (singular), and since the pronoun in the next clause is in the singular in Hebrew, it (Eng. them), it is not improbable that LXX. has preserved the original.

I have cursed them already The curse has already been decided upon in the divine mind, because Jehovah knows their stubbornness. Some commentators consider the latter part of Mal 2:2, beginning, “I have cursed them already,” a later addition, because (1)

LXX. does not agree with the Hebrew text, (2) they think Mal 2:3 would make a better continuation of 2a. The arguments are inconclusive.

Mal 2:3 continues the threat.

I will corrupt Better, R.V., “rebuke,” and so destroy (compare Zec 3:2). Wellhausen changes the verb into “I will cut off” (see next comment).

Your seed LXX, and other ancient versions read, with a different vocalization, “thy arm,” which many commentators, even the conservative Keil, consider original, “because the priests did not practice agriculture.” Wellhausen and those who accept his emendation of the verb read the clause, “I will cut off thine arm.” Since the arm is used in the performance of priestly duties, Keil explains the expression to rebuke the arm as signifying “the neutralizing of the official duties performed at the altar and in the sanctuary”; that is, though they will continue their ministries, Jehovah will make them of no effect. However, if the reading of LXX. is accepted, the threat seems to imply more than a neutralizing of their ministrations; it means the rebuke (destruction) of the arm, so that they can no longer perform their unacceptable service; in other words, the withdrawal of their authority, office, and power. The testimony of LXX., and especially of the literal translation of Aquila, cannot be disregarded, and it is not impossible that these ancient versions have preserved the original; nevertheless, the Hebrew text, as it now stands, also gives a satisfactory sense. Certainly seed cannot be understood of the seed sown by the priests, which God will curse and thus cause a failure of the crops; little better is the suggestion of Pusey, that it is the seed sown by the people. “Since the tithes,” says he, “were assigned to them (the priests and Levites), the diminution of the harvest affected them.” But in the Old Testament seed is used very frequently in the sense of posterity, and this would give good sense here. The covenant with Levi (Mal 2:4-5; Mal 2:8) was to hold good also for his posterity, but the corruption of the present generation of priests had gone so far that the entire tribe deserved to be cut off; those who are priests now as well as their descendants will be affected by the curse.

Their own persons, which should be considered sacred, will receive the most shameful treatment.

Spread dung upon your faces A figure of the most ignominious treatment.

The dung of your solemn feasts For solemn feasts see on Hos 2:11. The dung is that which is left in the fore-courts by the animals used for sacrifice on the feast days. This dung was unclean, and was to be carried to an unclean place and burned (Exo 29:14; Lev 4:11; Lev 16:27). Marti and others consider these words as well as the last clause a later addition, and the text of the latter they consider hopelessly corrupt; Nowack does not even attempt a translation.

One shall take you away with it R. V., more idiomatically, “ye shall be taken away with it.” The obscurity of the clause can be seen best from the various interpretations given to the same even by those who express no doubts as to its originality. If the words are original, the following seems the most satisfactory interpretation: The Hebrew reads “unto it” (so margin), not “with it,” and this should be retained; unto it can refer only to the dung spoken of in the preceding clause. Not only will dung be cast into their faces, but they will be taken up bodily and cast upon the dung heaps; in the words of Hitzig, “Dung shall be cast upon them, and they on the dung.” Such treatment would be impossible while people looked upon the priests as mediators between them and God; it presupposes the dishonoring of the priests by Jehovah himself.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

ISRAEL’S NEGLECT OF JEHOVAH, Mal 1:6 to Mal 2:9.

Throughout the entire history of Israel Jehovah showed himself a loving father and kind master; this would seem to entitle him to the people’s gratitude and reverence, but they fail to give him his dues (Mal 1:6), as is clearly shown by the fact that they offer to Jehovah gifts which a human governor would reject with scorn (Mal 1:7-8). No wonder that Jehovah refuses to listen to their prayers (Mal 1:9). It would be far better to close the temple and extinguish the altar fires than to continue this sort of service (Mal 1:10). The service rendered to Jehovah among the nations is preferable to that of the Jews, for it is pure and generous, while that of the Jews is corrupt and heartless; the offerings are small, the sacrificial animals diseased and worthless, and the little they do give they give grudgingly (Mal 1:11-13). Cursed be everyone who dares to insult Jehovah in this manner (Mal 1:14). If the priests do not heed the warning and render unto Jehovah the service acceptable to him he will send his curse upon them, that they may understand his purpose to maintain the ancient covenant with Levi (Mal 2:1-4). According to this covenant Jehovah promised to Levi life and peace, while Levi promised to fear Jehovah. Both parties kept the covenant faithfully; Levi served God, and by his faithfulness turned many to righteousness (Mal 2:5-6). Similar conduct is expected of all his priests (Mal 2:7), but how far short of the ideal do they come (Mal 2:8)! Therefore disgrace and contempt will be their portion (Mal 2:9).

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Failures Of The Priesthood Which Are Reflected In The People ( Mal 1:6 to Mal 2:9 ).

Having declared His love for Israel God now brings out why that love might not have produced what His people expected. And the first reason that is given is the failure of the priesthood in the fulfilment of its responsibilities, especially in regard to the condition of the offerings and sacrifices that they offered. Instead of offering the best of what they produced they were offering the worst.

Mal 1:6

‘A son honours his father,

And a servant his master.

If then I am a father, where is mine honour?

And if I am a master, where is my fear?’

Says YHWH of hosts to you,

O priests, who despise my name.

And you say,

In what have we despised your name?

With the idea of His Fatherly love in mind God compares the way that a dutiful son honours his father, and a servant honours his master, to the way that the priests treat Him. Is He not their Father? Is He not their Master? Why then do they not honour and fear Him?

Indeed, He says, rather than honouring Him they demonstrate that they despise His Name, that is, they despise what He is as Father and Master and Lord. They are simply unaware of the greatness and glory of the One with whom they have to do. There is no doubt that this is also a very modern problem. It is so easy for even believers to treat God lightly. This then immediately raises the question in the priest’s mind. ‘In what have we despised your Name?’

This idea of God as the Father of Israel as a whole is a regular one in the Old Testament. See Exo 4:22; Deu 32:6; Isa 63:16; Isa 64:8; Jer 4:4; Jer 4:19. Jesus took this a step further by describing Him as the Father of each one who truly believes. But we must beware of assuming that because of this we can treat Him lightly. As God reminds us here. As our Father He expects to be treated with ‘Honour’, not as though He was a soft option.

Mal 1:7

‘You offer polluted food upon my altar.’

And you say, ‘In what have we polluted you?’

In that you say,

‘The table of YHWH is contemptible.’

God’s answer is that the fact that they despise His Name is revealed by how the priests are treating Him. This comes out firstly in that they continually offer ‘polluted food’ on His altar. This will later be defined in terms of the inadequate and defective condition of animals brought as offerings and sacrifices. But prior to this explanation the priests ask, ‘In what have we polluted You?’ Note the emphasis on ‘You’. They clearly recognise that if they have been offering defective sacrifices they are actually polluting YHWH Himself.

The answer is that by their actions they are saying that the Table of YHWH is only worthy of contempt. For by them they are demonstrating that they have nothing but contempt for the Table of YHWH. This may refer to the tables made available for the cutting up of the offerings prior to sacrifice, or it may refer to the brazen altar itself. It must be remembered that in most cases the priests partook of part of the sacrifice. Thus the sacrifices were food for the priests. Or the idea may be that symbolically the offering was seen as food available to God, something of which He ‘partook’ as a pleasing odour’ (Lev 3:16) when the offering was burned on the altar (see Lev 3:11; Lev 3:16).

Mal 1:8

‘And when you offer the blind for sacrifice,

It is no evil!

And when you offer the lame and sick,

It is no evil!

Present it now unto your governor,

Will he be pleased with you?

Or will he accept your person?

Says YHWH of hosts.’

He then explains precisely what He means. Instead of choosing out an unblemished offering they offer up one that is blind. And then they say, ‘It is no evil’. Or they offer up one that is lame or sick. And again they say, ‘It is no evil.’ It is difficult to believe that they did not realise what they were doing, for the Torah was quite clear about the need for sacrifices to be unblemished (Lev 22:20). But it may be that the priests were receiving only blind, lame and sick animals from the people in general (which would thus involve the people as a whole in the charge). Or it may be that somehow they had convinced themselves that it did not really matter, or they may even have used distorted measures of adequacy. Either way God was being insulted.

Indeed this is brought out by the argument that if they offered similar animals to the Governor he would certainly not be very pleased. Nor would it be acceptable to him. He would reject anyone who brought such a gift to him and refuse him audience, or even worse. How then could they expect God to be pleased, or find their offerings acceptable?

The word for ‘governor’ is an Akkadian loan word, and indicates that this was an official in the Persian empire.

Mal 1:9

‘And now, I pray you,

Entreat the favour of God (El),

That he may be gracious to us,

This has been by your means,

Will he accept any of your persons?

Says YHWH of hosts.’

Malachi now interjects (revealed by the ‘us’) and says sarcastically, ‘And now (in view of your attitude and of what you are) entreat the favour of God (El – the use of the singular is in order to bring out His mightiness), that He may be gracious to us.’ It was one of the main duties of the priests to be intercessors for the people at the daily prayers and at special feasts. But of what use, Malachi is saying, is the intercession of those who are rejected by God? How can we expect any response when using such intercessors? For in view of the offering of these unacceptable sacrifices (‘this has been by your means’) do they really think that the Almighty God will accept any of their persons, asks YHWH of hosts?

Mal 1:10

‘Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors,

That you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain!

I have no pleasure in you, says YHWH of hosts,

Nor will I accept an offering at your hand.

Indeed YHWH is so utterly displeased with their offerings and their behaviour, that He expresses a wish that someone would shut the door that leads into the outer court so that it might become impossible for them to offer sacrifices at all. For He wants them to know that when they kindle the fires of the altar they are wasting their time. He has no pleasure in them (they are totally unacceptable to Him) and under no circumstances will He accept an offering from their hands. In other words, He want the Sanctuary shut down.

The picture is a sad one. Here were the people of Israel, gathered and filled with admiration and awe as these ‘respected’ priests offered the offerings and sacrifices, and all the time it would be a sham, and would be totally unacceptable to God. It was not only a total waste of time, it was blasphemy. And it might well be that the people who had brought unacceptable offerings were equally responsible. The whole thing was a charade.

It is a warning to us that in our case also God will not accept from us anything that comes short of our best. We cannot offer Him more than we have, but woe betide us if we do not offer Him the best that we have. If we do He will simply disregard us. No wonder that we complain that God does not answer our prayers.

Mal 1:11-12

‘For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same,

My name is/will be great among the Gentiles,

And in every place incense is/will be offered to my name,

And a pure offering,

For my name is/will be great among the Gentiles,

Says YHWH of hosts.

‘But you profane it, in that you say,

The table of YHWH is polluted,

And its fruit, even its food, is contemptible.’

YHWH then looks ahead to the future. They are wondering why YHWH has not brought the Gentiles flocking to worship at their Temple as Haggai had suggested (Hag 2:6-7), are they? Well let them now know this. In the future from one end of the world to the other YHWH’s Name will be exalted as great among the Gentiles (His true greatness will be recognised), and everywhere incense will be offered to His Name, and a pure offering acceptable to Him will be offered by them, because His Name is recognised as so great among the Gentiles (the greatness of YHWH is a feature of this chapter, see Mal 1:5; Mal 1:14). While in contrast they, His supposed priests, are profaning His Name because of the attitude that they have towards His Table, and His offerings and sacrifices. For they instead of indicating that His Name is great, are profaning it, and indicating that His Table is a polluted thing and that its product is to be looked on as contemptible.

The verbs ‘is/will be’ are not in the Hebrew text so that the prophet may have in mind both the present and the future, the present in the fact that around the world synagogue worship was probably already causing Gentiles to worship YHWH in prayer and in obedience to the Law and by the offering of themselves and their gifts to Him, and the future in terms of the constant prophecies of blessing among the Gentiles that would both grow from such activities, and especially the blessing and worship that would result from the activities of the Messiah/Servant (Gen 12:3; Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6; etc).

However, the phrase ‘For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same,’ points to an eschatalogical and therefore Messianic interpretation. Compare Psa 50:1; Psa 113:3; Isa 45:6; Isa 59:19 which all have in mind great events. And thus the great stress is on what God will finally achieve through His Servant.

We may thus find here a remarkable prophecy of the way in which:

1). The majority of the priesthood will be rejected after the death and resurrection of Jesus, (but with some repenting), just as they are being here.

2). Large numbers of Gentiles will respond and acknowledge the greatness of YHWH and His Name by accepting the once for all offering of Jesus Christ, and then, through Him, offering true prayer to God as the equivalent of incense (comparePsa 141:2; Rev 5:8).

3). The resulting continual sacrifice of themselves as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1-2) on the basis of that offering of Jesus Christ made once for all (Heb 9:28; Heb 10:12; Heb 10:14).

4) And all quite apart from the Temple.

YHWH’s point is that He does not really need the Israelite sacrifices in view of the certainty of what is happening even now ‘worldwide’, and of what is to come in even greater measure. Thus their choice as to whether they heed His words or not, while it will certainly affect their own future position, will have no effect at all either on the future worldwide worship of God or on the fulfilment of His intentions. Thus they are not to see themselves as necessary to the fulfilment of His purposes. Whether therefore they respond or not is up to them. If they want to be included in His purposes they will respond. Meanwhile He will be recording in His book of remembrance all the names of those who fear YHWH and think on His Name (Mal 3:16)

It is also a reminder that being a priest was of no advantage to a man unless his behaviour towards God was genuine. They may have been anointed as belonging to YHWH but they should recognise that it makes not the slightest difference unless their response is true. Man may look at the outward appearance, and even be in awe of it, but God looks at the heart.

We should note here the contrast between Edom and the Gentiles. For Edom their brother tribe there is no future outside Israel (and indeed they would be absorbed into Israel). But as for the Gentiles, the word of God will reach out to them worldwide, and at that time all the world will hear of the Great God of Israel and will respond to Him in Spirit and in truth (Joh 4:24).

Mal 1:13

‘You say also, Behold, what a weariness is it!

And you have snuffed (sniffed, breathed out) at it, says YHWH of hosts;

And you have brought that which was taken by violence,

And the lame, and the sick,

Thus you bring the offering.

Should I accept this at your hand? says YHWH.’

But in total contrast to the coming wholehearted attitude and response of the Gentiles is the attitude of these priests of Israel. It is one of weariness. Indeed they sniff at each offering, and that at an offering made to YHWH of hosts! Such an indolent and contemptuous attitude towards worship and service often arises from long familiarity with it (compare Isa 1:11-15; Mic 6:6-8; 1Sa 2:12-17) so that even the most sacred things can become a joke. And in this case the offerings they brought were either those seized from others, or slain by wild beasts (which were thus not seen as suitable for sacrifice – Exo 22:31), or lame and sick ones. Do they really expect Him to accept these from their hand?

Mal 1:14

‘But cursed be the cheat, who has in his flock a male,

And vows, and sacrifices to the Lord a blemished thing,

For I am a great King, says YHWH of hosts,

And my name is terrible among the Gentiles.

And it is not only the priests who are guilty. The people too are cheats. For regularly, although they have a stout male in their flock, they make their vow and then sacrifice to their sovereign Lord one that is inferior and blemished. So almost the whole of Israel is caught up in the scam. It is clear that, to them, anything is good enough for God, while they keep the best for themselves. Note the change from YHWH of hosts to sovereign Lord (adonai) to emphasise the greatness of the crime. And this is even further emphasised by the perpetrator of the fraud being ‘cursed’. In these extreme phrases YHWH incorporates all the people in with His casting off of the priests.

Their crime is then emphasised even more by pointing out that while He may not count for much in  their  eyes, He is in fact a Great King (a title usually used by conquerors of themselves, compare Isa 36:4) with a huge reputation among the Gentiles. This may refer to His renown from past doings, the deliverance from Egypt (Exodus 1-15, see Exo 15:14-16); the conquest of Canaan (Joshua); the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib (2Ki 19:35-36); the humiliation of Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 4:30-37) or it may have in mind the great Name that is to be His when the Gentiles in every place offer incense to His Name (Mal 1:11). It is a reminder that Malachi has his sights set high. It is in the end YHWH’s worldwide rule and worship that he has in mind (compare Mal 1:12; Psalms 2).

The idea of the kingship of YHWH occurs regularly throughout the Old Testament. Compare Num 23:21; Num 24:7; Exo 15:18; Deu 33:5; 1Sa 8:7; and regularly in the Psalms (e.g. Psa 22:28; Psa 47:2; Psa 48:2; Psa 95:3; Psa 103:19; and often). For ‘YHWH has established His throne in the Heavens and His Kingship rules over all’ (Psa 103:19).

What a warning we should read for ourselves from these words. How easily our worship become perfunctory, how quickly we forget the greatness of the One We worship, how carelessly we can treat our responsibilities on His service, how all too easily we can justify to ourselves the giving to him of second best. We need to wake up and recognise how in doing this we are profaning Him.

Mal 2:1

‘And now, O you priests,

This commandment is for you.

If you will not hear,

And if you will not lay it to heart,

To give glory to my name,

Says YHWH of hosts,

Then will I send the curse upon you,

And I will curse your blessings,

Yes, I have cursed them already,

Because you do not lay it to heart.

Having rebuked them YHWH now calls on them to consider their ways. He has spoken and given His ‘divine command’ (mitswah) and it is up to them to hear and respond. But if they will not do so. If they will not begin to bring glory to His Name by carrying out the correct sacrificial procedures with the finest of their animals, and in a right frame of mind, then He will send the curses on them outlined in Deu 27:26; Deu 28:15-20. He will curse their blessings. This may signify that the normal priestly blessing would become a curse both to the pronouncer and on those on whom it was pronounced (Num 6:23-27), or that He would turn the blessings of Deuteronomy 28 into the cursings of Deuteronomy 28.

‘I have cursed them already’ may refer to the fact that they were not having good harvests as warned in Deu 28:15-19, or to the present condition of Jerusalem with its gates burned with fire after they had rebuilt them. Or indeed to both. And either way it was because they had not laid to heart God’s warnings.

Mal 2:3-4

‘Behold, I will rebuke your seed (or ‘arm’),

And will spread dung on your faces,

Even the dung of your feasts,

And you will be taken away to it.

And you will know that I have sent this commandment to you,

That my covenant may be with Levi, says YHWH of hosts.

As a result of the failure of both the priests with their careless attitude and the people with their blemished offerings YHWH will ‘rebuke their seed’. This may mean that they will not produce a satisfactory harvest (seed in the sense of grain), something which will affect both the farmers who brought the blemished sacrifices, because their output is diminished, and the priests who offered them, because their share in the firstfruits and other portions will be reduced.

Or the reference may be to their descendants. Their disobedience will not just affect them it will result in YHWH’s rebuke and curse on their descendants (Deu 18:18). This would tie in with their being replaced by the ‘covenant with Levi’.

Alternately we may repoint (change the vowels which were not a part of the original text) to signify ‘rebuke your arm’. In this case it signifies that He will affect their activities so that they cannot carry them out properly. This affecting of their arm movements may account for why the dung (the contents of the stomach and intestines) will be spread on their faces.

The spreading of dung (which should be burned in a clean place) on their faces is signifying very unpleasant treatment. Possibly the idea is that it will be caused by jerky arm actions (‘rebuke your arm’) or by the wind blowing it in their faces, or it may simply be intended to be metaphorical indicating that they will be treated like those who have had dung flung on them, or will be treated as dung, to such an extent that they are then carried off to the place of dung. In other words they may think themselves ‘holy’ but they will become in His eyes as ‘holy animal dung’, fit only to be taken out with other holy remnants and burned (e.g. Lev 4:11-12; Lev 16:27), rather than being offered up to YHWH. That is the only ‘holiness’ that He will see these ‘holy priests’ as having.

Whatever the exact meaning the contempt and diminution that it expresses towards them is clear, and it probably also includes the idea that the dung spread on them will make them patently unfit for duty.

Then, once they have been humiliated, they will know that the command that they had received and disobeyed, and which has resulted in their rejection to the dung heap, was the command of YHWH, and that as a result they will be replaced so that His covenant might be with a new Levi.

The meaning of this latter comes out in what follows. The ministry of the priests having been disgraced, and the sacrificing priests who have so misused the sacrifices having been cast out on the dung heap, the covenant made with Levi in Deu 33:8-11 will be renewed with other, worthier, ‘sons of Levi’. In other words from the moment that the priesthood is rejected if they fail to respond to YHWH’s warning, a new teaching ministry of ‘Levites’, of those uniquely set apart to the service of God, will come into prominence, replacing the old priesthood. And this because the old priesthood have debased the ministry (Mal 2:8-9).

(We can call to mind here the words of John the Baptist to those who boasted about being sons of Abraham, ‘God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham’ (Mat 3:9). In the same way here God is saying that He can easily raise up other ‘sons of Levi’).

Note on ‘the Covenant of Levi’ ( Mal 1:8 , compare Mal 1:4 ) And The Sons of Levi.

It is significant what Malachi draws out when he refers to ‘the covenant of Levi’ (Mal 1:8). We saw in Mal 1:12 that there was to be pure worship among the Gentiles ‘in every place’ and thus a worship not connected with Jerusalem. Here now there is to be a ministry of the Levites not connected with the old priesthood, a ministry the emphasis of which is not on sacrifice, but on loyalty to YHWH and the proclamation of righteousness and the law of truth (Mal 1:6). Malachi foresees the old unrepentant priesthood as in some way being replaced so as to introduce a more spiritual ministry.

A ‘covenant with the Levites, the priests, my ministers’ is mentioned in Jer 33:20-21, (compare also Neh 13:29), but that is unlikely to directly indicate the one mentioned here because here the priests have been ‘thrown on the dung heap’. It could have been had they repented. And they may have done for a time. But as we know from the Gospels if they did it was not one that lasted. However, the wider covenant of YHWH with Levi is described in the ‘blessing of Levi’ in Deu 33:8-11 which reads as follows:

“And of Levi he said,

Your Thummim and your Urim are with your godly one,

Whom you proved at Massah,

With whom you strove at the waters of Meribah,

Who said of his father, and of his mother,

‘I have not seen him,’

Neither did he acknowledge his brethren,

Nor did he know he his own children.

For they have observed your word, and keep your covenant.

They will teach Jacob your ordinances, and Israel your law.

They will put incense before you,

And whole burnt-offering on your altar.

Bless, Oh YHWH, his substance,

And accept the work of his hands.

Smite through the loins of those who rise up against him,

And of those who hate him, that they rise not again.”

The godly one who was proved at Massah and is specifically said to have been striven with by the people at Meribah was Moses himself (Exo 17:1-7; Num 20:3), who was of course of the tribe of Levi. In Numbers 20 it was along with Aaron. The Urim and the Thummim was the means by which the Priest (High Priest) determined the will of YHWH in disputed or difficult cases. Thus Moses and Aaron seem to be jointly in mind here, as ‘sons of Levi’. The description of the one who ‘said of his father, and of his mother, “I have not seen him,” neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor did he know he his own children’ has in mind the Priest when he was involved in his sacred duties. As YHWH’s holy ‘Priest’ (initially Aaron) he was forbidden to enjoy the usual family relationships when on his sacred duties. He was in some ways separated off from his family. If any of his family died, whether father, mother, brother, sister, son, or whoever, he was not to touch their dead bodies nor even to leave the tabernacle while serving there, in the event that they were to die suddenly (Lev 21:11). As God’s supreme representative on behalf of Israel he had to be impervious to all family loyalty. This was proof of the Priest’s dedication and his especially holy position. The picture may also have been intended to include Moses whose position and calling had meant that he had to keep himself separate from family loyalties to such an extent that they are lost sight of. In both cases it stresses an attitude of total dedication and obedience. We can compare with this how Jesus Himself, in a similar way, set Himself off against family claims in Mat 12:46-50, and His words to His disciples about ‘loving less than God’ their father and mother, son and daughter (Mat 10:37).

‘They observed your word and kept your covenant’ has in mind the way that Levi stood firm with Moses at Sinai (Deu 33:26), and their ministry that followed. The result was that they were appointed as teachers of the Torah, the priests acting more centrally, with the Levites acting to a lesser and more local extent in the rest of Israel, as they went around collecting the tithes. They would guide on religious matters, including such things as tithes, firstfruits, suitable sacrifices, etc., would call men to the exaltation of the Lord YHWH, and were no doubt also called on to pass judgments. And it was the Levitical priests who were to offer the incense on the altar of incense and the burnt offerings on the brazen altar. In return they were put under the special protection of YHWH, Who would ‘smite through the loins of those who rise up against him, and of those who hate him, that they rise not again.’

There are important parallels between this ‘covenant’ in Deu 33:8-11 and that described by Malachi here in Mal 2:5-6. Thus we can compare them as follows:

‘ Who said of his father, and of his mother, ‘I have not seen him,’ neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor did he know he his own children ’ with ‘ And he feared me, and stood in awe of My Name’ ’.

‘ For they have observed your word, and keep your covenant ’, with ‘And unrighteousness was not found in his lips, he walked with me in peace and uprightness.’

‘ They will teach Jacob your ordinances, and Israel your law, with  ‘the law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips — and he turned many away from iniquity ’.

‘Smite through the loins of those who rise up against him, and of those who hate him, that they rise not again’, with  ‘my covenant with him was of life and peace ’.

But it will be noted that in Malachi it is the teaching ministry that is being stressed. The more priestly elements have dropped away. The priests who have failed are, unless they respond to YHWH’s warning, to be replaced by new ‘sons of Levi’, whi will be teachers of righteousness rather than offerers of sacrifices, and this especially in view of the future worldwide worship among the Gentiles.

End of note.

Mal 2:5-6

My covenant was with him of life and peace,

And I gave them to him that he might fear,

And he feared me,

And stood in awe of my name.

The law of truth was in his mouth,

And unrighteousness was not found in his lips,

He walked with me in peace and uprightness,

And turned many away from iniquity.

Here is a picture of the ‘ideal’ Levi, and the emphasis in Malachi’s words is on the fact that unless they respond to YHWH’s warning the old priests will be replaced by a new Levi who will do all God’s will, and will teach righteousness and truth. The references to sacrifice and incense, and to the Urim and the Thummim (see note above), are dropped out from the old promises, and He concentrates on those to whom He will give life and peace, those who will walk before Him in reverent awe, in whose mouths will be the law of truth, whose lips will be free from unrighteousness, and who will walk in peace and uprightness and turn many away from iniquity.

The thought is thus of an inner core of Israel who will walk righteously and truly, and he may well have had in mind the faithful Servant of Isaiah described in Isa 42:1-7; Isa 49:1-7; Isa 50:3-8; Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12 Who summed up the true Israel in Himself. He would take YHWH’s Law to the Gentiles (Isa 42:4)

‘My covenant was with him of life and peace.’ The covenant of ‘life’ was made with all in Israel who walked rightly before YHWH (Deu 30:15-20), and it was the way that ‘Levi’, first in Moses and Aaron, and then as a whole (Deu 33:26) chose. The result was that YHWH Himself became their inheritance (Deu 10:9; Jos 13:33), and they were scattered throughout Israel as His servants to minister in His Name. The covenant of ‘peace’ is mentioned in Num 25:12; Isa 54:10; Eze 34:25; Eze 37:26. In Num 25:12 it refers to a special covenant given to one of the tribe of Levi who acted in zealous faith towards YHWH. In Isa 54:10 it refers to YHWH’s covenant with those who are true to Him by which He will continually do them good. In Eze 34:25 it refers to His covenant with the coming ‘Davidic king’ guaranteeing peace and security. And in Eze 37:26 it refers to His everlasting covenant as a result of which they will prosper and enjoy His presence with them for ever more in a new and more holy sanctuary. Thus it is YHWH’s covenant with those who are true to Him, and connected with the activity of the coming Davidic King.

‘And I gave them to him that he might fear, and he feared me, and stood in awe of my name .’ The idea behind the covenant of life and peace was that of granting of fullness of life and wellbeing and security by YHWH in response to a full-hearted loyalty revealed by those who look to Him, and the purpose of His giving this was that ‘Levi’ might ‘fear YHWH, which they did, so that they stood in awe of His Name.’ We can see already the contrast with these faithless priests with their haphazard and careless ways.

‘The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity.’ And this ‘Levi’ with whom YHWH made His covenant was wholly true to the Law, and no word of unrighteousness ever passed his lips. He walked before YHWH in peace and uprightness and turned many from iniquity.’ That there had been such Levites, even though we have not been told of them, must have been so for a righteous remnant continually to survive in Israel, especially in the early days before the prophets. And it would be true again once the prophets had ceased operating. They were the unknown, unsung, faithful servants of YHWH who stood true when others were going astray. And YHWH’s point here is that, unless the priests repent, they will be replaced by those who are in this way truer to the ways of the ideal ‘Levi’ those whose lives reveal that they are true ‘sons of Levi’

That this ideal was fulfilled in Jesus Christ need hardly be stressed. The law of truth was in His mouth (compare Isa 49:2; Isa 50:4; Joh 14:6) and He was indeed the only One of Whom it could be said that ‘no unrighteousness passed through His lips’ (compare Isa 53:9), but it was, of course, also true to a large extent in His Apostles once they had been anointed by the Holy Spirit. They received the covenant of life and peace, feared the Lord and stood in awe of His Name, had in their mouths the law of truth, abjured unrighteousness, walked before God in peace and uprightness and turned many from iniquity. Thus did they finally become the replacements of the old priesthood, the true ‘sons of Levi’ (those who were like the ideal’ Levi).

Mal 2:7-8

‘For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge,

And they should seek the law at his mouth,

For he is the messenger of YHWH of hosts.

But you are turned aside out of the way,

You have caused many to stumble in the law,

You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,

Says YHWH of hosts.’

YHWH now applies this ideal to the priests. He begins by outlining what they should be. Their lips should be keeping knowledge, and they should be constantly seeking YHWH’s Instruction from His very lips, because they are the appointed messengers of YHWH. What a privilege was theirs. And so their whole thought and aspiration should be on knowing His truth so that they can pass it on.

We have practical examples of how they did this in 2Ch 17:7-9 when Jehoshaphat sent out teachers, which included Levites, to teach the book of the Law of YHWH to the people. Compare also Neh 8:8-9.

But what was the truth of the matter concerning these priests to whom he is speaking? It was that instead of ‘keeping knowledge’ and passing it on, they themselves have turned aside out of the way. It was that instead of seeking His Instruction at His mouth they had caused many to stumble in that Instruction. And they had done it because instead of being true messengers of YHWH they had corrupted the covenant of Levi. That is His indictment.

Mal 2:9

‘Therefore have I also made you contemptible,

And base before all the people,

According as you have not kept my ways,

But have had respect of persons in the law.

And that is why He has (prophetically speaking of something in the future) made then contemptible, flinging dung in their faces, and that is why He will make them base before all people. It is because they have not kept His ways, and walked in them and taught them, and it is because they have had respect of persons in the Law.

This last charge is a new one, capping off all the remainder of their iniquities. Instead of being fair and just and open minded, and treating all God’s people alike, they have shown respect of persons in their interpretation of God’s Instruction. They have been faithless messengers.

And now his words to the priests are over, and they are left to ponder them. But they have had their warning, and unless they take heed they will be replaced. That they did not finally take heed we know, and the Chief Priests were among the most vehement opponents of Jesus and His Apostles. And thus their ministry was brought to an abrupt end, and they were replaced by the ‘new Levi’ in the persons of the righteous preachers of the early church, something which has continued to this day. But this warning equally applies to modern preachers. If they too prove unfaithful, they too will suffer the same fate.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Mal 2:13 And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand.

Mal 2:14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.

Mal 2:14 Comments – The “wife of thy youth” would be the virgin lady whom a man first marries. The breaking of the woman’s hymen and the shedding of this blood would make her the “wife of thy covenant”, which is a blood covenant. God will not overlook this blood covenant that was made between a man and a woman.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Conclusion of the Rebuke to the Priests

v. 1. And now, O ye priests, this commandment Is for you, they must be aware of the seriousness of the situation and accept the Lord’s rebuke and threat accordingly.

v. 2. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay It to heart, if they persisted in their callousness over against His commands, to give glory unto My name, saith the Lord of hosts, by a worship in agreement with His commands, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings, His own gifts to them turning into the opposite and bringing harm upon them; yea, I have cursed them already because ye do not lay it to heart, presenting an indifferent front to the Lord’s admonitions.

v. 3. Behold, I will corrupt your seed, rebuking that which had been sowed in the fields, thus reducing also the amounts which the priests received as tithes, and spread dung upon your faces, as an expression of His extreme contempt, even the dung of your solemn feasts, that of the sacrificial animals, which was ordinarily dumped outside of the city; and one shall take you away with it, treating them as though they were themselves dung, to be thrown out in disgraceful heaps.

v. 4. And ye shall know, by the token of this punishment, that I have sent this commandment unto you, this decree of punishment, which they thought they might so calmly disregard, that My covenant might be with Levi, all the priests, saith the Lord of hosts. The Lord’s sentence of punishment upon all those who despised His worship was included in the original covenant with the members of the tribe of Levi.

v. 5. My covenant was with him of life and peace, with the promise of life and peace attached; and I gave them, namely, life, deliverance, and salvation, to him for the fear wherewith he feared Me, as a reward for this attitude, and was afraid before My name, Cf Num 25:12.

v. 6. The Law of Truth was in his mouth, so that everything which he did and taught was in agreement with the divine truth, and iniquity was not found in his lips, he was in no way guilty of perverseness in his ministry; he walked with Me in peace and equity, in a communion of peace, integrity, and righteousness, and did turn many away from iniquity, this being the praise which the Lord bestowed upon the members of the tribe of Levi.

v. 7. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, preserving the right understanding of Jehovah among the people as a precious treasure, and they, the people, should seek the Law at his mouth, to be instructed in it; for he Is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. That is what the Lord found praiseworthy in the members of the tribe of Levi in the early days; that is as it should he.

v. 8. But ye, the present members of the tribe, are departed out of the way, leaving the path shown them by the Law of the Lord; ye have caused many to stumble at the Law, so that they became guilty of transgressing the Law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, that which their fathers had kept so faithfully, saith the Lord of hosts.

v. 9. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base, an object of contempt and loathing, before all the people, according as ye have not kept My ways, in the same degree as they had transgressed, but have been partial in the Law, in applying the Law to the conduct of the people. The conduct of the spiritual leaders of people is particularly reprehensible if it misleads others and plunges them into sin and guilt.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Mal 2:1-4

4. For these derelictions of duty the priests are threatened with punishment.

Mal 2:1

This commandment. The threat or announcement is called a commandment, because God ordains it and imposes its execution on certain instruments. (For the expression, camp. Le 25:21.) The threat is contained in Mal 2:2, Mal 2:3.

Mal 2:2

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. Deu 27:15-26; Deu 28:15, etc.). I will curse your blessings. The blessings which as priests they had to pronounce upon the people (Le 9:22, 23; Num 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 Neh 13:1, Neh 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.”

Mal 2:3

I will corrupt your seed. Henderson, “I will rebuke the seed to your hurt.” God would mar the promise of their crops; but, as the priests did not concern themselves with agriculture, such a threat would have had no particular application to them. It is best, therefore, to take the pointing of some of the versions, and to translate, I will rebuke your arm; i.e. I will take from you the power of performing, or, I will neutralize your official duties, the arm being the instrument of labour, offering, and blessing. Others consider the threat to be that they should be deprived of their allotted portion of the sacrificethe breast and shoulder (Le 7:31, 32), or the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the maw (Deu 18:3). Septuagint, , “I take from you the shoulder;” Vulgate, Ego projiciam vobis brachium. Orelli takes “seed” in the sense of posterity, seeing here a reversal of such promises as Jer 33:18, Jer 33:22. Spread dung upon your faces. God will deliver them over to shameful treatment, which shall cover them with contempt. The idea is derived from the filth left in the courts by the victims (see the following clause). Your solemn feasts (chaggim); ie. the animals slain at the sacrificial feasts. God calls them “your,” not “my,” because they were not celebrated really in his honor, but after their own self-will and pleasure. The dung of the sacrificial animals was by the Law carried forth and bunted without the camp (Exo 29:14; Le Exo 4:12; Exo 16:27). One shall take you away with it. They shall be treated as filth, and cast away in some foul spot.

Mal 2:4

Ye shall know. My threats are not vain; this ye shall experience and be forced to acknowledge. This commandment is the purpose and threat, as in Mal 2:1 (where see note). That my covenant might be with Levi; i.e. that my covenant with Levi might remain firm. The covenant with Levi was the election of that tribe to be the ministers of the sanctuary. There is here a special allusion to the blessing pronounced on Phinehas for his conduct in the matter of Zimri (Num 25:12, Num 25:13). This election is called “a covenant,” because, while conferring certain privileges, it involved certain duties. The difficulty in this interpretation is that the verb used here (hayah) does not mean “to remain,” “to continue,” but only “to be, to exist.” Hence many critics take “the commandment” as the subject, translating. “That it (my purpose) may be my covenant with Levi, i.e. that as God observed the covenant made with the tribe of Levi in old time, so for the future this commandment and threat will be as vigorously observed and take the place of the old covenant. This explanation is too involved and refined to be acceptable. It is easiest to translate, with Henderson and Reinke, “Because my covenant was with Levi,” and to understand God as implying that he warned and punished the priests, because he willed that the covenant with Levi should hold good, and he thus desired to have a body of priests who would keep their vows and maintain the true priestly character. What that character is he procoeds to unfold.

Mal 2:5-9

5. In contrast with these evil ministers, the character of the true priest is sketched, and thus the faults of the former are shown in darker colours.

Mal 2:5

My covenant was with him of life and peace; rather, with him was life and peace. This is one side of the covenant, that which God gavethe blessing of life, abundance, prosperity, and secure and undisturbed enjoyment of these, in the everlasting priesthood, in agreement with the promise to Phinehas (Num 25:12; comp. Deu 33:8-11). I gave them to him for the fear, etc. I gave him life and peace. The pronominal suffix “them” is not expressed in the Greek and Latin Versions, and is absent from many Hebrew manuscripts, which read, “I gave him fear.” So the Vulgate, Dedi eis timorem et timuit me; Septuagint, , “I gave him the fear of me.” This expresses man’s part in the covenant: God gave him certain blessings on condition that he feared, reverenced, worshipped, and obeyed the Lord. The last part of the verse as now read is more simply explained, “and (my covenant with him was, or, I gave him) fear, and he did fear me.” God’s gifts were life and peace. Levi’s part was fear of God: this he performed. The ideal priest observed all the duties of piety and reverence, and therefore in his case the covenant stood firm and was duly carried out.

Mal 2:6

The law (teaching) of truth was in his mouth. All his teaching rested on those truths which were enshrined in the Divine Law (Deu 31:10-13; Deu 33:10). Iniquity; unfair decision. Neither false doctrine nor perverse judgment was found in him (Deu 17:8-10; Deu 19:17). Walked with me. Not only his teaching was true, but his life was pure and good; he was the friend of God, living as always in his presence, in peace and uprightness. So Enoch and Noah are said to have “walked with God” (Gen 5:24; Gen 6:9). Did turn many away from iniquity. The faithful discharge of duties and the holy life and teaching of the good priest led many sinners to repentance and amendment.

Mal 2:7

For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge. It was the priest’s duty to study the Law and to teach it faithfully, as it is said of Aaron, in Ecclesiasticus 45:17, “He gave unto him his commandments, and authority in the statutes of judgments, that he should teach Jacob the testimonies, and inform Israel in his laws.” The law, here and verses 6, 8, means system of teaching, or the torah. At his month. The priest was the appointed interpreter of the Law (see Le 10:11; Deu 17:9-11; Deu 33:10; and the note on Hag 2:11). He is the messenger of the Lord. He announces God’s will to men, explaining the Law to meet the varied circumstances which occur in daily life; he intervenes between God and man, offering man’s worship to the Lord. So Haggai (Hag 1:13) is called “the Lord’s messenger,” or angel. Some see here an allusion to Malachi’s own name or office (see Introduction, II.; comp. Deu 21:5; 2Ch 17:9).

Mal 2:8

But ye are departed out of the way. The priests of this time had far declined from the high ideal set forth in Mal 2:6, Mal 2:7, the “way” in which God would have had them to walk. Ye have caused many to stumble at (in) the law. By their example and teaching they had made the Law a stumbling block, causing many to err, while they fancied they were not infringing God’s commandments. Septuagint, , “Ye made many weak [equivalent to ] in the Law.” Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi (see Mal 2:5). They broke their part of the covenant, therefore Jehovah held himself no longer bound by it. They did not pay him due reverence and obedience; he withdrew the blessings promised to Levi, as threatened (Mal 2:2).

Mal 2:9

Contemptible. The glory of the priesthood and the honour that belonged to it (Ecclesiasticus 45:7, etc.) were now turned into disgrace and contempt, when men compared the actual with the ideal. “Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed” (1Sa 2:30). Have been partial in the law; Revised Version, have had respect of persons in the law; or, in your teaching, as Mal 2:6, Mal 2:8. The prophet names one special sin of the priests, and that the most flagrantperversion of judgment, partiality in the administration of the Law. The same complaint is found in Mic 3:11.

Mal 2:10-16

Part II. CONDEMNATION OF PRIESTS AND PEOPLE FOR ALIEN MARRIAGES AND FOR DIVORCES.

Mal 2:10

Have we not all one Father? In proceeding to his new subject, the violations of the law of marriage, the prophet pursues his habitual method. He starts with a general principle, here assuming an interrogative form, and on it builds his rebuke. The priests were guilty, if not of profane marriages, at any rate of sinful neglect in not warning the people against them. Many take the “one father” to be Abraham (Isa 51:2), and it is no objection to this view that he was also the progenitor of Ishmaelites, Edomites, etc; because there was at this time no question about marriage with these nations, but with Canaanites, Moabites, Egyptians, and so on. But the parallelism with the following clause shows that by the Father is meant Almighty God (comp. Mal 1:6; Deu 32:6; Isa 63:16). Hath not one God created us? Hath not God taken us as his peculiar people, so as to call us his sons and his firstborn (comp. Exo 4:22, Exo 4:23; Deu 32:18; Isa 1:2; Jer 3:19)? Of course, God created all men; but the Jews alone recognized him as Creator. The prophet’s proposition is that all Israelites were spiritual brothers and sisters, equally loved and chosen by God. From this he argues that in sinning against one another, they offended their common Father, and broke the family compact. Deal treacherously. Act faithlessly against one another. He does not yet say in what this treachery consists, but adds, by profaning the covenant of our fathers. He unites himself with them, because he suffered in their sin. They violated the covenant by which God chose them to be his peculiar people and placed himself in mysterious relation to them, on condition that they should keep themselves aloof from the evil nations around them, and avoid all connection with them and their practices. By intermarriages with the heathen, they profaned this covenant. This evil was one which Ezra had done his best to eradicate, using most stringent measures for its suppression (Ezr 9:1-15; Ezr 10:1-44.); Nehemiah, too, contended against those who had contracted these marriages, when he found on his return to Jerusalem many such transgressors (Neh 13:23-28); and now the prophet lifts up his voice in the cause of purity and obedience. The warning against throe mixed unions is found in Exo 34:16; Deu 7:3; Jos 23:12, 18.

Mal 2:11

Judah, the whole nation, is guilty of this crime, has broken her promised faith. The special sin, mixed marriages, is named at the end of the verse. In Israel and in Jerusalem. The mention of Israel, the sacred covenant name, is meant to make the contrast between profession and practice more marked. But some critics would hero cancel the word “Israel,” as being a clerical error (see note, Zec 1:19). Jerusalem is named as the centre of the theocracy, which gave its tone to the-people. For Judah hath profaned the holiness (sanctuary) of the Lord, which he loved (loveth); Septuagint, , “Judah profaned the holy things of the Lord in which he delighted.” Many consider that by the “sanctuary” is meant the temple, into which these heathen wives had penetrated, either led by curiosity or introduced by their profane husbands. But we have no knowledge that this was the case. It is better to take “the sanctuary,” or that which is holy unto the Lord, to be the chosen nation itself, the community beloved by God, which was holy by election and profession, even as Christians are commonly called saints in the Epistles. (For the term as applied to the Israelites, see Exo 19:6; Exo 22:31; Le 11:44; Exo 19:2; comp. Ezr 9:2; Neh 13:29.) The daughter of a strange god. A woman who is an idolatress, who adhered to a foreign deity (Jer 2:27), as the Israelites are called “sons of Jehovah,” as joined to him in communion (Deu 14:1; Pro 14:26). The LXX. omits the point of the charge, rendering, , “and followed after strange gods.”

Mal 2:12

Will cut off. The Hebrew is an imprecation, “May the Lord cut off” (Deu 7:2, Deu 7:3). It implies that the transgressor shall be deprived of his position as one of the covenant people, and shall leave no one to maintain his name and family. The man. Others render, “unto the man,” making the following words the direct object of the verb. The master and the scholar; so the Vulgate, magistrum et discipulum; literally, the watcher and the answerer, i.e. the watchman and the inhabitants of the city; the LXX; reading somewhat differently, has, , “until he be brought low from the tents of Jacob,” meaning, until he repent and return humbly to obedience. In this case the term “cut off” must be taken in some milder sense than “exterminate.” The present text, however, seems to be a kind of alliterative proverbial saying to express totality, everybody; though whence it arose, and what is its exact signification, are matters of great uncertainty. Some take the phrase to mean,” every waking and speaking person,” i.e. every living soul. The English and Latin Versions proceed on the assumption (which Pusey denies) that the first verb can be taken actively, “he that awakeneth,” the teacher being so called as stimulating the scholar, who is named “the answerer.” The Targum and Syriac explain it by “son and son’s son.” Of the various suggestions offered, the most probable is that it is a military phrase derived from the challenge of the sentinels and the answer thereto, which in time came to de. note the whole inhabitants of a camp or city. The tabernacles. The dwellings. Or the word, as Dr. Cox supposes, may belong to the original saying, and have come down from the remote period when the Israelites lived in tents. And him that offereth an offering (michchah) unto the Lord of hosts. The same punishment shall fall on one who offers even an oblation of meal for men who are guilty of this sin. This sin would appertain specially to the priests. Or we may take the clause in a general sense. God will cut off every such transgressor, even if he try to propitiate the Lord by making an offering before trim (Ecclesiasticus 35:12. [32]), “Do not think to corrupt with gifts; for such he will not receive: and trust not to unrighteous sacrifices; for the Lord is Judge, and with him is no respect of persons.”

Mal 2:13

Not only did they marry heathen females, but they divorced their own legitimate wives to facilitate such unholy alliances. This have ye done again; this again ye do. Here is another and a further offence. Others take “again” in the sense of “a second time,” referring to the fact that Ezra had effected a reform in this matter, but the people had relapsed into the same sin. But the first explanation is preferable. Septuagint, , , “and this which I hated ye did.” Covering (ye cover) the altar of the Lord with tears. The prophet, as before (verse 10), does not at once declare what this fresh outrage is, but intimates its nature. The picture he exhibits is that of a multitude of repudiated wives coming to the temple with weeping and lamentation, and laying their cause before the Lord. Insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more. This cruel and wicked conduct raised a barrier between them and God, so that he regarded with favour no offering of theirs.

Mal 2:14

Yet ye say, Wherefore? Here is the usual sceptical objection, as in Mal 1:6, Mal 1:7. The people will not acknowledge their guiltiness, and ask, “Why is God displeased with us? why are our offerings not acceptable?” The prophet replies, Because the Lord hath been witness, etc. The sin is now disclosed. Their marriages had been made before God; he who first instituted matrimony (Gen 2:24) was a witness of the contract and gave it his sanction (comp. Gen 31:50). The wife of thy youth. Whom thou didst marry when thine affections were pure and fresh, and for whom thy love was strong and simple (Pro 5:18). Against whom thou hast dealt treacherously; Septuagint, “whom thou hast deserted.” This wife of thine thou hast betrayed, breaking faith with her by repudiating her. The wife of thy covenant. With whom thou didst make a solemn vow and covenant, to violate which is a monstrous crime. We have very little information respecting the religious ceremonies connected with a Jewish wedding. The previous espousal was a formal proceeding, conducted by friends and parents, and confirmed by oaths. The actual marriage seems to have been accompanied by certain solemn promises and blessings (see Pro 2:17; Eze 16:8; Gen 24:60; Rth 4:11, Rth 4:12; Tobit 7:13; Smith, ‘Dict. of Bible’).

Mal 2:15

And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. The passage has always been a crux, and has received many interpretations. The Anglican rendering (which, however, is probably not correct) is thus explained: God made at first one man and one woman, to show the oneness of marriage, and God gave man the breath of life and the residue to the woman; he made them both equally living souls; therefore divorce was never contemplated in the first institution of marriage. Others take “one” to mean Abraham, and explain: Abraham did not do so, i.e. did not repudiate his legitimate wife, though barren; and he had a share of the spirit of right, or he had excellence of spirit. But these are very forced interpretations, and do not occur naturally from a consideration of the words. The Hebrew may be translated more satisfactorily, Not any one has done so who has a remnant of the spirit (ruach).“ No one acts as you have done who has in him any of that Divine life which God at first breathed into man; in other words, no man of conscience and virtue has ever thus divorced his wife. The reading of the Septuagint varies here, the Vatican manuscript giving, ; “Did he not well?” and the Alexandrian, : but both seem to imply an interpretation such as we have just given. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Why did one act in this way? was it that he might have godly children? Surely not. No one would divorce his lawful Hebrew wife, and marry an idolatress, who wished to leave a holy posterity behind him. Many commentators, thinking that Abraham is here meant, and that the prophet is meeting an objection which might be founded upon his action with regard to Hagar, translate, “And what did the one? He was seeking a godly seed.” Abraham at Sarah’s request took Hagar to wife, in order to have the promised seed; he dismissed her in order to carry out the purpose of God in confining the promise to Isaac. Therefore his conduct is no support for those who repudiate their own wives and marry strange women, not to raise up children for God, but to satisfy their carnal lusts. It is difficult, however, to see how the prophet’s hearers could have understood the allusion without further explanation. As Ribera pithily observes (quoted by Knabenbauer), “Neque ita clare ex re allata designatur (Abraham), ut non potius divinatione quam explicatione opus sit ad eum eruendum.” It may also be remarked that the reference to the patriarch would not have been altogether successful, if the auditors remembered the Keturahites, who, though sprung from Abraham, were not “a godly seed.” The LXX. has, , ; “And ye said, What else than seed doth God seek?” as if the increase of population, from whatever source, was the only object required. This may have been one thought of the people, but it can hardly be got out of the present Hebrew text. Take heed to your spirit. Beware lest ye lose the spirit which God has given you. By acting thus contrary to conscience and the light vouchsafed to them, they ran the risk of being deprived altogether of this heavenly guide, and losing all distinction between right and wrong.

Mal 2:16

He hateth putting away. This is another reason against divorce: God hates it. It is contrary to his original institution, and was only allowed for the hardness of men’s hearts (see Deu 24:1, etc.; Mat 19:3-9). Septuagint, “If thou hate her and dismiss her,” etc.; Vulgate, “If thou hate her, put her away,” which seems to encourage divorce, whereas in the context divorce is strongly condemned. Hence Jerome considers these words to be spoken by the Jews, quoting in their defence Moses’ precept. Others think that they are ironicalPut her away, if you please; but you must bear the consequences. For one covereth violence with his garment. He who thus divorces his wife shows himself openly to all beholders as an iniquitous man. So the clause is better rendered, And one (who does so) covereth his garment with violence, or, violence covereth his garment. Iniquity attaches itself to him plainly, encircling and enfolding him; the clothing of iniquity is the mark of the foul soul within. The notion of “garment” being here used figuratively for wife (as Hitzig supposes) is without proof. Such a metaphor is certainly unknown to Hebrew literature, though there is something like it in Arabic, “Wives are your attire, and ye are theirs” (Koran). Bishop Wordsworth considers that the phrase in the text refers to the custom of the bridegroom in espousals casting the skirt of his garment over her who was betrothed to him (see Rth 3:9). So the idea would be, “Ye cast your skirt over iniquity, and betroth violence to yourselves for a bride.” But this seems somewhat forced. Take heed treacherously. A repetition of the warning in Mal 2:15.

Verse 2:17-4:6

Part III. THE DAY OF THE LORD.

Verse 2:17-3:6

1. The faithless people, disheartened by present circumstances, doubted God’s providence, and disbelieved his promises; but the prophet announces the coming of the Lord to judgment, preceded by his messenger. He shall refine his people and exterminate sinners.

Mal 2:17

Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. This is the introduction to the new section. The prophet makes his charge. The faithless multitude have, as it were, worn out God’s patience by their murmuring and discontent. Because their expectations of prosperity and glory were not at once fulfilled, they called in question God’s justice and holiness, and even the future judgment. The LXX. connects this verse with the preceding, “And forsake them not, ye who provoked God with your words” But it is best to take this as the beginning of a new subject. Yet ye say. This is the usual sceptical objection. Everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord. They complain that, though they are (Jolt’s peculiar people, they are left in low estate, while the heathen, men that “do evil,” are happy and prosperous (comp. Psa 37:1-40; Psa 73:1-28.). He delighteth in them. They choose to consider that the worldly prosperity of the heathen is a sign of God’s special favour, or else that he acts unjustly. Where is the God of judgment? (Isa 30:18). Why does not God perform his promises to Israel, and execute vengeance on the enemy?

HOMILETICS

Mal 2:2

Our blessings cursed.

The cursing of blessings is a “strange work” to the blessed God, “the Father of mercies,” who rather delights to turn curses into blessings. We may note

I. THE CAUSES OF THIS CURSE. It may be traced to two things.

1. A disregard of the great end of life, “to glorify God.” The motto of every creature, and especially of every redeemed sinner, should be that of Ignatius Loyola in its best sense, “Ad majorem gloriam Dei.” No grander object can be sought. To fail in the endeavour to “give unto the Lord the glory due unto his Name” is to begin to lose “the promise” which godliness gives of both worlds. It empties our “blessings” of their true blessedness, and begins to corrupt them with a curse like

“The little pitted speck in garnered fruit,
That rotting inward slowly moulders all,”

2. Neglect of God’s appeals and warnings. He remonstrates, as he did again and again with the Jews, by his prophets. But if we neither hear nor heed, and will not lay these warnings to heart, the corrupting process goes on, the curse is ripening, “the rod hath blossomed; pride bath budded” (cf. Jer 6:16-20; Zec 1:3-6; Zec 7:11-14). The remedies being cast aside, the disease holds on its course till “the whole head is sick,” etc. (Isa 1:5, Isa 1:6). It is natural to God to sweeten the bitter waters of life and to neutralize its poisons (2Ki 2:19-22; 2Ki 4:38 41). But sin reverses these miracles of mercy, and constrains God to turn our water into blood, our food into poison, to curse our blessings.

II. THE SIGNS OF THIS CURSE. It may manifest itself in various ways; e.g.:

1. Withholding the gifts which God delights to bestow (Amo 4:6-9; Hag 1:9; Mal 3:10. scarcity implied).

2. Withholding the power to enjoy the gifts which God does bestow. It may be the food of a wealthy invalid (Ecc 6:1, Ecc 6:2) or the money of a miser haunted by fear of the workhouse (Job 20:22). The loss may be in the spiritual spherethe power of receiving impressions of truth and duty may have been “taken away” (Mat 13:12-15), because sinned away. The talents of an ungodly minister may be rather a curse than a blessing to him and to his flock, just as the blessings pronounced in words by these ungodly priests (Num 6:22-26) may have become practically curses to the people.

3. Blessings themselves may be turned into curses. Illust.: The high wages of the working classes in recent years, and the general prosperity of the country, leading to a great increase of extravagance, self-indulgence, and intemperance. The blessing of enjoying free will and the power of self-guidance and control may become a most terrible curse when we “lean on our own understanding” and pursue “a way which seemeth fight” in our eyes, but the end whereof is death (Pro 14:12; Psa 81:11, Psa 81:12). Our highest privileges may thus become curses to us, as were the Christian profession of Ananias and the apostleship of Judas. Even Christ may become “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence” (1Pe 2:6-8; Joh 9:40), and his ministers “a savour from death unto death” (2Co 2:16). As John Howe says, “When the gospel becomes deadly to a man, that is a most terrible sort of death; to die by a gospel plague is a most terrible way of dying.”

Mal 2:6, Mal 2:7

The qualifications and objects of Christian ministers.

Aaron and the original priests of the house of Levi are here held up as a pattern to their degenerate descendants. Reference is made to the higher departments of the priest’s work, for teaching is a nobler work than sacrificing, even according to a divinely appointed and typical ritual. Allusions to this work of teaching by priests or Levites may be found in Le 10:11; Deu 33:10; 2Ch 15:8; 2Ch 17:8, 2Ch 17:9; Neh 8:9; Micah 311, etc. This work, being common to Jewish priests and Christian ministers, makes the application we have given to the words quite legitimate. We are reminded of the following qualifications and aims essential for a minister of Christ.

I. A MESSAGE FROM GOD. “He is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.” We are sent to the world by our Divine Master with definite instructions. There is a “glorious gospel of the blessed God committed to our trust.” That gospel embodies the doctrines of “the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints” If we have no definite gospel to preach, for which we are willing to contend, to suffer, and if needs be to die, we had better hold our peace, for we are not “messengers of the Lord of hosts.” “Wherefore wilt thou run, my son, seeing thou hast no tidings ready?” (2Sa 18:22); “I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied” (Jer 23:21). A self-styled ambassador, with no instructions from his monarch, would be an object hardly less pitiable and contemptible than a speaker arrogating the position of Christ’s minister, but quite uncertain as to what to speak in Christ’s Name. The burden of our message is not, “Thus I think;“ but, “Thus saith the Lord;” “Hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches.” Christ bids us to teach men “to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” When men gather around us they should be able to say, “Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.” We are thus reminded of the need of:

1. Careful study of the Law of God, like Ezra (Ezr 7:6, Ezr 7:10), Daniel (Dan 9:2), Timothy (1Ti 4:13). We must be scribes “instructed unto the kingdom of heaven,” lest we should misread and misunderstand our message.

2. Of close communion with God; for errors that arise from sources that are spiritual may be more dangerous than those that are merely intellectual (see Joh 3:20; Joh 5:44; Joh 7:17; Joh 8:43; Joh 12:42, Joh 12:43; Heb 3:12).

II. FIDELITY IN DELIVERING IT. We learn this from:

1. The unalterable claims of truth (verse 6). All truth has the authority of a law. We must be prepared to teach others and to learn for ourselves that rather than deny God by a lie in business or any sphere of life, it would be better to be burned alive. A martyr’s spirit is essential to a minister’s character. If this is true of us, we may urge the same on our hearers, for there are no two standards of morality, one for the clergy the other for the laity. All are required to love the Lord their God with all their heart, and therefore never to “hold down the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom 1:18). The urgent duty of fidelity on the part of Christ’s ministers is seen further because of:

2. Our responsibility as “stewards of the mysteries of God.” So far as those “mysteries,” first revealed to the world by inspired apostles, are understood by us, we are stewards of them. And “it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful” (1Co 4:1, 1Co 4:2). We are to “keep knowledge” for those who at any time may “seek the law” at our mouths. If others teach “another gospel” which may be more popular and acceptable, we are to decline popularity, “not as pleasing men, but God which trieth the heart.” “For if I pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ” (see Jer 23:28, Jer 23:29; 2Co 2:17; 2Co 4:1-18 :l, 2; Gal 1:10; 1Th 2:4).

3. Our relation to the souls of our hearers. Their object should be to seek God’s law from our lips that they may do it, and ours to turn them from iniquity. Our one object should be to declare the whole counsel of God so clearly, faithfully, and affectionately, that, whether men will hear or forbear, we shall be free from the blood of all Elihu’s words are an excellent motto for a preacher (Job 33:3). The words, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” suggest solemn thoughts as to fidelity on the part of preachers. What need of care, both in public and private, .in dealing with “seeking” souls, to point them direct to Christ, and not to any ceremonies or sacraments (Act 20:20, Act 20:21; 1Co 2:1-5), lest at some critical point in their spiritual history our lips should tail to impart the “knowledge,” “the law,” the message from the Lord of hosts which they need, and they should be directed along a wrong track rather than in “the way everlasting.” The sin of unfaithfulness is exposed in verses 8, 9. Ministers may be “partial in the Law,” e.g. winking at follies and sins fashionable among the rich, while severely condemning the sins of the poor, etc. But fidelity needs to be combined with discrimination. “For as all men cannot dive and fetch precious stones from the deep, but he that is cunning and hath the art of it; so not all, but the wise can either teach or conceive the deep mysteries. First, children must be taught letters, then syllables, after words, then construction, and after all the matter.”

III. A LIFE IN HARMONY WITH IT. “He walked with me in peace and equity.” These words remind us of the essential elements of a truly consistent Christian life. There must be righteousness with God, bringing after it peace with God. This righteousness is twofold.

1. A justification, which makes us “accepted in the Beloved,” and gives peace with God (Rom 5:1; Eph 1:6).

2. A right state of heart, a conscious integrity of purpose, which ensures our being “accepted of him,” well pleasing to him, and which brings with it a still deeper and purer peace (Isa 48:18; Rom 14:17, Rom 14:18). God desires that we should live in his perfect peace and favour in order that we “might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.” Such peace and equity toward God will ensure the same blessings in relation to our fellow men. This consistency of conduct is especially needed in the ministers of Christ. They must maintain this character in their homes (1Ti 3:2-5), in the Church (1Pe 5:3), and in the world (1Ti 3:7). The guilt and shame of inconsistent lives is exposed in verses 8, 9, and is illustrated by the history of Eli’s sons; 1Sa 2:30 being fulfilled in them, and in these priests (“I have made you contemptible.” They had said in their hearts, “The table of the Lord is contemptible;” so God would requite them “measure for measure”), and in all unfaithful ministers; who will be despised by the people they seek to conciliate and please.

IV. ZEAL FOR THE RECEPTION OF IT. By faithfully discharging the duties of his calling, Levi, i.e. the priesthood, “did turn many away from iniquity.” In doing so he did nothing more than what the standing and vocation of the priest required. The knowledge communicated to the mind was to be imparted by the lips. Without zeal for the reception of the message, and love that seeks the salvation of souls by means of it, the knowledge and “the tongues” of preachers profit nothing. The charge given to Paul (Act 26:18) and to Timothy (2Ti 4:5) applies to every “good minister of Jesus Christ.” We are appointed as witnesses for God; as labourers together with God; as ambassadors to promote reconciliation with God. We are ministers of the good tidings of Christ; soldiers of Christ (to overcome men’s” evil “by Christ’s” good”). We are lights (“the lamp that burneth and shineth,” Joh 5:35) to light men to Jesus Christ. We are fishers of men, that we may secure them for Christ; under-shepherds of souls, that we may keep them; watchmen, that we may warn them. Mediately we may be said to be saviours of souls (Jas 5:19, Jas 5:20). So earnest should we be to secure this end, that our hearers should be able to say of us, as a plain woman did of Robert McCheyne of Dundee, “He seemed as though he were almost dyin’ to have you converted.” Such a ministry will secure its object (1Ti 4:12-16). A painful contrast is suggested between this ideal of the ministry and our attainments in attempting to reach it. We should learn humility and be melted into penitence. For God holds us responsible for what we might have been and might have done after all that he has done for usa truth we are reminded of by God’s appeal in Isa 5:4. But the lofty standard held out before us may also stimulate us to “forget the things that are behind,” etc; and to make the aims of the Christ-like Apostle Paul our own (1Co 9:16-22; Col 1:28, Col 1:29).

Mal 2:10-16

The sin of conjugal unfaithfulness.

We here use the term “unfaithfulness” in its widest sense, extending far beyond the sin of unchastity. We note

I. UNFAITHFULNESS TO GOD IS THE ROOT SIN OF ALL OTHER FORMS OF INFIDELITY. The sins denounced in the earlier verses of this book are quite sufficient to account for the criminality here exposed. Those who profane the “covenant” and the “holiness” of God in their hearts, and who do not seek “to give glory” to his Name (Mal 2:2), are easily betrayed into glaring acts of wrong against the nearest and dearest on earth. “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways,” and those ways are all downward ways. The first sin of Adam and Eve led to mutual recrimination. Disobedience towards the heavenly Father paves the way for discord in the earthly home. “Therefore take heed to your spirit” (Mal 2:16).

II. THIS INFIDELITY SHOWED ITSELF IN TWO FORMS.

1. In unlawful marriages. (Mal 2:11.) This was a proof of unfaithfulness both to the national covenant (Ezr 9:10-12) and to God’s purpose in marriage. Similar unfaithfulness shows itself under the Christian covenant when such precepts as 1Co 7:39 (“only in the Lord”) and 2Co 6:14-18 are set at naught. For a Christian to marry an enemy of Christ, “a covetous person who is an idolater,” or a slave of “the god of this world,” is a breach of the sanctity of marriage. It tends to degrade it into a carnal union; it certainly grossly neglects its object as a spiritual bond, in which all material considerations are to be held as subordinate to that “great mystery,” typical of the Divine union of Christ and his Church. By such sin a professed disciple of Christ virtually cuts himself off from the commonwealth of the saints, that he may join the congregation of the aliens. He thus exposes himself to the judgment of God, who will be impartial in his treatment of all classes, of those that lead into sin and those that are led (2Co 6:12; Job 12:16), and who will accept no “offering,” no outward service, that might be regarded as a blind to the eyes of the Judge, presented by a man who sought thus to compound for his sin (Pro 21:27; Pro 28:9; Isa 1:13-17; Amo 5:21-24).

2. In ill treatment of their lawful wives. This is the second form of unfaithfulness, and reminds us that “the way of sin is downhill, and one violation of the covenant is an inlet to another” (M. Henry). Unfaithfulness to the marriage vow in any form (unkindness or neglect as well as adultery or divorce) is here condemned by the following considerations.

(1) Religious services are marred by moral delinquencies (2Co 6:13). It is a terrible thing to send any soul weeping in its prayer to God, and really, if not intentionally, appealing to him for avengement. How much worse if that soul should be the partner of thy life! God seeks songs, not groans, in our services. He desires unity in the home, “that your prayers be not hindered” (1Pe 3:7). How, then, must he regard the prayers of a wife deprecating the unkindness of her husband!

(2) God was a witness of every word and vow at the marriage ceremony. Through the following years he notes how those promises are kept. He is still a witness of every act of wrong on the part of either husband or wife. And he is “the avenger of all such” (1Th 4:6).

(3) The tender relations cruelly violated. Aggravations of this sin are suggested by each of the terms, “companion,” “wife of thy youth,” “wife of thy covenant.”

(4) God’s design in marriage (2Co 6:15). Polygamy is fatal to godly family life and training, and discord most perilous to it.

(5) The infectious influence of sins. If we deal treacherously against our “brother” (2Co 6:10), we tempt him to act in a similar way. This is applicable to the influence of an unfaithful husband on his wife, or on other husbands or on the unmarried whom by his example he may debauch and destroy. The master and the scholar, the blind leader of the blind,all shall fall into the ditch.

(6) The Divine hatred which such sins incur (2Co 6:16). There are several things which we are expressly told in Scripture God hates (cf. Deu 12:31; Deu 16:22; Pro 6:16-19; Pro 8:13; Isa 61:8; Jer 44:4). Among these things divorce and every other form of conjugal treachery and unfaithfulness are included. Men may make light of many of these sins, may patronize the criminals, and deride their censors. But see Luk 16:14, Luk 16:15, and the lesson it suggests. What God hates may we dread, and seek never to be unjust in the least, lest we be unjust also in much!

Mal 2:10

The brotherhood of men.

“Liberty, equality, fraternity,” are Divine ideas, though men have sometimes striven to embody them in crude or even repulsive and brutal forms. Men are equals, inasmuch as they are all the creatures of the one God who created them. The revelation of that Creator as “the Father of spirits” constitutes those created spirits into a brotherhood. From this fraternal relation the claim to liberty and more than liberty follows.

I. SOUND ETHICS MUST BE BASED ON A TRUE THEOLOGY. Our relations to men depend on our relation to God. Our treatment of them will vary with our conceptions of those relations. False views of God are fatal to consistent conduct towards our brethren. And though our ethics may be partially true, they will be practically powerless unless supported by “the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness.” Hence the practical impotence of heathen ethics, whether those of Socrates or of Confucius. We must recgonize such truths as these: that we are creatures of the one God, “in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways;” that we are pensioners on his bounty; that we are sinners dependent on his mercy; and that, nevertheless, we are children entitled to claim our place in his family. We shall then recognize that we are bound to treat all our fellow creatures as members of the same family, sharing with us in the same bounty and mercy of the Father of all, “who willeth that all men should be saved.” Jesus Christ, in whom that will is revealed, is the bond of unity, for “the Head of every man is Christ.”

II. THERE IS A “COVENANT OF OUR FATHERS” MORE EXTENSIVE THAN THAT WHICH GOD MADE WITH THE JEWS. We can trace it back beyond Moses or Abraham to “our first father;” “for God hath made of one blood all nations of men;” “for we are also his offspring.” The terms of this covenant are found in “the law written in our hearts.” Hence moral law and Divine retribution are found beyond the limits of an inspired revelation. We see in the Bible illustrations of God’s judgments denounced on:

1. The sins of the Hebrews against their own brethren; e.g. the re-enslavement of the freedmen (Jer 34:1-22.).

2. The crimes of Hebrews towards strangers, though they were heathens; e.g. Saul’s massacre of the Gibeonites (2Sa 21:1-22.), Zedekiah’s perjury against Nebuchadnezzar (2Ch 36:13).

3. The outrages of heathens upon their brother heathens, as when the King of Moab “burned the bones of the King of Edom into lime” (Amo 2:1).

III. A SIN AGAINST A BROTHER IS A SIN AGAINST GOD, WHO MADE HIM A BROTHER. The warning of 1Co 8:12 is applicable beyond the limits of the Christian Church. It was a fearful prediction that “the brother shall betray the brother to death.” Give to the term “brother” its Divine significance, and every act of treachery or unfaithfulness is seen to be odious to the Father of all Hence the claims of truth towards our “neighbour, for we are members one of another;” of “all good fidelity” on the part of servants towards masters, “that they may adorn the doctrine of God;” of standing to our word, though it may be to our own hurt, that we may stand in the holy place of the Lord; of loving our enemies, that we may be children of our Father who is in heaven.

IV. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD IS ONE GREAT MOTIVE FOR THE RIGHT TREATMENT OF HIS CHILDREN. Cruelty, tyranny, slavery, and every form of social wrong would then he banished from the family of God, the brotherhood of men. War would be as intolerable as fighting in the family circle. Punishment of offending brothers would only be inflicted under a grave sense of our responsibility towards their Father and ours. Practical benevolence would be inspired by God s love to us (1Jn 3:17). And as Abraham interceded for the preservation of the heathen Sodomites, so should we, by prayers and labours, seek the salvation of the whole nature (“spirit end soul and body,” 1Th 5:28) of those children of God who are still lost to the Father’s home.

Notice, in conclusion, how the fuller revelation of the Fatherhood of God in Jesus Christ, and our adoption in him, gives power and pathos to all the truths we have mentioned and the motives to brotherly kindness we have enforced (1Jn 4:9-11). The knowledge of such a Father should inspire our hearts with the most tender compassion towards our brethren who know him not.

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK

Mal 2:2

The cursing of our blessings.

The direct address of this verse is to the priestly classy whose irreverence and indifference were so clearly shown in their offering the people’s unworthy sacrifices, without attempting to reprove them, or endeavouring to awaken them to worthier and more spiritual views of sacrifice. When the ministry has become a fountain and a support of religious negligence and formality, the nation is placed in extreme peril, and severe providential dealings for the national and the priestly humiliation may be expected. The Divine threatening here is, “I will curse your blessings.” This may mean either of three things; it may, quite possibly, include all three. It may mean, “I will turn the gifts of the people into curses.” Or, “I will make the harvest of your work in the fields a failure and a curse instead of a blessing.” Or, “I will make the blessing which you priests pronounce upon the people prove a curse to them.” It should, however, be noticed that we now use the term “curse” with a connotation which is much more severe than that of Malachi. Our word “denunciation” would better fit the prophet’s meaning.

I. TURNING THE PEOPLE‘S GIFTS INTO CURSES. The priests received tithes, portions of the sacrifices, and offerings. God’s judgment on the irreverent priests would come in limitation of tithes, disease from eating of the sick beasts offered as sacrifices, and the worthlessness of the offerings; for he who could give a mean thing to God would be sure to give mean things to his servants. Let God withdraw his added blessing, and our very “good things” fail to do us good. The psalmist recognizes this by praying that God would curse the blessings of his enemies (see Psa 69:22). This is the permanent truth for all the ages, “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.” Illustrate by the “little book” of Revelation, which was sweet to the taste, but bitter to the soul.

II. TURNING THE HARVEST OF TOIL INTO A CURSE. (Verse 3.) What a blessing the harvest of the fields is, let the Harvest Home testify. These priests and Levites were compelled to go to their homes, and try and gain a living by the tillage of their land. But the judgment of God on irreverence and indifference would follow them there, and make their harvest a “heap.” They would find that, whatever they touched, there was no Divine blessing on their work.

III. TURNING THE PRIESTLY BLESSING OF THE PEOPLE INTO A CURSE. The words of the priestly blessing are given in Num 6:23-27. It is the deepest view of this Divine threatening to see it to mean thisThe blessings which you, negligent and irreverent priests, pronounce in your formal way shall break in curses upon the heads of the people.R.T.

Mal 2:4

Judgments recalling covenant obligations.

Mal 2:8 gives the great feature of God’s judgment, first as a fact, and then by a figure. The Levites might shirk their temple duties, and go off to their fields; but God’s hand would be upon them there; he would “corrupt” the seed they sowed, so that their harvest Would be a failure. And so they would stand before the people impoverished, disgraced, and contemptible; with the stamp of failure on everything they touched. A recent account of the ceremony connected with the recovery of a Brahmin who had broken his caste explains the Eastern custom indicated in this verse. One part of the ceremony was the plastering of his entire body, except his eyes, with filth; he was then plunged into the river, and when the filth was washed away, the man was restored. The idea of Mal 2:4 is that this Divine judgment on unfaithful Levi must take the place of the Covenant of life and peace which God had made with Levi, and would gladly have kept with his descendants. “I gave to Levi (that is, to you, the priestly tribe) a pledge of favour; but you have forfeited it, and it is now therefore turned into a threat of reprobation for your sins. No longer a covenant of peace, but of woe.”

I. JUDGMENT IS GOD‘S STRANGE WORK. It has not been sufficiently noticed, that God never threatens without indication of deep feeling of regret that he should be compelled to threaten. This may be illustrated from every part of Scripture, and especially in Divine dealings with the antediluvians, the Sodomites, the Israelites, and the Ninevites The keynote is given in this exclamation, “Have I any pleasure at all in the death of the wicked?” God is most unworthily misrepresented when he is thought of as punishing in a spirit of coldness and indifference. To judge and afflict is holiest pain to him.

II. JUDGMENT IS GOD‘S NECESSARY WORK. Punishment belongs to moral discipline. It is an essential feature of it. It is part of all paternity. It is involved in the trust of childhood. God could not be his own Divine self if he did not punish. To let sin go would be unworthy of God. Father or King, he must be severe on wrong doers.

III. THREATENING OF JUDGMENT IS GOD‘S HUMBLING WORK. God always threatens before punishing. Threatening recalls obligations. Recalling obligations sets conduct in contrast with duty, and bumbles us in the dust. Nothing bows us into penitence like seeing before us what we pledged ourselves to be, and being forced to place beside it what we are.R.T.

Mal 2:5, Mal 2:6

The double future of a Jehovah covenant.

The covenant was made with the tribe of Levi; and the precise terms here referred to occur in the renewal of covenant with Phinehas, “Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: and he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood” (Num 25:12, Num 25:13). A covenant is a mutual engagement entered into by two parties. Each party takes pledges; and each is exonerated from keeping his pledge if the other party breaks his. Too often the Divine covenant is treated as if it only involved God’s putting himself under pledge of service to us. The truth needs to be emphasized that the covenant includes our pledge of faithful service to him. And this is true of the new covenant, sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ.

I. JEHOVAH‘S PLEDGE TO LEVI. “My covenant was with him of life and peace,” There is some reason for thinking that, before the Sinaitic revelation was made, the tribe of Levi provided the moral and religious teachers of the Israelites. They were designated for the special work of the priesthood, but the Divine covenant took a special shape in consequence of the loyalty and zeal of the Levites in the matter of the golden calf; and of Phinehas in vindicating the Divine claim to moral purity. God pledged two things:

(1) “life,” or permanence; and

(2) “peace” or prosperity.

Security that the honour and usefulness of the position should be quietly maintained. There is a Divine side to every covenant. God condescends to pledge himself to men. He promises his providings, preservings, guidings, redeemings, sanctifyings. In the new covenant, in the hands of the Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, all the old terms of covenant are renewed, and the special pledge of salvation from sin is added. He who has begun a good work in us is pledged to perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ.

II. LEVI‘S PLEDGE TO JEHOVAH. This side of covenant seldom receives sufficient attention. The Levites gave themselves to Jehovah’s service; they pledged themselves to devote their lives to the services of his sanctuary, the teaching of his truth, and the upholding of his honour. So far as the early Levites were typified in Phinehas, they kept their pledge. Their personal characters honoured the covenant (Mal 2:6). Their steadfastness in duty, their cherished sense of right, and their active ministry against all iniquity, maintained the pledge of the covenant. Then how striking is the contrast suggested between the Levites of the early times and the Levites of Malachi’s days! Their broken pledge meant that God was relieved of all obligation to keep his pledge to them.R.T.

Mal 2:6

The active influence of the steadfast man.

Levi is taken as the type of such a man. The man who walks with God in peace and equity cannot fair to exert a strong personal influence. He will “turn many from iniquity.” The point of this sentence is that active influence for good is exerted by passive goodness. Men are powers by being established characters. Steadfastness is ministry. If it be so, then there are more workers for God than come into usual calculation. Priests and clergy have their power in what they are-in cultured, sanctified characterquite as truly as in Divine endowments and in trained efficiencies.

I. THE STEADFAST MAN EXERTS ACTIVE POWER OF REPROACH. He need utter no word; his steadfast goodness speaks loudly enough. There is no reproach comes to the evil liver like the simple presence of the good liver. Nothing shamed into silence the foulness of old prison scenes like the simple presence of the saintly Mrs. Fry. And in sublimer ways the truth is illustrated in the case of our Lord. The devils that possessed men felt the reproach of his simple presence, and cried out in their alarm. Every one of us who stands firm to righteousness and equity is actively reproving the unsteadiness and evil that are daily around us.

II. THE STEADFAST MAN EXERTS THE ACTIVE POWER OF EXAMPLE. The imitative faculty of man is more influential than we are wont to think. Everybody is disposed to make models. And all persons are materially helped by having high models of virtue in their spheres. Every individual has a sphere of influence. Within that sphere his example is an active power. We are all ideals to some one. Then “what manner of persons ought we to be?”

III. THE STEADFAST MAN EXERTS A POSITIVE POWER ON MEN‘S WILLS. To see a man who can stand fast to righteousness actually strengthens the decision and resolve of others. In it is the mastery of the tempter’s lie that we cannot hope to be good. Our wills are weakened by the fear that goodness is unattainable, and it is of no use to try to be good. Every steadfast man proves that man can will the Roost and do it, and that God stands by such a man in his resolve.

IV. THE STEADFAST MAN EXERTS A POSITIVE SAVING INFLUENCE. He “turns men from iniquity.” He cannot leave wrong doers alone. If the priests of Malachi’s time had been steadfast men, they would soon have turned the worshippers from the. iniquity of bringing the lame and sick for sacrifice.R.T.

Mal 2:7

Reasonable expectations of God’s ministers.

“The priest’s lips should keel knowledge.” The ideal priest is here characterized, not by ceremonial exactitude, but by moral integrity. Sacrificing is not so essential as religious knowledge, sound learning, and wholesome teaching. The proper expectation of God’s ministers is that they will tell God’s will to the people, not only because they know it, but even more because they keep it. In our religious teachers we look for adequacy of knowledge, and adequacy of experience.

I. ADEQUACY OF KNOWLEDGE. In some countries, and in some ages, the sacred ministry has been the chief source of secular knowledge for the people. That is not the case now, and in civilized countries. But still God’s ministers need to be abreast, and to keep abreast, of all that is thought and known in their day, because to them is entrusted the work of conserving the Divine element in all knowledge, and the Divine relation to everything discovered. Unless ministers have adequate knowledge, they occupy a lower plane than the secular teachers, and fail to influence the higher range of students with Divine claims, truths, and principles. To put it in another wayThe ministry must be on the level of the people if it is to sympathize with them; but the ministry must be in intelligence and knowledge above the people, if it is to lift the people to higher things, Two points may be illustrated.

1. The ministers should gain knowledge as men can gain it.

2. The ministers should gain knowledge as spiritual men only can gain it. It is that spiritually acquired knowledge that is the minister’s true efficiency; and more especially that spiritual knowledge as it relates to the mysteries of the sacred Word.

II. ADEQUACY OF EXPERIENCE. There is book knowledge, and there is experimental knowledge. It may be argued that for the common, everyday relations and duties of life, experience is a more valuable and practical teacher than books can be. It is certainly true that, for the ministry, experience is the essential thing. A man can only speak with power when “he has tasted and handled and felt the good word of life.” The people have confidence in the teacher who has been taught of God in the discipline of life. What needs to be pointed out is that these two adequacies are not antagonistic, In their harmonious culture lies the true power.R.T.

Mal 2:10

Unfaithfulness to God involves injury to our brethren.

This verse begins a new subject, and it might have headed a new chapter. Answering to the indifference shown in regard to Divine worship was an indifference in regard to moral and family relations. Loose worship and loose social morality usually go together. Let men become careless about God’s claims, and they will be found careless about marriage relations, and will lightly do wrong by the wives of their youth, in the mastery of their self-indulgence. Ezra and Nehemiah had to deal very sternly with the social evils arising from the ready divorce of Jewish wives for the sake of heathen wives. Malachi begins his expostulations on this matter by putting the people in mind that they owned one God and Father, in opposition to the idols of the heathen, and therefore should deal with one another as brethren. By the marriages with strangers they were dealing falsely and injuriously with their brethren and countrymen, by ill treating their daughters whom they had taken in marriage.

I. BREAKING GOD‘S COVENANT BREAKS IT FOE OTHERS. Illustrate by the case of the golden calf. Those who took no part in the sin had to take part in the penalty. It is the bitterness of all wrong doing that we can never keep its consequences to ourselves. “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

II. UNFAITHFULNESS TO GOD MAKES INJURY TO OUR BROTHER BY BEING A BAD EXAMPLE. Every man is bound to help his brother to be good. It is often shown that every man is bound to aid his brother in distress. It is not so often shown that every man has a claim on his brother, that he should help him to goodness. If a man does wrong, is unfaithful to God, he actually injures his brother by depriving him of his rights in his good example. Constantly we find wrong doing excused by examples of wrong doing. Sinners defraud their neighbours of their rights.

III. UNFAITHFULNESS TO GOD MAY LEAD TO POSITIVE ACTS OF INJURY TO OUR BRETHREN. The man who is strong enough to oppose God is usually masterful enough to injure his fellow. He who does not regard God is not likely to regard man. The love of God carries the love of man; the revolt against God is sure to involve the loosening of humanities.R.T.

Mal 2:11

Worship spoiled by the tears of the injured.

The divorced and abandoned wives went to the courts of the temple “with tears, with weeping, and with crying.” “Their wail of lamentation mingled with the prayers and hymns of the sacrificing priests. How could the Lord ‘regard the offering any more, or accept it at their hands,’ when attended by such accompaniments?” The point forced on attention is this: Here were men bringing their sacrifices, and offering their prayers for God’s blessing. And at the same time, here were the injured women praying against their prayers, and pleading that their worship should not be accepted. The tears were spoiling the worship. There is scarcely a thought more solemn and searching than the thought that few, if any, of our prayers go up to God unqualified and unchecked. We pray for, something prays against, and God withholds the blessing because the balance is in favour of the “against.”

I. WE MAY PRAY AGAINST OUR OWN PRAYERS. It is said of St. Augustine that for some time he prayed,” Lord, convert me, but not yet.” That was himself praying against himself. When duty prays one way and heart another; when we are not quite sure whether we want what we ask for; and when we are careless about receiving the answer,we really pray against our own prayers. God may see our real prayer to be something quite other than our words.

II. OTHERS MAY BE PRAYING AGAINST OUR PRAYERS. This may be done unreasonably, and then God makes the prayer against strengthen the prayer for. Or it may be done reasonably, as when the cry of the widow, the fatherless, the divorced wife, the sweated workman, or the neglected sufferer, goes up to God against us. It would be well sometimes to ask ourselves whether there can be anything praying against our prayers.R.T.

Mal 2:15

God served by our meeting family obligations.

This verse is difficult to paraphrase. ‘Speaker’s Commentary’ renders thus: “And hath no one acted thus (in putting away his wife) who yet had a remnant of sense in him?” The prophet makes the people say this in excuse of their conduct, and in allusion to the Patriarch Abraham, who put away his wife Hagar. Wordsworth puts the sentence interrogatively, “And did not one (Abraham) do it (i.e. put away his wife Hagar), and yet he had a remnant of the spirit?” The answer to the question is that Abraham was justified because he acted upon the special direction of God in seeking a seed within the covenant. But the people of Malachi’s days were acting on pure self-willedness, and with no possible excuse of having received Divine directions. They were not serving God. God is served by the fulfilling of family obligations. He cannot be served by the shirking of ordinary obligations at the instance of unbridled passion.

I. FAMILY OBLIGATIONS SHOULD BE ENTERED UPON SERIOUSLY. And seriously means with

(1) due self-control;

(2) quietly;

(3) thoughtfully;

(4) prayerfully.

Early marriages are natural, and may be prudent; but when they are the result of impulse, of wrong doing, or of lightness and inconsiderateness, they are a most fruitful source of trouble. No marriage should be consummated unless upon it the Divine blessing can be honestly, sincerely, heartily, and hopefully asked.

II. FAMILY OBLIGATIONS SHOULD BE MAINTAINED WITH PATIENT PERSISTENCY. Much occurs in married life to knit hearts together; but much must necessarily occur which, if permitted, would drive hearts asunder. Bearing and forbearing have to be resolute work until they become easy work. And every triumph over self makes every new triumph easier. If each lives for the other, all goes well. If either lives for self, all goes ill. “Let none deal unfaithfully by the wife of his youth.”

III. FAMILY RELATIONS SHOULD BE BROKEN ONLY WITH EXTREME PAIN. Cases do occur. But every one who is anxious for the moral well being of the nation looks with extreme anxiety on the increasing readiness with which divorces are sought and granted.R.T.

Mal 2:17

The sin of confusing moral distinctions.

“Ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them.” Isaiah pleads in a similar way,” Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isa 5:20). It seems that some, in the days of Malachi, answered his pleadings with insolent defiance, even daring to deny moral obligations altogether.

I. CALLING EVIL GOOD IS THE WAY TO EXCUSE OUR SINS. Daring men who are determined to “follow the devices and desires of their own hearts,” will bravely say, “Evil, be thou my good.” But the process of deterioration is usually slower and more subtle. We want to do wrong, and we begin to wish that it were not wrong. Then comes the doubt whether it is wrong. Then we begin to imagine that it is wrong only under particular circumstances. Then we find that our case does not come into the bad list. And the way is open to do the wrong under the shadow of our self-delusion that it really is good. There are family delusions that lead us to call evil good; society delusions; sectarian delusions; and personal delusions. These last are the most serious. A man can easily persuade himself that the pleasant is the right; and he may only mean the pleasant to the body. The pleasant to the soul, the pleasant because of God’s benediction, helps to truer judgments.

II. CALLING GOOD EVIL IS THE WAY TO RUIN OUR SOULS. There is no hope for a man when he loses his sensitiveness to good, for with it goes his sensitiveness to God. A man is never lost while he can believe in goodness. There is anchorage in that. He is indeed driven with the wind and tossed hopelessly on the sea of life, if he ever comes to say, “All is evil;” “All is vanity and vexation of spirit;” “All men are liars;” “There is no good: there is neither good nor God.” There is good, for there is God. He is God, and much that his creatures do bears the stamp of his goodness. Evil and good are contraries. Hope for humanity lies in their never getting confused.R.T.

HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS

Mal 2:1-3

Spiritual reformation.

“And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you,” etc. The grand subject we gather from these words is spiritual reformation. “Now, O ye priests.” The priests are specially addressed and reproved, for they, whose mission it was to raise the people to true worship and to holiness, led them into sin. Notice

I. THE NATURE OF THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION REQUIRED. “If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my Name, saith the Lord of hosts.” From this language it would appear that true spiritual reformation involves two things.

1. A practical application of the Word of God. There should be right attention to it. That Word is not only to be heard, earnestly listened to, but to be laid to heart, which means practical attention. It is to be applied to correct the wrong that is in us, and to generate and develop the true.

2. An entire dedication to the glory of God. “To give glory unto my Name: All genuine spiritual reformation is implied in thisright attention to the Divine Word, right application of the Divine Word, and an entire dedication to the glory of God. This is a reformation not of parchment but of principle, not of systems but of souls. It is in truth the only reformation worth having.

II. THE URGENCY OF THE SPIRITUAL REFORMATION REQUIRED. The neglect thereof incurs:

1. A curse. “I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings.” “I will curse your benedictions.” Not the personal advantages and perquisites enjoyed by the priests, but the blessings they pronounced upon the people. The service had been merely formal without any sort of reverence in it; the blessings they uttered should retributively be evacuated of all efficacy and should be a mere formula” (Dr. Dods). What an awful thing to have blessings turned into curses I and yet if we are unregenerate and unrenewed this takes place by the very laws of our moral constitution. As hemlock turns even the sunbeam into poison, corrupt souls turn God’s blessings into maledictions.

2. A rebuke. According to Keil, Ewald, and others, the expression, “Behold, I will corrupt your seed,” should be, “Behold, I will rebuke your arms.” Perhaps the idea isI will wither your power, I will check the growth of your posterity. There is no true prosperity without spiritual reformation.

3. Contempt. “I will spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts.” “The dung in the maw of the victims sacrificed on the feast days. The maw was the perquisite of the priests (Deu 18:3), which gives peculiar point to the threat here. You shall get the dung of the maw as your perquisite instead of the maw. And one shall take you away with it, i.e. you shall be taken away with it, it shall cleave to you wherever you go” (Moore). “Dung shall be thrown in your faces, and ye shall be taken away, i.e. removed out of the way, as dung would be, dung begrimed as ye shall be (1Ki 14:10; Jer 16:1-21..4; Jer 22:19)” (Fausset).

CONCLUSION. Are we the subjects of this spiritual reformation? Have we been renewed in the spirit of our minds? “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”D.T.

Mal 2:4-9

The minister of Divine truth,

“My covenant was with him of life and peace,” etc. We have here the minister of Divine truth as he always should be, and as he often is

I. THE MINISTER OF DIVINE TRUTH AS HE ALWAYS SHOULD BE. We learn:

1. That he should be a man divinely called. “Ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the Lord of hosts.” What was the Divine commission to the priesthood? Here it is: “Phinehas. the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: and he shall have it, and his seed after him” (Num 25:11-13). The Aaronic priests were called of God to be the ministers of life and peace to the people. Two of the greatest blessings of being. What is existence without lifeintellectual and spiritual life? and what is life without peacepeace with self, the universe, and with God?

2. That he should be a man of profound reverence. “I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my Name.” The priest was not only to be entirely free from a volatile and frivolous spirit, but to be profoundly reverential, pervaded by a holy awe. He was to be impressed with the solemnity of the commission with which he was entrusted.

3. That he should be a man of moral truthfulness. “The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: The moral laws which he has to inculcate and administer are to be regal forces in his own soul, and embodied in his life. He is to be free from the control of all shams and theories, a man of stern, moral realities.

4. That he should be a man of practical devotion. “He walked with me in peace and equity.” His life should be a walk; there should be progress in it; he should walk with God, and walk with God in “peace and equity.”

5. That he should be a man of the highest usefulness. “And did turn many away from iniquity.” Iniquity is man’s curse and ruin; to turn him from that is to save him, and that is the work of the true minister. The commission given to Paul was to “turn men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God’ (Act 26:18).

6. That he should be a man of the highest intelligence. “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the Law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts” Being a “messenger of the Lord of hosts,” he is to understand and appreciate the wonderful message, and give it from his own mouth to the people. Such is what Levi, as an ideal priest was and did, and every minister of Divine truth must be and do the same. What a high standard to aim at! How its light condemns and abashes most of us!

II. THE MINISTER OF DIVINE TRUTH AS HE OFTEN IS. The false minister is here represented:

1. As swerving from the right. “But ye are departed out of the way.” Ye are very different in your conduct from the ideal priest and even from your actual predecessors in office; your careless teaching, your superficial dealing, your contentment with formulas and external rites, and your personal laxity, have given men a prejudice against religion altogether. Instead of helping men to accept the truth and live godly lives, you have caused even those who wished to do so to take offence and turn away. A sceptical age is necessarily the result of externality and heartlessness in the religious teachers of previous generations.

2. As leading the people astray. “Ye have caused many to stumble at the Law.” Not only by their speech, but by their conduct, do many who profess to be ministers of God’s Word lead the people to stumble. Their inconsistent life, their theological jargon, their exclusive spirit, lead the people to “stumble” at Divine things.

3. As perverting the truth. “Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi.” How many there are who tamper with the Word of God, who employ it to support some favourite prejudice, or to buttress their little sect! How far, for example, is our conventional theology from being like the theology of Christ!

4. As becoming contemptible. “Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people.” Ministers who hunt after honour, popularity, gain, become contemptible in the estimation of intelligent and unsophisticated souls. The pulpit of England is certainly sinking into contempt with the English people. This is a sad calamity. The decrease in the number of those who attend churches, compared with the increase of population; the growth of a literature in thorough antagonism to the spirit and aims of Christianity; and the fact that the great bulk of the reading and thinking men of England stand aloof from all Churches, plainly show that the pulpit of England is sinking into popular contempt. Primates and prelates and preachers are treated with ridicule in nearly all popular literature and scientific discussion, A more terrible sign of the times I know not than this. The “salt” of the pulpit has lost its “savour,” and it is being trodden underfoot with disdain and contempt. Trodden underfoot by our authors, scientists, artisans, tradesmen, and merchants. Gracious Heaven, raise up men for our pulpits, so high in culture, so gifted in faculty, so Christly in love, so invincible in duty, so independent in action, that they shall not only counteract the downward tendency to ruin, but shall attract to it with reverence the intellect of the age!D.T.

Mal 2:10-12

One Father.

“Have we not all one Father,” etc..? “This section,” says Keil, “does not stand in any close connection with the preceding one. It does not furnish an example of the stumbling upon the Law mentioned in Mal 2:8; nor of the violation of the covenant of the fathers (Mal 2:10); or of the marriage covenant (Mal 2:14), appended to the neutralizing of the covenant of Levi on the part of the priests (Mal 2:8 and Mal 2:4). For there is no indication in Mal 2:10-16 that the priests gave any impulse through their bad teaching to the breaches of the Law which are here condemned; and the violation of the covenant of the fathers and of the marriage covenant forms no more a thought by which the whole is ruled, than the violation of the covenant with Levi, in the previous section. The prophet rather passes over with Mal 2:10 to a perfectly new subject, viz. the condemnation of marriages with heathen women.” From this passage the three following truths are deducible.

I. THAT THE GREAT GOD IS NOT ONLY THE CREATOR BUT THE COMMON FATHER OF MANKIND. “Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us?” It is clear that the one Father does not mean either Adam the progenitor of the race, or Abraham the Father of the Israelitish nation, but Jehovah himself. He is the Creator of all things, but not the Father of all things. We could not regard him as the Father of the mountains, the valleys, the rivers, the oceans, the stars, though he is the Creator of all these. All things are created by him; but he is the Father of human souls. “We are all his offspring.” This relationship implies two things.

1. A resemblance in nature. Children resemble their parents in nature and attributes. All intelligent moral beings bear a resemblance to the Infinite. They are spiritual in essence, moral in sentiment, free in action; they are formed in his image.

2. The existence of parental sympathy. While a human father has the ordinary sensibilities of a man, he has the peculiar affections of a parent, a tender interest in his offspring, which he feels for no other object in the world. So God is a Father. Whilst he has an interest in all the works of his hands, he has a special interest in a human soul.

3. The obligation of filial devotion. Filial love and loyalty raise and bind the souls of children to their parents. Such is the feeling that human spirits should cherish and develop in relation to God. Man is the only creature on this round earth that has the capacity, and consequently the obligation, to feel, entertain, or develop this filial affection. He then who is the Creator of all things in the world is the Father of man; all are his creatures, but men are his children. Sublime distinction this!

II. THAT THE FACT OF THIS UNIQUE RELATIONSHIP IS A MIGHTY ARGUMENT WHY MAN SHOULD DO NO WRONG AGAINST EITHER HIS FELLOW CREATURE OR HIS GOD. “Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?” Two remarks are suggested concerning the wrong with which the Israelites are here charged.

1. It was a wrong committed against mankind. The special wrong referred to is the contraction of marriage with a heathen woman, and the putting away the Israelitish wife. This is the treachery and the “abomination” referred to. The repudiation of Jewish wives and the adoption of heathen.

2. This wrong against mankind was a wrong against God himself. “Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god.” God’s law with the Jewish people was that they were to be a separate people, separate from all the other people of the earth, and they were to sustain their distinction by not intermarrying with other peoples. But now, at the period when the prophet wrote, they were doing so, and that to a great extent (see Neh 13:23-29; Ezr 9:1-4). It is a universal truth that a wrong against man is a wrong against God; to sin against our fellow creatures is to sin against God himself; and this is an outrage against the relationship which we all sustain to him, not only as our common Creator, but our common Father. We are all children of the same Father, and therefore we should be fair in our dealings one With another. We should love one another, and cooperate with one another for our mutual advantage in all that is virtuous and noble. “Have we not all one Father?” Wherefore, then, should we cheat, hate, deceive, oppress, murder one another? How monstrous!

III. THAT THE PERPETRATION OF WRONG EXPOSES THE DOER TO THE MOST LAMENTABLE RESULTS. “The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the Lord of hosts. And this have ye done,” etc. This, perhaps, means utter extermination. “The master and the scholar,” some translate, “him that watcheth and him that answereth.” In “master” the special reference is to the priest who ought to have taught the people piety, but who led them into evil; in “scholar,” to the people themselves, who were the pupils of the priests. The idea is that both the priests and the people will suffer on account of the wrong they were committing. Great distress had come upon them already. “This have ye done” (see Ezr 10:1-44.; Neh 13:10-13) Again, this is only a shadowy picture of the evils that ever flow from wrong. “Sin brought death into our world, and all our woe.” It is sin that kindles and feeds the flames retribution.

CONCLUSION. Haste the time when men shall realize the fact that they are all children of one Father, so that all wrongs against one another shall cease, and the spirit of universal brotherhood prevail!

“A happy bit hame this auld world would be,
If men when they’re here could make shift to agree,
An’ ilk said to his neighbour, in cottage an’ ha’,
‘Come, gi’e me your handwe are brethren a’.
“I ken na why ane wi’ anither should fight,
When to ‘glee would make a’ body comie an’ right;
When man meets wi’ man, ’tis the best way ava,
To say, ‘ Gi’e me sour handwe are brethren a’
“My coat is a coarse ane an’ yours may be fine,
And I maun drink water while you maun drink wine;
But we both ha’e a leal heart, unspotted to shaw,
‘Sae gi’e me your handwe’re brethren a’.’
“Ye would scorn to do fausely by woman or man;
I haud by the right, aye, as well as I can.
We are ane in our joys, our affections an a’,
Come, gi’e me your handwe are brethren a’.'”

(R. Nicol.)

D.T.

Mal 2:14-16

The Divine institution of marriage.

“Yet ye say, Wherefore?” etc. The subject of these verses is the Divine institution of marriage. In relation to this institution we observe

I. THAT IT IMPLIES A LOVING UNION OF TWO, AND ONLY TWO, SOULS UNTIL DEATH. “Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one?” “Wife of thy youth.” The Jews had ever been accustomed to marry very young, the husband often being not more than thirteen year’s of age, and the wife younger. “Thy companion;” not a slave, nor an inferior, but an equal and a friend. Love-companionship is the highest ideal of matrimony. “Wife of thy covenant.” A relationship established by mutual agreement. Marriage (Pro 2:17) is called the covenant of God; it is so because he has ordained it. “Did not he make one?” Thine exclusively. “Yet had he the residue of the sprat, etc. Maurier and Hengstenberg explain this verse thus: “The Jews had defended their conduct by the precedent of Abraham, who had taken Hagar to the injury of Sarah his lawful wife. To this Malachi says, ‘Now no one [ever] did so in whom there was a residue of intelligence [discriminating between good and evil], and what did the one [Abraham, to whom you appeal for support] do, seeking a godly seed? His object [viz. not to gratify passion, but to obtain the seed promised by God] makes the case wholly inapplicable to defend your position.’ It is asked, ‘And wherefore one?’ Wherefore only Eve for Adam, Sarah for Abraham?” “Instead,” says Dr. Henderson, “of forming two into one, the Creator might have given to Adam many wives. There was no lack of spiritual existence from which to furnish them with intelligent souls. When he gave to Eve such an existence he did not exhaust the universal fountain of being. There remained all with which the human race had been furnished throughout its generations. What, then, the prophet asks, was the design of the restriction? To this he repliesThe securing of a pious offspring. Divorces and polygamy have ever been unfavourable to the education of children. It is only by the harmonious and loving attention bestowed by parents upon their children that they can be expected to be brought up in the fear of God. The reply bore hard upon the priests who had married idolatrous wives.”

II. THAT IT HAS BEEN SADLY OUTRAGED IN ALL AGES. The Jews outraged it. The command here, “Take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.” implies this. They dealt “treacherously” against the wife of their youth by marrying others. “Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives” (Ezr 10:10). They do so also by putting them awayby divorce. “For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the Lord of hosts.” This has been done in all ages.

1. Polygamy is an outrage on it.

2. Cruelty is an outrage on it.

3. Mutual unfaithfulness is an outrage on it.

The Divine idea of marriage is that the two souls shall be one, so united in love, sympathy, aim, that the two would think, feel, and act as one. But how few amongst the million matrimonial alliances reach this ideal!

III. THAT OUTRAGE OF THIS INSTITUTION IS FRAUGHT WITH CALAMITOUS RESULTS.

1. It is abhorrent to God. “The Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away.” A separation of man and wife, a divorce, is abhorrent to the Almighty, although by the Law of Moses it was allowed because of the hardness of their hearts.

2. It involves violence. “For one covereth violence with his garment.” Some suppose the garment here means the wife, and that the idea is that violence was done to her. Others suppose it means the pretext they employed for doing so by the permission of Moses (Deu 24:1). Others suppose the garment means man’s reputation, and that he would damage his influence by it. Whatever the particular meaning of the passage is, it is certain that the outrage of the institution of marriage is fraught with great evils.

CONCLUSION. An extract from my Marriage Service in the ‘Biblical Liturgy’ may not be out of place here. “Marriage is an institution of God: it accords with the dictates of nature and the laws of inspiration. It is coeval with human society; it was an essential ingredient in the happiness of Eden. It heightened, it perfected, the pure, fresh, and serene joys of that garden, the scene of every beauty and the temple of God. In mercy it has been perpetuated to the present hour as a social blessing to soothe and sustain our nature amidst the depressing circumstances of our fallen state. Jesus threw around this relationship a peculiar grandeur. He clothed it with sublimity: to his holy eye it was a holy thing; he ratified its contract, he guarded its obligations, he expounded its laws, he graced its celebration with his presence; the first miracle his sacred hands performed was at a bridal feast. The apostles caught the idea of their Master, and invested it with a mystic solemnity by representing it as a type of the substantial, invisible, and everlasting union existing between Christ and his Church. It involves the most tender, close, and lasting ties that can unite human beings together in this life. ‘Therefore shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife; and they both shall become one flesh.’ It combines the earthly interest, fortunes, and happiness of two; it may influence the destinies of many. The interests of the parties united, the triumphs of truth, and the upward progress of humanity are all dependent on the nuptial bond.”D.T.

Mal 2:17

The words of scepticism.

“Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?” These words are directed against the spirit of scepticism and discontent which prevailed amongst the Israelites in the time of the prophets, and they lead us to offer two remarks on the words of scepticism.

I. THEY ARE WORDS OF COMPLAINT AGAINST GOD. “Ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord.” This is what they said; this was perhaps their current talk. A very old topic of complaint was theirs. It means this: “Wherefore doth the wicked prosper?” Wherefore are the righteous afflicted? This was the chief problem of the Book of Job; this was the burden of Psa 73:1-28. Since vice is here triumphant and virtue oppressed, “Where is the God of judgment?” If there is a God who governs the world, his righteousness is not seen; on the contrary, he shows more favour to the evil than to the good. “Where is the God of judgment?” We want him to put an end to this state of things.

II. THEY ARE WORDS UNGRATEFUL TO THE EAR OF GOD. “Ye have wearied the Lord with your words.” Observe:

1. God hears the words of men. Every syllable enters his ears; he understands our thoughts afar off.

2. Sceptical words are offensive to him “Ye have wearied the Lord with your words.” Wearied him with their ignorance, their falseness, their impiety. The creating and the supporting of a universe does not weary God, for he “fainteth not, neither is weary.” But the endless chatterings of sceptical and discontented souls weary him.

3. The authors of sceptical words are indifferent to this terrible fact. “Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him?” They go on talking against God in their families, their clubs, in their public halls, in their workshops and their warehouses, and are utterly indifferent to the fact that their words are offensive to the ears of the All-hearing One.

CONCLUSION. “I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” Every idle word. Not merely the profane and impious language of the scoffer and blasphemer, but every idle wordwords that have little or no meaning, the most airy words of wit and humour spoken in jest, not to delude or pain, but simply to please.D.T.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Mal 2:1. This commandment is for you This decree is for you, or, this is decreed concerning you; for here is no commandment given to the priest, only punishment is denounced upon them, if they do not repent.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

SECTION II

Mal 1:6 to Mal 2:10

Rebuke of the Priests

6A son honoreth7 his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father [but if I am] where is mine honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of Hosts unto you, O [ye] priests, that despise my name. And ye say, 7 Wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer8 [offering] polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible. 8And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice. It is not evil.9 And if ye offer the lame and sick, It is not evil. Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person, saith the Lord of Hosts? 9And now, I pray you, beseech God that He will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means10 [hand]; will he regard your persons? saith the Lord of 10Hosts.11 Who is there12 even among you [O, that there were one among you !] that would shut the doors for nought?13 Neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of Hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. 11For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and [ indeed, Keil and Khler] a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts. 12But ye have profaned it, in the ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, [its food] is contemptible. 13Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it ! and ye have snuffed [puffed] at it, saith the Lord of Hosts: and ye brought that which was torn14 [stolen], and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should15 I accept this of your hand? saith the Lord. But 14[And] cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing16 [an unsuitable animal]; for I am a great King, saith the Lord of Hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.

2

1And now, O ye priests, this commandment17 [sentence, decree] is for you. If ye Will not hear, and 2if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of Hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings : yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. 3Behold, I will corrupt18 [rebuke, as in Mal 3:11; Psa 106:9; Isa 17:13] your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.19 4And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts. My 5covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. 6The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. For the priests lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts. 8But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted20 [or made void] the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts. 9Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as21 [because] ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Mal 1:6. A son honoreth his father, etc. Jehovah expostulates with the priests for the unnaturalness of their disobedience. They stood in a peculiar relation to Him, were under peculiar obligations to sanctify Him in the eyes of the people, and yet they had profaned his name, and made Israel to sin. Jehovah begins with an indisputable moral principle. No one would deny that a son was bound to love and obey a father, and a servant to fear and obey his master. But if I am a father. He speaks in a conditional form, though Israel could not deny it, as though He would leave it to Israel to acknowledge Him as such or not. Jehovah was the Father of Israel, and Ephraim was his son. He was without dispute their master.

My honor, my fear. The suffixes are used here in an objective sense, the honor due me, the fear of me. The priests, instead of confessing their guilt, with hypocritical self-righteousness deny the charge of despising Jehovahs name, and demand the proofs of this charge. Yet ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? A new sentence should begin with this clause.

The answer to this question is to be found in the first clause of Mal 1:7 : Offering polluted bread.

This we regard, with Maurer and Ewald, as an answer to the question proposed in the last clause of the preceding verse. By bread is meant here not the shew bread, which was not offered upon the altar, but any sacrifices, as the mention of the blind and lame shows. Sacrifices are often called in the law, the bread or food of God; Lev 21:6; Lev 21:8; Lev 21:17; Lev 21:21-22; Lev 22:25; Num 28:2; Lev 3:11; Lev 3:16. The bread is called impure, or polluted, because it does not correspond to the offering of a sacrifice with any blemish, such as blindness, or lameness, or any evil-favoredness; Lev 22:20; Lev 22:25; Deu 15:21. To pollute Jehovah is to offer polluted sacrifices. In poof of the charge against the priests, which they denied, Jehovah refers to what they said and did. They represent the altar as contemptible by their practice of offering sacrifices expressly forbidden.

The words, There is no evil, are not to be taken as a question, this would weaken their force, but are used in the sense of the priests, and in the mouth of the prophet are words of angry rebuke and bitter irony.

Mal 1:8. The prophet now uses an argumentum ad hominem, to show that they had treated Jehovah with less respect than they would have treated any human governor. Offer it now to thy governor.

The word translated, governor, is found in Jer 51:28; 1Ki 10:15; Neh 2:7; Neh 5:14, and means a heathen governor of a province. To accept a person, is to be favorably disposed towards any one, to espouse his cause.

Mal 1:9. And now I pray you, beseech God, etc. The prophet proceeds to make an application of the illustration in. Mal 1:8. If the governor will not receive worthless gifts, how much less will Jehovah!

The challenge to the priests to beseech God has been regarded by Jerome, J. H. Michaelis, and Hitzig, as an earnest call to repentance, and prayer for Gods mercy. But as the parenthesis (This has been by your hand!) most naturally means, Such sins have been committed by you ! and seems to be inserted to reiterate the charge, and silence any reply; as the question, Will he accept your persons? intimates that God will not do so, which is never the case where there is sincere prayer for his mercy, and as the next verse expresses a wish that the doors of the Temple were altogether closed, it is better to regard it with Calvin, Maurer, Ewald, Keil, Khler, and Henderson, as conditional, and with a shade of irony. Should you intercede with God, will He accept any? The Septuagint puts it in the first person; Shall I accept of you your persons? The word is understood by Keil and Khler as meaning, on your account, but it is better to regard it, with the LXX. and Maurer, as partitive and emphatic: No one of you. The prophet adds; Thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, that we may not forget that what he says was inspired of God.

Mal 1:10. Who is there among you, or rather, O, that some one among you would even shut the doors of the temple! The first clause is to be explained in accordance with a well-known Hebrew idiom as a wish, 2Sa 15:4; 2Sa 23:15; Psa 4:7; Job 19:23. Jehovah is so provoked by their illegal offerings, and the spirit which actuated them, that He would gladly see his whole worship discontinued. , though placed first, belongs to the whole sentence, and is emphatic. By the doors are meant the folding doors, which led from the outer court to the court of the priests, where was the altar of burnt offerings. The reason for this wish is given, that the priests may not light a fire uselessly, to no purpose, upon Jehovahs altar. The for nought, in the first clause in our version, is unnecessary. Jehovah characterizes their sacrifices as vain, because they did not accomplish their end. Jerome, Grotius, Henderson, understand by it in vain, gratis, without payment, and refer it to the avaricious disposition of the priests; but it is better to consider it to mean, without an object, An offering (), by this is meant not the unbloody sacrifice of fine wheat-flour, mentioned in Lev 2:1-15, but all kinds of sacrifice, as the context shows where only animal victims are spoken of, and from its use in this sense in Gen 4:4, where Abels sacrifice of a lamb is called , 1Sa 2:15; Isa 1:13; Zep 3:10.

Mal 1:11. For from the rising of the sun, etc. In contrast with the sacrifice which Jehovah rejects, he declares, that the hour is coming when the true worshippers, not in Jerusalem only but in every place, shall offer a pure, a sincere offering in spirit and truth, and a living sacrifice of their souls and bodies to the name of Jehovah, which has been despised. What an insight into the most distant future! How much is involved in this prophecy? The kingdom of God taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles, the abrogation of the old dispensation wherein the worship of the Father was confined to one place (Deu 12:13), the coming of the hour when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: the universal spread of Christianity. This prophecy is regarded by some of the Jewish Commentators, and by the Septuagint, and by Hitzig, Ewald, Maurer, Umbreit, and Khler as a declaration of what was already the fact among the heathen who worshipped ignorantly the unknown Jehovah, under different names. If so, it would amount to the lines in Popes universal Prayer:

Father of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

In opposing this view we first deny the fact. So far from the name of Jehovah being great among the heathen, and a pure worship offered Him, they were sunk into the most abominable and inexcusable idolatry, they worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is God over all, blessed forever! It would be in conflict with other prophecies, Isa 11:10; Zep 2:11. Zec 9:10; Isa 66:20, and many others, which speak of such a worship as in the future.

Pocock, speaking of this Jewish interpretation, adopted by Ewald and others, well says, What is it less than even an excuse, or apology for, if not a commendation of idolaters, and idolatry, as from the mouth of God himself, who all along showed them and their ways to be all most abominable to him.

By incense is here meant prayer, of which it is a frequent symbol. This is admitted by the Roman Catholic commentator, Reinke, who observes. that Malachi could not refer to literal incense is evident from the fact that the offering of incense could only take place in the temple. If this is true of incense, why is it not true of the offering in the same sentence, associated with it here and in the law (Lev 2:15)? Yet Reinke understands it with the Church of Rome, as referring to the bloodless sacrifice of the New Testament, the holy sacrifice of the Mass. It is well known that the Church of Rome makes use of this text as its principal proof-text for the doctrine of the Mass. That in the Mass is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead. In the Canons of the Council of Trent, Sess. 22, we read, that the Mass is that pure sacrifice which the Lord predicted by Malachi should be offered to his name in every place.

Whately remarks of such a use of Scripture to support certain practices, that the misinterpretation has sprung from the doctrine. The doctrine has arisen first, and then the texts of Holy Writ are assigned to support it.

In religion,
What error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text?
The Church of Rome appeals here as elsewhere, to the almost unanimous consent of the Fathers. We may spend a little time in showing the unfairness of such an appeal, by quoting the principal passages in which they refer to this verse. They were governed by no fixed rules in their interpretation of Scripture, and were in the habit of accommodating every text which came to hand, to serve their purpose. An important distinction should be made between their interpretation and application of texts. They were given to a florid and ornate style, and their rhetoric has often been converted into logic. Khler has very briefly brought together the principal passages from the Fathers, a synopsis of which we here give. Justin Martyr speaks of the heathen offering to God, according to Mal 1:11, the bread and cup of thanksgiving, but he proceeds to explain it, as used by metonymy for the true sacrifice of prayer and praise.

Irenus also refers one passage to the elements of the Lords Supper, but only in the sense, that Christians symbolically offer bread and wine to God in proof of their thankfulness, and after the offering pray the Holy Ghost that he would render them the body and blood of Christ, so that those who received them might obtain forgiveness of their sins and eternal life. Irenus regards faith, obedience, praise, righteousness, and prayer as the true sacrifices.

Origen, on Prayer, proves from our passage, that every place is adapted to prayer.
The Apostolic Constitutions require the faithful to assemble for prayer on the Lords day, in order that, according to Malachi, their sacrifice may be acceptable to God.
Eusebius Pamphilus sees in Mal 1:11 a prophecy of the abrogation of the Jewish ritual, while Christians would offer to God the sacrifices of love, prayer, and remembrance of the great sacrifice, .

Jerome, in his Commentary, explains this passage as, spirituales victim sanctorum orationes Domino offerend.

Augustine understands it of works of mercy either to ourselves or to others. We ourselves are the best and noblest sacrifice He speaks of the Lords Supper as shadowing forth the self-sacrifice of the Church to its Lord.
Chrysostom quotes this passage in proof, that the worship of God in spirit and truth should take the place of the Jewish service. He calls the Lords Supper only so far a sacrifice, as by the invocation of the Holy Ghost, the body and blood of the Lord are present for the enjoyment of the believers.
Cyril Alex., understands by this text in Malachi the sacrifices of faith, hope, love, and good works which the heathen in the future shall offer.
We thus see with what justice the Church of Rome appeals to the Fathers, and from this case we may judge of others, ab uno disce omnes. Then is not the slightest warrant to suppose any allusion to the Lords Supper in this verse; nothing is more common than to use sacrificial terms borrowed from the Old Testament ritual, in a spiritual sense, of the sacrifices of praise and good works, of the royal priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, and of the bodies of believers as living sacrifices.

Mal 1:12. But ye profane it. The prophet renews the charge of Mal 1:7 against the priests, that they profane the name of the Lord by offering defective animals.

And the fruit thereof, even its food. Its provision, that is, of the table, or altar, even its food.

Mal 1:13. Ye say also, Behold what weariness! Instead of regarding their service at the altar as an honorable privilege, they look upon it as an oppressive drudgery. Ye snuff at it, you show without any concealment and publicly your contempt.

Ye bring that which was torn, or rather plundered. Two bringings are mentioned, the first preparatory to the second, when the victim was presented, ready for sacrifice. The verse closes with an appeal to the priests, as in Mal 1:8, as to Jehovahs acceptance of such sacrifices.

Mal 1:14. And cursed be the deceiver. The here should be translated, And cursed, cursed be he, who, when the law requires a male, brings one of less value. The law permitted and enjoined sacrifices of female animals in some cases (Lev 3:1; Lev 4:32; Lev 5:6).

We had better understand corrupt or blemished, (as in Lev 22:25), with Keil and Khler, as masculine, and not as feminine, as Ewald, Maurer, Hitzig, and regard the curse as pronounced upon any one who redeemed his vow with an inferior animal.

The argument by which this rebuke is enforced is, that Jehovah is a great king, Rex tremend majestatis, and must therefore be served with reverence and godly fear.

Mal 2:1. And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. The rebuke to the priests is now followed by a threatening of the punishment which would ensue, if they did not repent. The word , commandment, is to be understood as in Nah 1:14 in the sense of decree, sentence.

Mal 2:2. I will curse your blessings. This has been understood by De Dieu, Rosenmller, Hitzig, in the sense of revenues. Keil and Khler interpret it of the blessings pronounced upon the people by the priests; these God will turn into curses; but it is not necessary to depart from the common and general sense of the word. Yea, I have cursed them. This is not a simple emphatic repetition of the proceeding I will curse, as the LXX. (), the Targum, Vulgate, Hitzig, Umbreit, Reinke, and Henderson maintain, but as the , requires, is to be understood of what has already taken effect, the curse has begun. So Ewald, Keil, Khler. The singular suffix attached to blessings is distributive, referring to every blessing.

Mal 2:3. Behold I will rebuke your seed. For you the seed, is emphatic. In Mal 3:11 we find the same word used in the promised blessing. I will rebuke the devourer, or the locust. In Joe 1:13 the priests are called upon to lament for the meat-offering withholden, because the seed is rotten. In Hag 2:17 we find, I smote you with blasting and mildew. The passage in Joel shows, that though the priests did not till the ground, yet they were dependent for their tithes upon the harvest, so if the seed was cursed they would themselves suffer. This renders it unnecessary to change the punctuation of (seed) to (arm), with the LXX., Vulgate, Ewald, Reinke, Keil, Khler, Pressel. Khler has a peculiar view, that it refers to the arm which the priests raised to bless the people, but the hand would more naturally have been mentioned. It is understood by other Commentators to refer to the perquisite of the prieststhe shoulder, but they were entitled not only to the shoulder but to other parts (Deu 18:3; Lev 7:32).

Still further to show how displeasing the conduct of the priests was in his eyes, Jehovah threatens that the dung of the victims, which was to be burned without the camp (Exo 29:14; Lev 16:27), should be spread on their faces.

And ye shall be carried to it. This clause has been differently understood, some making the dung the nominative, as the Vulgate, Luther, Calvin, Ewald, Reinke, Bunsen; others, Jehovah. It is better to regard the subject as indefinite, they, some onethe people, as in Joh 15:6. They shall gather them, and cast them into the fire, or, more according to our idiom, it is to be translated ye shall be taken away with, or to it, where it is deposited, ye shall be treated as dung, as God said to Jeroboam (1Ki 14:10). The LXX. have, I will take you to the same.

Mal 2:4. Ye shall know that I have sent this sentence, etc. The word commandment is to be understood as in the first verse, as sentence, decree of punishment.

That my covenant may continue with Levi. Different interpretations have been put upon this sentence. Ewald, Reinke, Henderson, Rosenmller translate it, Because my covenant was with Levi. Hitzig, Maurer, De Wette, Noyes, That my covenant might rmain with Levi.

The view more generally adopted and advocated by Luther, Calvin, Umbreit, Keil, Khler, Pressel, is, that my covenant is the predicate, and that the decree of punishment is to be henceforth Gods covenant, that according to which he should deal with Levi, or the priests; the decree of punishment shall take the place of the earlier covenant with the priests. The objections to this interpretation are, that it is not plain and simple; that a different form of expression would have been made use of had this been the meaning, such asMy decree shall be instead of my Covenant; that covenant is immediately after used in its common sense; and that Levi, or the priesthood, is regarded as one throughout.

We may understand it as an elliptical construction. This decree is sent to you, that by your laying it to heart my covenant may be, may continue to be with Levi, as it was in the beginning, which he goes on to speak of; that you may not make null and void the covenant made in the beginning with Levi, and which Jehovah would have continued in his posterity.

Mal 2:5. My covenant with him was (of) life and peace, etc. Jehovah now speaks of the nature of the covenant made with Levi, or the priesthood, in order to contrast the character of the priests with that of their pious predecessors.

My covenant with him was life and peace. These nouns are not in the genitive, as the Septuagint, Vulgate, and the English Version make them, but are the nominative of the predicate. It is not necessary to confine this description to Phinehas, as Henderson does, though in Num 25:12 they are specially addressed to him.

And I gave them to him for fear. The design of the Covenant was to inspire him with holy fear and reverence. For fear, put by metonymy for the effect of fear; and the original priesthood corresponded to this divine intention: And he reverenced my name.

Mal 2:6. The law of truth was in his mouth, etc. His exposition of the law was according to truth, its true nature, and there was found in him no perverseness, no self-seeking, nor partiality. Thus he walked in most intimate and endearing communion with Jehovah, as did Noah and Enoch, in integrity of heart and life, and by his faithful instructions and warnings turned many to righteousness. Thus he fulfilled the design of the priesthood, which was to expound and apply to every case the will of God, as expressed in his law, and to be always ready to instruct the people. It was for this end the priesthood was appointed of God.

Mal 2:7. The priest is an angel, or messenger of Jehovah to negotiate the grand concerns of judgment and of mercy. This is the only passage, with the exception of Hag 1:14, where it is applied to the prophet, where we meet with such an application. Elsewhere it is applied to the Angel of the Lord, the Angel of the Presence, the Angel of the Covenant, in whom God revealed Himself, and through whom He transacted with man from the beginning.

Mal 2:8. But ye have departed from the way. Jehovah now reminds the priests how very different they were from their pious fathers. They had respect of persons; they had taught for hire (Mic 3:11). By their example and false expositions of the law they had misled many, and plunged them into sin, guilt, and perdition. They had made the law itself, instead of being a light and lamp to the people, a stumbling-block. As a just retribution for their sin, Jehovah will abandon them to the contempt of all Israel. According, in our version, should be rather, because.

DOCTRINAL AND PRACTICAL

Matthew Henry: Nothing profanes the name of God more than the misconduct of those whose business it is to do honor to it.

Mal 2:7 (1). What is the duty of ministers? The priests lips should keep knowledge, not keep it from his people, but keep it for them. Ministers must be men of knowledge, for how are they able to teach others the things of God who are themselves unacquainted with these things, or unready in them? They must keep knowledge, must furnish themselves with it, and retain what they have got, that they may be like the good householder, who brings out of his treasury things new and old. Not only their heads, but their lips must keep knowledge; they must not only have it but they must have it ready, must have it at hand, must have it, as we say, at their tongues end, to be communicated to others, as there is occasion.

(2.) What is the duty of the people? They should seek the law at his mouth; they should consult the priests, and not only hear the message, but ask questions upon it, that they may the better understand it. We must not only consult the written Word, but must have recourse to Gods messengers and desire instruction and advice from them in the affairs of our souls, as we do from physicians and lawyers concerning our bodies and estates.

Mal 2:8. The feeling of proper reverence for God and the services of his altar would indeed alone have dictated that what was offered to him should be the best and most perfect of its kind. Even the heathen were sensible of this propriety, and were careful that their victims were without blemish or imperfection. Thus, Homer in the Iliad, 1:66, makes Achilles propose to consult some priest, prophet, or interpreter of dreams to know whether the angry Apollo might not be, Soothed with steam of lambs or goats unblemished. Cowpers Transl.)

Maimonides says: There were no less than fifty blemishes, enumerated by him, which rendered an animal unfit to be offered on the Lords altar.

Wordsworth: On Mal 2:7. The priests lips should keep knowledge, a memorable statement. The offering of sacrifices was indeed an essential part of the priestly office; but Malachi declares that all sacerdotal sacrifices are of no avail without religious knowledge, sound learning, and wholesome teaching. The first duty of the Levitical Priests,and how much more of the Christian!was to keep, or preserve knowledge; the knowledge of God as revealed in his holy Word, and so to discharge their sacred office, that, according to the Word of God, the people should resort to them for instruction in holy things, and not resort in vain, and unless this was done by them all their offerings and sacrifices were nugatory, and God would spread dung on their faces, in token of his displeasure. Here is a solemn warning to the Christian clergy. If such was the duty of the Levitical priesthood, and such the penalty of not performing it aright, how much more imperative is the obligation of the Christian Priest to keep knowledge, and to instruct the people in sound doctrine; or, as St. Paul expresses it, to give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine, to meditate on these things, and give himself wholly to them, to speak the things which become sound doctrine, to hold fast the faithful word, so that he may be able by sound doctrine to convince the gainsayers. And how much surer will be his punishment if he fails to discharge it! It is to be feared that this warning is greatly needed at the present day. The clergy of the Eastern Church, especially in Asia and Greece, have been degraded to a low condition with regard to religious and secular knowledge. Celebrated Roman Catholic writers deplore the ignorance of a great part of their clergy, consisting of mere illiterate Mass-Priests. See Dr. Dollingers The Church and the Churches.

In Protestant Germany the theological chairs of the universities are filled by those who have no pastoral experience in the cure of souls, and have none of that wisdom which is found at the side of sick beds and death-beds, and in church-yards at the grave, and have no mission from Christ, and no unction from the Holy Ghost; and many among them treat the Holy Scriptures as if they were a mere common book. Hence the theological teaching of the Schools has been divorced from the Christian Priesthood.

W. Pressel: The requisition of the Old Covenant that the sacrifices offered should be unblemished and perfect, and that by a defective sacrifice the altar of God and the offerer himself were polluted, grew out of the truth which Malachi here in most convincing language represents to the priests, that defective offerings betray a defective disposition, a want of reverence for the Holy God. In the New Covenant, where all sacrificial worship has ended, this rebuke applies to all divided service of God, to all half Christianity, and to all those Christians, who, not influenced by reverence of the Holy One, and by earnestness in sanctification, think to discharge their Christian duty by certain ceremonies or good works. Where this is the case with ministers of the Gospel there is, as in the case of the Priests, double guilt, partly because they preach what they themselves do not practice, and partly, because they thereby cause a special scandal. The motives of the majesty of God, the example of the first priests, and the dignity of their calling to be a messenger of Jehovah, apply with no less force to those under the New Covenant. These arguments will have little effect, where personal thankfulness to God for his great love to us in Christ, and concern for our salvation through Him are wanting, but where they animate ministers of the Gospel, they must urge them to fulfill more truly and actively their high calling.

HOMILETICAL REMARKS BY PRESSEL

The close connection of the first and fourth commandments. He only, who has a lively sense of the presence of his God and Father, will honor and obey the fourth commandment, and he only, who knows what an earthly Lord and Father must require of his own, will feel himself impelled to obey the first commandment. In what way can we now pollute the table of the Lord? (1.) In the Sacrament, when we ourselves partake of it unworthily, or do not enough arouse the consciences of others. (2.) In life, when we allow in ourselves or in others committed to us, a half-way devotedness to the Lord.

How far does the seventh verse apply to a minister of the Gospel? He is still a Priest, so far as he should point to the sacrifice on Golgotha, and should bear his Church upon his interceding heart, and should bless them in the name of Jesus Christ. He is still a messenger of God to those committed to him, and should preserve his Word in the Church, should teach young and old out of it, and should testify fearlessly and faithfully what the Lord bids him testify.

Footnotes

[7]Mal 1:6. is not to be understood as Jussive, in the sense of a should honor, but as a future of custom or usage. The suffix in , my honor, is objective, as in Gen 9:2; Exo 20:17; Psa 90:11.

[8]Mal 1:7.The first clause is the answer to the last clause of Mal 1:6 is used in Mal 2:12; Mal 3:3, and in Lev 2:8, Amo 5:25, of offering. , used in Mal 1:8 : Offer it now to thy governor, is the more common word for offering.

[9]Mal 1:8.No question. This greatly weakens its force.

[10]Mal 1:9.Means (Hebrew , hand.)

[11]Mal 1:10., not causal, but emphatic, and partitive.

[12]Mal 1:10.Who is there, etc., for: O, that there were! For the Hebrew idiom, expressing a wish, see Psa 4:7; 2Sa 15:4; 2Sa 23:15; Job 29:23.

[13]Mal 1:10., to no purpose, not gratis.

[14]Mal 1:13., stolen, not torn.

[15]Mal 1:13. for .

[16]Mal 1:14.. Fem. Part. Hophal. The old versions, and many modern commentators, punctuate it with a final Kamets, as masculine. It occurs in this form in Pro 25:26. It corresponds to , male.

[17]Mal 2:1., sentence.

[18]Mal 2:3.. This verb, translated corrupt, occurs twelve times elsewhere, and is always translated: rebuke.

[19]Mal 2:3.. Dative of disadvantage.

[20]Mal 2:8., to make void.

[21]Mal 2:9., because (De Wette, dafr) (Khler, Dieweil).

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

This Chapter is not unlike the former in the opening of it; but the Prophet is soon led to speak in Jehovah’s name of the Lord Jesus, under the character of Levi. The after part is in reproof for the people’s infidelity.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

We have an authority in the opening of this message, to refer it to the priests of the Jewish dispensation. But, I think, without violence, though the priests, as leaders in the temple service, are first in order, yet the doctrine contained in what is here said may be supposed to have respect to all that attended their service, since dung was to be spread upon their solemn feasts. And was it not (I do not say as much, only ask the question,) thus to show the total inability of all services, and all offerings, to bring glory to God? What otherwise could be the meaning of the punishment, to curse their blessings? Is not the curse of the fall upon every person, and every act, until taken away by Christ? And was not these things as shadows ministering to Christ? Oh! that men would now hear, and lay it to heart, both priests and people, that they might arrive at the Prophet’s conclusion. Isa 64:6-7 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Prophets and Priests

Mal 2

“And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you” ( Mal 2:1 ).

The prophet goes to the fountain-head. The people had only gone wrong because the priests had gone astray. When the leaders are wrong, what can the followers do? In the majority of cases the leaders are wrong, and they would go further wrong, but for the outcry and protestation and moral anguish of the people. But the priest’s office was never an easy one. It is a hard thing to have to read and preach and pray by the clock. No man can tell how perilous is the position of a minister, priest, or teacher; he is never far from the bottomless pit. It cannot be an easy thing to speak every day of the Cross of Christ, and yet to keep the emotion of the heart at its finest point. It is an awful thing to pray, to preach, to speak sacred words; it is almost living on the edge of hell to conduct an octave of religious services; to be right not in words, that is easy, for the words are all written, and may be read with a hireling’s tongue; but to keep the spirit in high tone, to say “Calvary,” and lose nothing of its pathetic dignity; to point to the Cross, and see it in all its hot blood to do this day after day, and keep off familiarity, say, is there any greater miracle in human experience? It is an awful exercise to sing, and yet to know nothing about the hymn we have sung; to miss all its meaning, to rattle off its tones with a careless or little-interested tongue; to sing it as if it were so many unrelated letters, instead of having in it the red blood, the arterial blood of the Son of God. It is easy to blame the priest of any day, but he has a weary work to do; he must be more than mortal if he can always do it and always feel it. We know his refuge, but sometimes a man is so tired that he cannot run even for shelter; we know where he ought to go and what he ought to do, but sometimes the wolf is upon him before he can straighten himself after long and conscious prostration. Pity the leaders, pity the singers, pity the preachers: consider them well.

Yet there is nothing unreasonable in the accusations of the Bible. Never does a reproach come alone like a naked razor; the reproach is always associated with reasoning, and out of the reasoning it derives all its keenness. The Lord states the case, argues it, point by point, and then at the end presses home the divine accusation. It is beautiful to see that nowhere in all the Bible is a single railing accusation brought against God himself; never does God lower the moral standard. There is no accommodation in divine righteousness. We never read that to-day we may intermit a little; the law shall no longer be so rigorous and ruthless, the law shall be oiled down into smoothness so that it shall be easy, and the spirit of disobedience shall be less exasperated: never. The law never changes. The moral tone of the Bible is never lowered in accommodation to human weakness or human selfishness. Nor is judgment lessened that a man may feel the more comfortable with himself.

There is wondrous originality in the way of putting the divine judgment before the consideration of men. Probably that judgment was never more vividly and powerfully depicted than in this instance: “I will curse your blessings”: what to you is a blessing shall cease to be such, and shall become a curse: I will make your health the worst disease you ever had; I will make you poor through your very wealth; I will send upon the richest results of your labour such a darkness that you will flee away from the very image of your own success. How terrible is God! But always how terrible in righteousness. Why does this punishment fall upon the priestly race or house? Simply because the priest has been unfaithful, self-considering, base in heart, forgetful of his duty to God and his service to man. The Lord does not make priests for nothing; whatever the priest may be, if he fail in his function God plagues him by blighting his blessings. The priest may be a poet, gifted with fine fancy, able to sing to the world’s comforting and inspiration, and if he palter with his gift, if he prostitute it, God’s judgment will fall heavily upon him. We do not limit the word “priest” to religious functions or exercises or responsibilities; every man has his own call of God, and by so much may be regarded as sustaining a priestly relation to the throne of God. A man may be a merchant, a counsellor, a man of great sagacity, a person qualified to exercise large and useful influence, and if he fail to work out his mission in life this punishment falls upon him; he has more anxiety over his wealth than he ever had over his poverty, and his very health is a plague and a temptation to him all the day. How God tightens his hands upon the reins! How he tugs! how he rules! We think sometimes he has given us full head, and we go at our own pace, and suddenly the jaw is torn, and we begin to feel that we are servants, not masters; that we are under providential guidance, not under selfish inspiration. The Lord reigneth, and he is as loving in judgment as he is in redemption.

How will the Lord curse the blessings of the priests? “Behold, I will corrupt your seed.” Now, the house of Aaron had nothing to do with ploughing and with sowing; why then corrupt or spoil or mar the seed that was to be sown in the fields? Why take the juice out of it? Why deplete its vitality? The house of Levi is by law exempted from agricultural pursuits. True; but not from agricultural tithes. The priests lived upon the land, as certainly as the farmers did, and the Lord punished the priests where they would most feel it. After they had gone in that direction they should feel the weight of the rule of God where they could most sensitively respond to the imposition. It is easy to sow seed; but are we quite sure that no operation has been performed upon the seed before we have sown it? God is invisible; the hand of God is intangible; the ministry of God is impalpable. The seed looks the same as in the healthiest years and the most abundant harvesting. The farmer says, The seed is good: sow it! If we had been gifted with the piercing eyesight that sees the spiritual we should have known that only yesternight the Spirit of God was in the granary, spoiling every seed garnered against seedtime. Why will we be befooled always by the eyes of our bodies? As if they could see anything. We do not live the faith-life that believes that all things are under the touch as they are under the ownership of God. God makes the wine vinegar; God makes us drink our own etymology. If we call for wine, sharp wine, we shall have enough of it; and God will make the wine sharp and sour to the palate. Why not believe that all things are under the government and benediction of God? Behold the fowls of the air; consider the lilies of the field; see God everywhere.

What a beautiful picture of a priest is given in this very chapter:

“The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts” ( Mal 2:6-7 ).

What a criticism upon moral influence do we find in these words, namely, “and did turn many away from iniquity.” There is no histrionic pomp about the act; but who can tell what moral beauty there is in it? Prophets and priests and preachers and leaders work in different ways. Some have what may be called, from a public point of view, a negative or obscure function; but their record in heaven is that they turned many away from iniquity, by private expostulation, by unknown prayer that is, fellowship together with the sinner in communion that is never published. By influence, by example, by tender words, many are turned away from iniquity, from selfishness, from drunkenness, from baseness, from evil pursuits of every kind; not by the thunder of eloquence, not by the lightning of logic or high reasoning, not by the mystery of metaphysics, but by calm, quiet, loving, tutorial interest in private life, who knows what triumphs have been wrought within the sanctuary of the house? God is not unrighteous to forget our work of faith and labour of love; God knows how many lambs we have tended; how many straying sheep we have brought back to the fold; how many hopeless hearts we have reinspired; to how many we have given of the oil of grace. Let no man, therefore, fail of heart and courage because he does not speak from a public pedestal. His name may not be known far away from his own fireside; there are private priests, there are household evangelists, there are ordained missionaries whose names are not published; there are women-shepherds who are seeking the very worst sheep the sheep that the shepherds would not look after, the shepherdesses are following still; all the service is written down, and attached to it is the commendation of God.

The Lord now urges against the priesthood the heaviest charge of all: “Ye have caused many to stumble at the law.” There is the most malign influence which man can exert on man. No longer is the mere priest condemned, no longer is the laugh expended on the priest himself; the people have got beyond that; they say, If this is the priest, what must the law be? If the law were good, surely it would save the priest from such debasement as he embodies; if the priest can be so bad, so selfish, so worldly, so devil-loving, what must the law be? So we go from the personal to the moral, from the concrete individual instance to the written and eternal law; we begin by mocking the messenger, we end by trampling under foot the message. This has been woefully true in the history of Christianity. Christians have ruined Christianity more than ever the infidel or the unbeliever could do. If Christians speak ambiguously; if Christians resort to sharp practice; if Christians tell lies; if Christians break all the commandments, how can the law stand? What goes down when a man is proved to be bad who ought to have been good? The Cross is shaken; every wound of the Sufferer is made larger by that rough handling of his Cross. If Christians had been faithful there would have been no infidels to-day; if the men who pray had believed in prayer there could have been no argument as to the validity and utility of prayer. The priests so lived that men spat on the altar at which they ministered; Christians have so lived as to point a jeer or suggest an oath. The Lord is naturally more careful about the law than he is about the priest The priest will die, but the law abides. We do more than prove ourselves to be hypocrites, we excite suspicion about the very inspiration which we profess.

Then comes, in Mal 2:9 , a terrible “Therefore.” Always stand in reverence before the “Therefores” of divine reasoning: such a Therefore is an iron gate that falls back upon hell. When God says this “Therefore” he gathers the offenders in his hands and places them in the bottomless pit: “Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base.” He added to the contempt already incurred. The priests had made themselves contemptible; the Lord added scorn to the contempt of the people, he added the sting which penetrates the life. Do not imagine that the law is bad because the priest is unworthy; do not speak against the Cross because the preacher is a liar; do not wound the Lord because the servant has gone astray. No man falls because he is a Christian, but because he is not living up to the Christianity which he professes. Do not make excuses out of the bad characters of other men, saying, What can I do in the presence of such debasement as this? That is vicious doctrine, and it would not for a moment be entertained or applied in the common relationship and affairs of life.

I had a sum to invest, let me suppose, and I went to a well-known gambler, and said, What should I do with this, pray? And he said, Entrust it to me: I have experience, you have none; I will handle it for you, and you shall know the result. I went to ascertain the result, and the man had fled away. You will naturally inquire why I consulted such a man. I wanted to know the exact value of a picture, to continue my parable, and I submitted it to the criticism of a man; he laid his fingers upon it, and said, I do not think much of your picture. Said I, Why lay your fingers upon it? Because, said he, that is the only medium through which I can form any opinion of your picture. Said I, Can you not look at the picture? No, said he, that I cannot do: I am blind. You will naturally ask me why I consulted such a man as to the value of a picture. I wanted to know how the climate of a far-away country would suit my dying child, so I called upon a man, and asked him. Said he, Do not trust it: it is a bad climate; it is a place that I cannot recommend. Were you ever there, sir? said I. No, said he, I have never been out of my native village. You will naturally wonder that I should have consulted such a man. Now you have consulted infidels about Christianity; you have consulted men who never prayed as to the efficacy of prayer, you have gone in the wrong direction for advice. You smiled behind my back when you thought I had consulted a blind man about a picture: what shall I do with you when I hear that the only books you have read about Christ are the books that tried to tear him in pieces? You have consulted his enemies; you have never consulted his friends. The argument applies to the bad priest, to the ill-behaved professor of Christianity. Blessed be God, our duty is clear. I will not go to the bad priest for a report of his function, I will not go to the bruised and self-damned professor of Christianity in whose character hypocrisy is conspicuous above every other feature, and say, Who is Christ? and what can Christ do for men? This I will do: I will go straight up to the Lord himself, and if he fail, then I shall know what to do.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

A Gallery of Pictures

Malachi 1-4

We have some pictures in the prophecy that are very vivid, and some of them very humiliating. For example, we have a picture of the utterest selfishness in Mal 1:10 :

“Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought.”

Yet they sang how good a thing it was to be but a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. Men do not come to this kind of selfishness all at once. For some degrees of wickedness we must patiently and skilfully graduate. We do not attain the highest quality of iniquity at a bound; we cannot, speaking generally, extemporise the supremest kind of devilishness. We begin carefully, we proceed slowly, we take pains with the details of our action, and not until we have become inured to certain practices and usages do we take the final step that lands us in the very refinement and subtlety of evildoing. Nothing is so soon lost as spiritual apprehension, the power of taking hold upon the invisible, the eternal, the spiritual. There is so much against it We unhappily have eyes that can only see what we describe as the material, and in our folly we describe it as the real. That is the very lowest kind of philosophy. There is a metaphysic that denies the existence of everything we see; I would rather belong to that school of negation than to the school which affirms that there is nothing but what we can see with the eyes of the body. We are always tempted away from the higher lines. Who would shut his eyes and talk to nothing, and call it prayer? Who would have so many of his own aspirations dropping back upon his heart like dead birds, and still believe in an answering, benignant, loving God? Who would refuse the great bribe? There it is, visibly, tangibly, immediately; you can lay your hand upon it, and secure it, and if there is any need by-and-by to pray yourselves back again from the felony, and still retain its produce, then see the man of God and take his ghostly counsel. The distinction of Christianity is its spirituality. Christianity lives amongst the spirits. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.” When we make Christianity a mere argument or a mere philosophy, we lose its whole genius and meaning. Christianity comes to kill the visible by putting it into its right perspective, and investing it with its right value, which is nothing beyond a mere convenience. Christianity comes to lift up the soul to God, and to fix the heart upon things unseen and eternal. Christianity comes to make a man blind to everything but God, and therefore to see everything aright because to see it in its relation to God. How far are we to blame for degrading Christianity from its proper level, and making it stand amongst so-called other religions to take its chance with the general mob? We can be attacked with some success, not to say with desperate savageness, if we fight the battle on wrong lines; but not when we stand upon Christ’s lines, of direct living fellowship with God, doing everything for Christ’s sake, glorifying God in our body, which is so-called matter, our soul, which plays a part in the psychical philosophies, and our spirit, the touch that makes us one with God. If we pray ourselves into higher prayers, ever-ascending until speech must be displaced by music, then we are upon a way where we shall find no lion, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon, it shall not be found there. And as for dying, we shall not die “he was not, for God took him,” shall be the rhythmic ending of a noble, beautiful, spiritual life. Losing this spiritual apprehension, what do we come to? to men-service; we come to be men-pleasers, time-servers, investors, hirelings. When the true spirituality reigns in us we shall have no fear of man, we shall see the richest patron of all going out of the sanctuary, not because he is wounded in the back, but because he is wounded in the heart by the Spirit of God, on account of his unrighteousness, unfaithfulness, vanity, and worldliness; the Church will be the richer for his absence. Never let the spirituality of the Church go down, for then you open the door to every kind of invader; you make devastating encroachment possible; but laying hold of God, you shall be safe even from the insidious assaults and invasions of selfishness.

We have also a picture of the true priest:

“The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts” ( Mal 2:6-7 ).

What was said of Levi should be said of every man in the varied ministry of the Church; he ought to be as beautiful as this. Yet not only beautiful, but massive, strong, pure, dominating; not asking permission to live and to preach, but granting permission to millionaires to chink their gold. It is quite true that here we have an ideal picture. It satisfies the imagination to have a word like “ideal” in its vocabulary. But may we not so use the word “ideal” as to find in it a temptation to a continual lowering of the spiritual stature, and a continual cooling of the spiritual temperature? Certainly these words are ideal; this is God making another Adam, this time out of marble, breathing into him the breath of life, and making him majestic and noble: this is God’s conception of the true priest. Yet we call it ideal, and then go away to our commonplace. The minister of Christ cannot rise to perfection. If any man were to assume himself to be perfect he would justly discredit himself by that very assumption. What is it that is required of the true priest, preacher, minister, or pastor? It is required of him first that he be found faithful to his light, to his immediate inspiration; he is not to live for tomorrow, he is to live for this present day, with all its clamour and all its importunate necessity. But should not a man study consistency? Yes No. Is it possible for an answer to be both in the affirmative and in the negative? Certainly. Wherein is to be the consistency of the preacher? In his spiritual sincerity. There he must never fail. As to his words and views, do we not live in an atmosphere? Are we not environed? Do not ten thousand ministries continually play upon every line and fibre of our nature? There may be inconsistency in words, phrases, terms, and statements, and yet there may be consistency of the finest quality and fibre in the moral purpose, the spiritual intent, the unchangeable loyalty to the Cross of God the Son. A preacher’s perfectness should be found in the continuance of his aspiration, and the continuance of all practical endeavour to overtake his own prayers. Do not mock a man because his life is not equal to his prayer; when a man has no higher prayer to offer than he can live he may pass on into some other world in the Father’s universe. Meanwhile, no man can pray sincerely, profoundly, continually, and want to be like Christ without growing, not always upwards; there is a growth in refinement, in susceptibility, in moral tenderness, in sympathy of the soul for others, as well as a growth in knowledge, and stature in intellectual majesty. It is well to have an ideal before us. One of two things must happen in the case of the priest. “… Did turn many away from iniquity.” That is a beautiful work for you, my preaching brother, to have done. You may never have been heard of beyond your own sphere, and yet within that sphere you may have been working miracles which have astounded the angels. You have kept or turned many away from iniquity. I have a brother who had great influence over one of his leading men, and that brother, though his name was never heard of beyond his own circle of ministerial exertion, laid himself out to save that man. That man’s temptation was drink. The minister followed him, turned swiftly upon him at the public-house door, and said, No, not here! It was not much of a sermon to preach from a public point of view, but the poor tempted soul quailed under the interdict, and went home. Why, to have been the means of giving him one night’s release from the devil was to have done a work worthy of the Cross! You cannot tell what your negative work amounts to how many you have kept from going wrong, doing wrong, or speaking unwisely, untruly, or impurely; you do not know what your example has done. Be cheered, be encouraged; you do not always live in the miracle of Pentecost; sometimes you live in the quietness that can only do a negative work, but blessed be God, when he comes to judge our work there will be nothing negative about it He who has turned away a man from iniquity shall be accounted as one who has turned a soul to righteousness; he is a great judge, and he gives great heavens to those who serve him.

There is another line of thought

“Ye have caused many to stumble” ( Mal 2:8 ).

How acute, how penetrating, how ruthless is the criticism of God! Here again we may not have been wanton in our irreligion, we may not have been irreligious at all in the ordinary sense of the term, but for lack of zeal, for lack of honesty, for lack of character, we may have caused the citizens of Gath to mock, and the daughters of Philistia to sneer at the Lord. “Caused many to stumble”: how could they help it? They looked to the priests, pastors, guides, and teachers of the community for example, and they saw nothing but warning. They said, The speech of these men will be pure, gentle, courteous, gracious; they will especially speak of one another in terms of appreciation and brotherly regard. Hark! Why, this is talk we might have heard at the tavern; this is criticism we might have heard at hell’s gate; this is censoriousness that would shame an infidel. What if they have gone away to mock the God whose name his own professors had forgotten? “Caused many to stumble” by little-mindedness, by narrowness of soul, by lack of sympathy, by idolatry instead of worship, by pointing at a church-roof and calling it God’s own sky. Here we should daily pray that we give offence to no man needlessly; here we should do many things that the Gospel be not hindered; here we may work miracles in the name and power of the Cross.

Another picture is that of a terrible judgment:

“And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts” ( Mal 3:5 ).

O God, send some man to testify against us, and we can contradict him; send the oldest and purest of thy prophets to charge us, and we can recriminate, and remind him of his human nature, and tell him to take care of himself lest he fall, rather than waste his criticism upon us who have fallen. Send Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel; send all the minstrels of Israel, let them mass themselves into a cloud of witnesses, and we can laugh them to scorn, and tell them not to mock our fallibility by an assumption of infallibility of their own; but thou wilt not do this, thou dost come thyself. Who can answer thunder? Who can reason with lightning? Who can avert the oncoming of eternity? “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” He will be not only a witness, but a “swift witness”; he will break upon us suddenly, he will come upon us from unexpected points; where we say, All is safe here, there shall the fire leap up, and there through a hedge, where we thought to make a resting-place, shall a serpent break through to bite us. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.” Yea, I call mine a man’s hand, but to thee it is the hand of a little child; take hold of it, for the way is slippery, the crags are here and there very sharp, and the steep is infinite, and the enemy is already breathing upon my neck. O God, save me, or I perish! In that modesty we have strength; in that reliance upon God we have a pavilion that the thunder cannot shake, that the lightning cannot penetrate. I would hide me in the house of my Saviour’s heart.

Then we have a picture of a perfect restoration:

“And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts” ( Mal 3:11-12 ).

One nation cannot be good without another nation feeling it. When England is noble the whole world is aware of the transformation; when America has responded to the appeal of righteousness the whole globe feels as if a Sabbath were dawning upon the shores of time; when any nation does a noble deed it is as if all the world had prayed. Let us remember the might, the immeasurable might, of spiritual influence. Convert England, and you convert the world; convert London, and you convert England, speaking after the manner of men. Leave God to look after the results which you call material. Is there a devourer? God will rebuke him for our sakes. Does the vine cast her fruit before her time? Angels shall keep that fruit on the stem until it be purple with hospitality, yea, with the very love of God’s heart; and as for the fields, their hedges will become fruit trees, and all the fences shall bloom and blossom because the Lord’s blessing has fallen upon the earth. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” God will take care of the vine if we take care of the altar.

Then, lastly, we have a picture of a sun-lighted world:

“But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” ( Mal 4:2 ).

The last verse of the Old Testament is terrible; it reads” “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers” that is good, but the last words “lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” The Rabbi would never end with that; the Rabbi said, “No, I will go back and read the last verse but one.” The Rabbi could not end with a curse. There are several books in the Bible that end with doleful words: “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” The Rabbi could not defile the synagogue with making “evil” the climacteric word, so he read the verse before. Isaiah ends: “And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.” And the Rabbi said, We cannot end with that, we must end with the verse before. And the Lamentation, “But thou hast utterly rejected us: thou art very wroth against us.” And the Rabbi said, Read the verse before that; we cannot end with storm and darkness, and tempests of imprecation. Oh let us close with some word of comfort! So must it ever be with the true messenger of God. He will have to deliver his tremendous message; but blessed be the Cross of Christ, every sermon may end with music and light and joy. There is no text in the Bible that lies half a mile from Calvary. I do not care what the text is, there is a road from it right into Golgotha. Malachi has for his last word curse; but we may have for our last word blessing, we may have for our closing word peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.” If we added to that we should be attempting to paint the lily and gild refined gold. There is but one word that can be added to it, and that is not our own: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXXI

THE BOOK OF MALACHI PART I

Mal 1:1-3:9

We now take up the prophecy of Malachi. We have seen that there were three prophets in the period after the exile, whom we called the prophets of the restoration. These were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. We now take up the last of those three, the prophet whose writings closed the canon of the Old Testament. Between the books of Zechariah and Malachi there is an interval of about sixty years, and of what was done during these sixty years we have some light. We can draw inferences from the condition of things previous to, and the conditions we find portrayed in Malachi’s book.

We are pretty sure of some things. We know that the Temple was finished and dedicated four years after the preaching of Haggai, under the inspiration of his preaching and that of Zechariah, his greater successor. We know that the Temple worship was instituted, and the ritual and the ceremonial had been performed and they had built the walls of the city. Herein fall the events of the book of Esther, Ezra’s reformation and Nehemiah’s organization. These facts are about all that we have regarding that period.

There are some things also we can determine by way of inference. It is important to know the condition of Israel at the time of the prophecy of Malachi. We must always know the historical situation, the economic, civic, social and religious conditions of the people in order to fully understand the message which God brings to them through his prophet.

We take up now the political condition. Israel was only a very small vassal, dependent upon the great Persian Empire. Zerubbabel evidently had been appointed governor soon after they arrived in the land, but apparently he had no successor in the royal line, for in the period of Malachi the Persians had appointed their own governors. They are under a Persian governor and are one of the least known and least interfered with of all the little nations of the world. The great tide of the world’s history has flowed north; Xerxes had made his great campaign against Greece; was three or four times defeated, and the great tide of barbarism from the Persian Empire was rolled back by that wonderful little nation, Greece, and thus Europe was saved from an eastern Asiatic and barbarous civilization.

The consequences, or the effect, of that upon all ancient history we can hardly calculate. Had Xerxes succeeded in conquering Greece, southern Europe and perhaps northern Europe would have been overrun with Persian religion and civilization. As it was, that invasion was driven back, and a century or so later Alexander the Great spread the civilization of Greece over the Persian Empire; the tide was turned eastward instead of westward, and the world has been the better ever since.

All this passed and did not touch Israel. They had no place whatever in one of the greatest movements of the ages. They had enemies round about them, who never forgot them, and who never failed in a chance to thwart their purposes, or to harass them in their efforts to build up their nation again. They apparently had no hope, and there seemed to be no reason for the hope of the fulfilment of the prophetic visions of Amos, Hosea, Micah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. These all seemed to be failures, and there was no indication on the horizon of history that they would be fulfilled. Thus their political situation tended toward a despondent condition of mind among the rulers and probably among all the people.

The following were the economic conditions: They had had a succession of bad harvests and of hard times. This we find in the book of Malachi itself. A great many of them had suffered from poverty. They had been compelled to pay their taxes to the Persian Empire regularly, and in order to do that, many of them, as we find in Nehemiah, were forced to mortgage their property, and some of them had to sell their children into slavery. Part of the population, the dregs, had been left by Nebuchadnezzar when he destroyed the city and carried away the best of the people, and when the other people were removed they took possession and cultivated all the best of the land for themselves. The Samaritan people, that mixed race of the north, had also come in and cultivated their land, and a great many of them had become wealthy and were in a prosperous condition. Doubtless, many of them came down into Judah and there held important positions. Thus there grew up a large number of families of considerable wealth and social influence. But the best of the people who had returned from the captivity were poor.

Now let us look at the social condition. The city itself had never been rebuilt. The ruins were there to be seen every day in the year. These people were mainly poor, and in order that they might become rich and influential they married into the rich families and got rich wives. In order to marry these heathen or semi-heathen women who belonged to the rich influential families, they divorced their own wives. This was done altogether too promiscuously in Judah. There grew up a select class and as a result there was enmity between the poor and the rich.

These political, economic, and social conditions produced a peculiar religious condition. The colony had returned with all the glorious promises of the great prophets filling their horizon, and they looked confidently to the time when they should be a great nation, and all the nations of the world should look to them for the law of Jehovah. Naturally they were filled with a considerable amount of spiritual pride, because of the exalted position in which they believed themselves to be placed. The Persian kings were generous; did not interfere with their religion. These people had nothing of the fires of persecution to purify them, nothing to arouse that which was best within them. They were beginning to settle down upon their lees, and to grow dull and stupid in their religious life.

Because of these conditions, and the seeming failure of the prophecies of the great prophets, their pride was set on edge, and a peculiar condition developed in Israel, such as we have never met before, viz: a contempt for their revealed religion and ceremonials, contempt for even God and his Temple, the ritual and the sacrifices. They began to think that there was no use to believe in God. They began to doubt the very existence of the love of God, and to have little or no reverence for the honor and holiness of God. The priests treated all their ceremonial and ritual with contempt. The nation seemed to be on the verge of renouncing God and their religion entirely.

As a result they sacrificed only with the poorest gifts they could find; they picked out the lame and the maimed and the blind and the halt for their sacrifices. They offered the poorest of their bread upon the altar and treated God as if he were not worthy of their worship. By marriage they mixed with the heathen or the semi-heathen surrounding them, and thus were in danger of amalgamating their race with the low and degraded race of that country, thus losing their distinct nationality as a people. Some of them went further than that, and actually began to doubt and question the justice of God in his rule over the world. They were coming to the point of saying that God dealt more kindly and justly with the wicked than he did with the righteous, and was treating the wicked better in all their sin, than he was the Israelites in all their righteousness. They refused to bring in the tithe to support the priesthood. Some of them had actually come to the conclusion that there was no profit in serving God, and they might as well renounce it all.

In this brief survey of the condition we observe that Malachi met a great many of the problems which we have to meet today. The book of Malachi is rich in homiletical material. A great many of the problems which we must face are there. In this period the Pharisees and the Sadducees began to spring up. In the authorized, Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions the book is divided into four chapters, as we have it in the American Standard; the Hebrew combines the third and fourth chapters into one, but none of the chapter divisions exactly fit the contents and subject matter of the book as we have it in our Bible.

According to the title of the book, the prophet’s name is Malachi, which means “my messenger,” exactly what the Hebrew word means, as found in Mal 3:1 : “Behold, I send my messenger [Malachi].” A great many maintain that this book is anonymous, and that Malachi is not the name of the man, but that the name is adopted from this expression here, and given to the author because his real name was unknown. The Targum, the translation of the Hebrew text into Aramaic, adds this little note and says, “My messenger is Ezra the scribe,” thus ascribing this prophecy to Ezra, but this is not the prophecy of Ezra, although it does breathe a great deal of his spirit. It is not necessary to say that Malachi is strictly the official name and not the real name. There is no reason why Malachi should not be the name given to the man, his personal name, as well as his official name. Malachi was the name of the prophet who actually lived and wrote in the postexilic period.

There is no date given. It can only be inferred. We know that it occurred some time after the rebuilding and dedication of the Temple, but the question arises, Was it before Ezra returned from Babylonia in 458 B.C. or after? Was it before Ezra’s visit in 458 and Nehemiah’s visit in 444, or was it between Nehemiah’s visits in 444 and 432, or was it after Nehemiah’s second visit? It is more probable that these things would be said in connection with Nehemiah’s second visit, for he compelled the Jews to bring their tithes in, to divorce all their foreign wives, and to adhere to the Temple ceremonials. It fits the conditions of Nehemiah’s second visit. Malachi was preaching against the very conditions which Nehemiah dealt with. There is no Question that it occurred during the reign of Artaxerxes, the same ruler who sat upon the throne when Nehemiah came. Edom had been conquered and almost totally destroyed by this time. So this prophecy parallels very closely the latter part of Nehemiah.

The book is a dialogue in form, prosaic in style, with simple, smooth, and concise diction. It is a fine piece of eloquence, the outline of which is very simple, as follows:

Introduction: The name of the author (Mal 1:1 )

I. Fundamental Affirmation (Mal 1:2-5 )

II. Formal Accusations (Mal 1:6-2:17 )

III. Final Annunciations (Mal 3:1-4:6 )

Malachi adopts a peculiar method of prophesying, a pedagogical method. We will observe it more closely as we go on with our exposition. His method was to make a great statement of some fundamental, theological truth which was being questioned in that age. Then having made that statement be throws out the question that is raised up by those people who are in that peculiar religious condition described above, in which they question these theological truths. He voices their skepticism and doubts. Then he gives his answer, and drives it home with illustration, with exhortation, and even with threats.

This is a pedagogical method for either teaching or preaching, and an effective method, an excellent way to arouse the careless and indifferent. It compels attention; it compels the people to action. This method of Malachi is the beginning of a certain scholastic method that prevailed in the synagogue for centuries after. As we have in the book of Zephaniah the beginning of the great apocalyptic literature which is amplified in Daniel, Zechariah, and the book of Revelation, and as in Habakkuk we have the beginning of the speculative method in Israel, when they were speculating upon God’s providence and God’s rulership, so in Malachi we have introduced the scholastic method which has survived more or less ever since in Hebrew and Christian literature.

Now we come to the exposition of the prophecy. We take up in this chapter three of the prophet’s messages. There are eight in all. The remaining five will follow in the next chapter. Malachi’s fundamental affirmation is that God’s love was shown in Israel’s election, and Edom’s rejection (Mal 1:2-5 ). Here we have exemplified that pedagogical method. He first makes his great fundamental, theological statement: “I have loved you, saith Jehovah,” one of the most fundamental and far-reaching truths that was ever uttered. With that as the fundamental truth in theology we hold to everything else. Malachi then projects their questioning: “Ye say, wherein hast thou loved us?” This question represents their very dangerous, skeptical attitude. This attitude, as expressed by “wherein,” is manifested at seven points in this book, viz: Mal 1:2 ; Mal 1:6-7 ; Mal 3:7-8 ; Mal 3:13 . But Malachi goes on and proves that God loved Israel. His proof is based on the history of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, in contrast with the history of Jacob, or Israel. His love is proved by the difference in his conduct toward Jacob, and his treatment of Esau. In other words, God’s love for Jacob is proved by Jacob’s history, in contrast with the history of his brother.

These nations were as near akin as they could possibly be, but the very opposites in disposition and destiny. We have some of the characteristics of Edom in Obadiah. Now the difference between God’s treatment of Jacob and Esau is as he says in the latter part of Mal 1:2 , “Yet I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness.” He does not mean that he actually hated Esau, but that Esau occupied a very small place, or a very subordinate place in his estimation, for God cannot hate any nation, but he puts them in a very low place in his estimation in comparison with others.

God’s love for Israel is proved in her preservation, while his lack of love for Edom is proved in the fact that Edom is made a desolation, which occurred at the hands of the Nabataean Arabs during the period of the exile, somewhere about the middle of the century preceding this prophecy. Then he goes on to verify that history of Esau, “Whereas Edom, after he had been so utterly crushed, said, We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places.” “They shall build, saith Jehovah, but I will throw down, and they shall call them the border of wickedness, and the people against whom Jehovah hath indignation forever. And your eyes shall see [this judgment upon Esau], and ye shall say, The Lord be magnified beyond the border of Israel.” Paul refers to Jacob and Esau in Rom 11:13 to illustrate the doctrine of election. They do not show honor and reverence for God as do the heathen (Mal 1:6-14 ). Again Malachi starts with his fundamental, theological premise. He says, “A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master.” He is basing his remark on the Fifth Commandment which says, “Honour thy father and thy mother.” God did not say, “Love thy father and thy mother,” but “Honour thy father and thy mother.” What Malachi has in mind here is the holiness, the majesty, the authority of God, which demands honor and reverence on the part of his people.

Then God speaks, “If then I am a father, where is mine honour?” I have commanded you to honor father and mother, which implies that in the very highest and noblest sense you honor God also. But they had begun to despise and heap contempt upon the holiness, the majesty, and the authority of God Almighty. “If I am a master, where is my fear?” The first thing demanded of a servant is that he fear his master, and of the child, that he honor and reverence the parent, and the first and fundamental thing demanded of subjects is that they reverence and fear Almighty God. But these people were despising the holiness of God; the priests looked upon the services with contempt.

Now having projected this great fundamental truth, he states the objections of the people. He charges the priests with despising his name and saying, “Wherein have we despised thy name?” Such is their position, and that position, on the part of those priests, indicates a woeful, wilful ignorance or a scornful skepticism. To be unconscious of the fact that they were despising God’s name shows that their moral consciousness, as well as their religious perceptions, must have been dormant, or utterly perverted.

Now having stated their position, he attacks it. This is what they do: “Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar,” and that proved that they despised the name, majesty, and holiness of God. “And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of Jehovah is contemptible.” Then he goes on to specify in what ways they made the table of Jehovah contemptible; that when they offered the blind, and the lame, and the sick, they thought it was all right. They would not dare offer such a gift to the governor, but they did to Almighty God. They knew the governor would not accept it of them, but they dared to offer it to God.

Malachi goes on with his admonition: “And now, I pray you, entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious unto us: this hath been your means: will he accept any of your persons?” He will not..

Then the prophet breaks forth and says, “Oh, that the doors of the temple could be shut! I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand,” expressing the same attitude toward their sacrifices as did Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, not that he objected to the ceremonial or to the ritual, but he objected to the spirit in which they offered them, as also those prophets did.

Now we have a remarkable prophecy in which he shows the Gentiles will offer up incense and sacrifices all over the world: “For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the Gentiles, saith Jehovah of hosts.” This passage finds its fulfilment in the transfer of the covenant privileges from the Jews to the Gentiles which came to pass when the Jews rejected the Messiah. The argument is that the Jews with their great mission to all the world were failing and therefore, they must be punished for their failure with such opportunities.

He goes on stigmatizing those priests. They profane the Temple of Jehovah, they pollute it and they say, “Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it . . . and ye have brought that which was taken by violence, and the lame, etc.” Then he pronounced a curse upon the deceiver who had in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a blemished thing; for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is terrible among the Gentiles.”

Next he charges the priests with unfaithfulness and wickedness. Here we have some splendid homiletical material for the preacher. In Mal 2:1 he continues thus: “And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, then will I send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.” The third verse gives a description of the awful curse that shall come upon them.

Then he goes back to the history of Levi to get his ideal for the priest, when the tribes were set apart in the great covenant on Mount Sinai: “My covenant was with him of life and peace; I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity.”

Then he gives his reasons for the statement: “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge.” The role of the priest was to teach and from the very beginning of God’s institution of his religion, he required a whole tribe to be set apart as teachers and administrators of the law. God recognized the fact that human nature must have teachers provided for their instruction. “They should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.” But by way of contrast to what Levi did at one time and what he does now, look at Mal 2:8-9 , “But ye are departed out of the way; you have caused many to stumble in the law.” They had wilfully perverted it or misinterpreted or misapplied it. “Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith Jehovah of hosts. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have had respect of persons in the law.” And God Almighty will make every priest and every preacher of his people contemptible and base in the eyes of the people, if they do with his gospel as the priests did with his Law.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the historical setting of this book?

2. What is the political condition of the people at this time?

3. What is the economic condition?

4. What is the social condition?

5. What is the religious condition?

6. What two Jewish parties began to spring up about this time?

7. What are the chapter divisions in the different versions, what in the Hebrew and how do these arrangements fit the subject matter?

8. What of the author and his name?

9. What is the date of the book and what were the difficulties in connection with it?

10. What is the general character of the book?

11. Give the outline of the book.

12. What is Malachi’s method?

13. What was Malachi’s fundamental affirmation and what was their reply?

14. What was the attitude of the people as indicated by the sevenfold “wherein” and where do they occur in the book?

15. What was God’s reply to their question, what was the meaning and what is the New Testament use of this statement?

16. What was Malachi’s first accusation, against whom was it made, what commandment referred to in this accusation, and what their reply?

17. What were his charges against the priests?

18. What were the threats against the priests for this failure in duty and what was Malachi’s ideal for the priests?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Mal 2:1 And now, O ye priests, this commandment [is] for you.

Ver. 1. And now, O ye priests, &c. ] Now, that is, Now again, I must have the other bout with you, besides what I had, Mal 1:6-11 , for as once from the prophets, so now from the priests, in Jerusalem profaneness is gone forth into all the land, Jer 23:15 . Their white ephods covered many foul sins; and their evil example proved a public mischief. Hence the prophet is so round with them; for he knew that a wicked priest is the worst creature upon earth. Unsavoury salt is fit for no place; no, not for the dunghill. It is an old proverb, that hell is paved with the shaven crowns of evil priests. The word priest is never used by the apostles for a minister of the gospel; no, not by the most ancient fathers, as Bellarmine himself confesseth. Indeed in Chrysostom I find this piercing passage; Non arbitror inter sacerdotes multos esse qui salvi fiant, I do not think, saith be, that among all our priests, there be many that shall be saved. Bernard comes after him, and complains that in the court of Rome good men failed, bad men grew plentiful; and that the bishops of his time were not doctors, but seducers; not pastors, but impostors; not prelates, but Pilates. Yea, Pope Pius II hath left it in writing, that no villanous act had been for a long time committed in the Catholic Church the first beginning whereof proceeded not from the priests. Cornelius a Lapide, upon this chapter, cries out of the ignorance and wickedness of the Popish clergy as the cause of the contempt cast by us upon them. And I would we had not cause to say, that many of our ministers neither feed liberally by charity, nor soundly by doctrine, nor religiously by life; which opened once the mouth of that dead dog Campian maliciously to bark out, Ministris eorum nihil vilius, Their ministers are most vile and vicious.

This commandment is for you ] i.e. That curse, Mal 1:14 implying a commandment; that if you desire to escape that heavy curse you forthwith obey this commandment ( Aut faciendum enim aut patiendum ) to procure the purity and integrity of my worships, and to see that there be a present reformation of religion. Reformation is a work that hath ever gone heavily on, and hath met with much opposition. As that made by Elijah, by Josiah, by Nehemiah, and by Hezekiah, who found the priests and Levites very backward; which the good king perceiving, began first himself, and awaked those sluggards with these words. Oh, be not deceived, my sons: God hath chosen you for this service, 2Ch 29:11 . The like backwardness was found in the Popish clergy to a general Council, so much urged and called for by the Bohemians, Germans, and other nations, that groaned under the yoke of Papal tyranny. Luther truly and trimly compareth the cardinals and prelates that met at Rome about reformation of the Church, to foxes, that came to sweep a house full of dust with their tails; and instead of sweeping it out, swept it all about the house, and made a great smoke for the while; but when they were gone the dust fell all down again (Sleidan Comment.). When nothing could be obtained of the Pope, Luther began to reform in Germany, where he had a great door open, but many adversaries, and none more violent than the Pope, whose triple crown, and the monks, whose fat paunches, he so nearly touched, as Erasmus merrily told the Elector of Saxony. Bucer and Melancthon framed a form of reformation with approbation of the peers and states. But the clergy of Collen rejected it with scorn and slander, saying that they would rather submit to the government of the Great Turk than to a magistrate that followed or furthered such a reformation. Here in England something began to be done in the time of Henry VIII, but it was so envied and opposed by the Churchmen that little could be done to what was expected. There are many (said he, sitting in parliament) that are too busy with their new Sumpsimus, a and others that dote too much upon their old Mumpsimus. b The new religion, though true, he and his clergy envied; the old, though his own, he despised. Magistrates are to have the main stroke in reformation of religion (though Papists would utterly exclude them from having to do in matters ecclesiastical), but ministers also must move in their own orb, and do their part too (why else are the priests here commanded and menaced?). 1. By teaching. 2. By exercising discipline. And here magistrates must hem ministers in with boards of cedar, Son 8:9 , provide for their security while they do their duty, that they may be without fear among them, as Timothy, 1Co 16:10 . Envied they must look to be, and hated for their zeal to God’s house, which they seek to purge. But public respects must (like the rapid motion) carry our hearts contrary to the ways of our own private respects or concerns; and consider, that as it is not the tossing in a ship but the stomach, that causeth sickness; the choler within, and not the waves without; so the frowardness of men, that quarrel with reformation, and not the work itself, which is God’s commandment, as here the prophet calls it.

a A correct expression taking the place of an incorrect but popular one (mumpsimus). D

b One who obstinately adheres to old ways, in spite of the clearest evidence that they are wrong; an ignorant and bigoted opponent of reform D

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mal 2:1-9

1And now this commandment is for you, O priests. 2If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to give honor to My name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings; and indeed, I have cursed them already, because you are not taking it to heart. 3Behold, I am going to rebuke your offspring, and I will spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it. 4Then you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant may continue with Levi, says the LORD of hosts. 5My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him as an object of reverence; so he revered Me and stood in awe of My name. 6True 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. 7For 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. 8But 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. 9So 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.

Mal 2:1 And now this commandment is for you, O priests Malachi had been addressing priests from Mal 1:6 and will continue to do so through Mal 2:9. The priests in the Old Testament had several functions:

1. they were mediators between man and God (cf. Exodus 28)

2. they were teachers (cf. Lev 10:11; Deu 33:10)

3. they acted as a court of appeal (cf. Deu 19:17-21).

Mal 2:2 If you do not listen This seems to reflect Deu 28:15. Deuteronomy 27, 28 are a very important covenant summary, dealing with the cursings and blessings connected to obeying or disobeying God’s law. See Special Topic: Keep .

take it to heart This speaks of having a proper attitude. A similar phrase is used in Haggai (lit. set your heart on, cf. Mal 1:5; Mal 1:7; Mal. 2:15, 18). The heart was used as a metaphor for the entire person. See Special Topic: Heart .

to give honor to My name The term honor is the Hebrew concept of glory (BDB 458, cf. Jos 7:19; 1Sa 6:5; Psa 66:2; Psa 115:1; Isa 42:12; Jer 13:16). See Special Topic at Hag 1:8.

YHWH’s name (BDB 1027) is a way of referring to His person (cf. Mal 1:6 [twice], 11[thrice], 14; Mal 2:2; Mal 2:5; Mal 3:16; Mal 4:2). Obedience honors Him; disobedience dishonors Him. Faith and life are inseparably bound together (cf. Deuteronomy 27-28).

the curse upon you Curses (BDB 76) are the consequences of covenant disobedience. See Deuteronomy 27, 28.

and I will curse your blessings This refers to either (1) the blessings that the priests gave to the people (cf. Num 6:22-27) or (2) God’s blessing to them (cf. Deu 18:21).

because you are not taking it to heart The problem with the priests was their attitude toward the ministry and the lack of honor to God in their lives (cf. Mal 1:6-10).

Mal 2:3 There are four separate rebukes: (l) curse your offspring; (2) spread refuse in your face; (3) spread refuse on your sacrifices; and (4) take you away (i.e., dung pile). Dung made all things unclean!

offspring This is literally seed (BDB 282, cf. Deu 28:18). This can refer to

1. children (cf. NKJV)

2. descendants (TEV, NIV)

3. the harvest (Peshitta, KJV)

4. the Vulgate, NJB, NEB and REB change one vowel in the phrase which makes it read cut off your arm (a metaphor for powerlessness). They were personally cut off from ministry because they were not physically whole.

5. it could also mean arm in the sense of shoulder, referring to the priests’ food being cut off (cf. Deu 18:3).

refuse The refuse or offal (BDB 831) can refer to

1. the contents of the stomach

2. parts left from cutting up the animal for sacrifice

3. dung (cf. Jer 8:2; Jer 9:22; Zec 3:3-4)

This term is used often (cf. Exo 29:14; Lev 4:11; Lev 8:17; Lev 16:27; Num 19:5). Refuse was considered unclean and had to be burned outside the camp of Israel during the wilderness wandering period.

This trilateral root has several different meanings (BDB 831-832):

1. to spread, spread out

2. make distinct, declare

3. to issue an exact statement

4. pierce, sting

5. contents of stomach

6. horse, steed

7. horseman

Remember context, context, context determines meaning, not later Masoretic pointing systems!

The refuse of the sacrificial animals was to be removed from the camp and burned (cf. Exo 29:14; Lev 4:11-12). The priests and their offerings were considered to be in the same category and were themselves to be smeared with refuse and removed from the camp and destroyed (cf. Nah 3:6).

NASBand be taken away with it

NKJVand one will take you away with it

NRSVand I will put you out of my presence

TEVand you will be taken out to the dung heap

NJBand sweep you away with it

LXXand I will carry you away at the same time

REBand I shall banish you from my presence

JPSOAand you shall be carried out to it [heap]

The MT has and one will take you to it. Obviously several English translations have made emendations. Contact with animal refuse made one unclean and thereby they could not come to a holy, sacred place (i.e., tabernacle). These covenant violating priests could not officiate or even attend worship events!

Mal 2:4 The JB, REB, and NEB make this verse negative by changing a Hebrew vowel. However, LXX, Peshitta, NASB, NKJV, NRSV, TEV, JPSOA all translate it in a positive way. God intended His covenant with Levi, Aaron and their seed to continue (cf. Num 25:11-13).

covenant See Special Topic: Covenant .

Mal 2:5-7 Mal 2:5-7 describes how a true priest should act. He should follow the example of Levi (cf. Deu 33:8-11):

1. revere God

2. speak the truth

3. walk with God

4. teach knowledge

5. be a true messenger of the Lord

Mal 2:5 life and peace These were what the Mosaic covenant was meant to give (cf. Deuteronomy 28). YHWH wanted to bless Israel so that the nations would be attracted and come to know and worship Him. But this is not what occurred because of Israel’s disobedience (cf. Eze 36:22-38).

reverence. . .revered There are three related terms in this verse:

1. an object of reverence, BDB 432

2. he revered Me, BDB 431, KB 432, Qal IMPERFECT, often translated feared (cf. NKJV)

3. stood in awe of My name, BDB 369, KB 365, Niphal PERFECT

A proper attitude toward God is crucial. Our religious actions are judged by our motives! God looks at the heart first, then the covenant obedience becomes significant. It is always heart, then life, then perseverance!

Mal 2:8 You have turned aside The VERB implies a settled condition (BDB 693, KB 747, Qal PERFECT). All of the Hebrew terms for sin reflect a deviation from the standard, which is God Himself. The term righteousness means a measuring reed. See Special Topic at Joe 2:23.

from the way This is a pivotal concept in our understanding of God’s will for our lives. God desires for us to follow Him in lifestyle ways. That is why in the OT the way (BDB 202) was a metaphor for godly living (cf. Mal 2:6; Exo 32:8; Deu 9:12; Deu 9:16).

The same term, the way, is used in the book of Acts as the earliest title for the Church (cf. Act 9:1; Act 18:25-26; Act 19:9; Act 19:23; Act 22:4; Act 24:15; Act 24:22).

you have caused many to stumble Their basic problem was not only faulty living, but faulty teaching (cf. Mat 15:14; Mat 18:5-6; Luk 6:39) and showing partiality (cf. Mal 2:9). Godly priests turned people to God (cf. Mal 2:6); godless priests turned them away! They also brought down the spiritual influence of all other priests.

Mal 2:9 Because of their actions God will act against these post-exilic priests:

1. they will be despised, BDB 102, KB 117, Niphal PARTICIPLE

2. they will be abased, BDB 1050

Notice that it is YHWH Himself who will embarrass the priests before all of the covenant community.

but are showing partiality This is literally and lifting faces in the law. This idiom refers to a judge lifting the face of someone coming before him to see if he knows the person before rendering a fair verdict (cf. Lev 19:15; Deu 1:17; Deu 10:17; Deu 16:19; Deu 24:17).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

priests. .

this commandment. As to reformation.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 2

Now He addresses Himself to the priests.

And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. And if you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart ( Mal 2:1-2 ).

Now, in order to get a real background to Malachi, you need to read again the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, because Malachi was prophesying during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. This was the time when the children of Israel had returned from their Babylonian captivity and were starting to rebuild the nation. We remember how they read to the people the law of the Lord, and how that the people had begun to put away their wives and began to marry the wives from the cities of Ashdod and Ammon and the Moabites. Malachi will come down on this pretty soon, but you get a historic background to Malachi in Nehemiah and Ezra, which you should reread just to put the whole prophecy in perspective.

Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it ( Mal 2:3 ).

God isn’t really very gentle, is He?

And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the LORD of hosts. My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name ( Mal 2:4-5 ).

Now God established the covenant of the priesthood with the tribe of Levi, because of the fear of the Lord, the reverence that he had towards God. The covenant was of life and of peace. God’s covenant with man is that of life and of peace. God has promised to you eternal life and the peace of God which passes human understanding. These are the benefits of our covenant with God. This is the covenant that He had made with Levi because of Levi’s reverence for Him.

The law of truth was in his mouth, iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and in fairness, and did turn many away from iniquity ( Mal 2:6 ).

Of course, that was the duty of the priests, to walk before the Lord honestly, in righteousness, in peace.

For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts ( Mal 2:7 ).

Now, that really is the ministry, of bringing the people the knowledge of God. For we are the messengers of the Lord. That’s what we stand here to do, to proclaim to you a message from God. And that should always be what is upon our hearts whenever we step into the pulpit: I have a message from the Lord for you. As Paul the apostle said, “That which I have received from the Lord, I also delivered unto you” ( 1Co 11:23 ). That should always be the means of communication to the church. God, through His servant, proclaiming His Word, His truth to His people.

But ye are departed out of the way; [that is, the priests] you have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts ( Mal 2:8 ).

This can be said of so much of the apostate ministry today. I have no respect for those ministers who deny the Word of God. Who deny the authority of the Word of God, who deny the authenticity of the Word of God. I don’t know why they’re in the ministry. They’ve corrupted their positions. They have turned people away from the Lord. There are many people today who are turned away from the Lord because the churches and the ministers totally failed to proclaim to them the truth of the Lord. The church became a social center, and the ministers became the head of social organizations. Their emphasis became the social program, and their messages were sweet little nothings about birds, and flowers, and butterflies, and the reviews of the latest books. But they had no message from God for the people, and the people were turned away from God because of the failure of the priests or of the ministers. “Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” God said.

Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people ( Mal 2:9 ),

Now, what happened is the people turned against the priesthood, and they began to treat the priests contemptibly, and rightfully so. It is interesting in Brazil how that the people have turned against the ministers. Treating them with contempt. You can’t blame the people; you have to blame the ministers who were derelict in their duty of bringing the people the truth of God’s Word and of God’s light, and foisting upon them some social action program. There is a place for social actions, but not the church. Our place is to proclaim God’s truth to the people. It is the changed people who change the society.

“Therefore have I made you contemptible and base,”

according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in [your administering of] the law. Have we not all one father? is there not just one God who has created us? then why are we dealing so treacherously against our brothers? ( Mal 2:9-10 )

Would to God that the churches could realize that we have only one Father; we’re serving only one God. Why should we have all of the divisions within the church? Why should we have, you know, this church downing that church? All of this competition, fighting, jealousies, strifes going on within the body of Christ. We should realize that there’s only one God. We all serve the same Lord. God help us. If we are Baptists, or Lutherans, or Presbyterians, or Catholics, or Nazarenes, or whatever. God help us to just simply be Christians. One God, one Father. We’re all brothers. God said, “How come they don’t realize that? Why is there all this treachery going on between them? All the rivalry.”

Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god ( Mal 2:11 ).

So the Lord is here speaking about this treacherous thing that was going on, in that the men of Judah who had returned to rebuild the nation had begun to divorce their own wives of their youth. They began to marry these girls from Ashdod, that is, of the Philistines, from Ammon. That is the area of Moab, Jordan today. Leaving their wives and marrying these young gals from these foreign nations who were strangers to God and to the covenants of God. So He speaks about the treacherous dealings of these husbands. Actually, in the book of Nehemiah when Nehemiah saw what was going on, he called all the people together. He really laid a trip on these guys who had left the wives of their youth and had married these young gals, and had had children by them. He said, “All right, this is what you’ve got to do. Put away every strange wife, every man of you, you’ve got to put away your strange wives, and the children that were born by them.” He went among them and started pulling their beards, and knocking their heads, and just really treating them rough. He was setting things in order. The last chapter of Nehemiah, interesting picture of how Nehemiah was dealing very forcibly with this thing which was such an abomination unto God. That a man would deal so treacherously with the wife of his youth when he became older.

The LORD will cut off the man that does this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles [or tents] of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts. And this have you done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, and weeping, and crying out, inasmuch as he regards not the offering any more, or receives it with good will at your hand ( Mal 2:12-13 ).

All of your tears and crying and everything else unto God doesn’t alter what you have done. It does not allow God to condone what you have done.

You say, Well why? Because the LORD is the witness between you and your wife, the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously: yet she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant ( Mal 2:14 ).

You made a vow. You covenanted, “Till death do us part.” The wife of your covenant.

And did he not make the two of you one? Yet had he the residue of the Spirit. And wherefore [and why] one? That he might seek a godly seed ( Mal 2:15 ).

God was seeking to preserve a godly seed for the nation Israel, in order that they might bring forth His Son into the world. That’s why He commanded them not to marry outside of the race.

Therefore [He said] take heed to your spirit, let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth ( Mal 2:15 ).

There are people who imagine that the Bible teaches against interracial marriages, but it really does not. Except for the Jews, and that was to preserve the godly seed that He might bring forth the Messiah from this nation. But there is really no prohibition in the scripture as such against interracial marriages. Again, we all have one Father, and we all serve one God. Culturally there may be difficulties, but scripturally I see none.

For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hates divorcing: for one covers violence with his garments, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that you deal not treacherously ( Mal 2:16 ).

So God sets Himself against divorcing. He said, “I hate it.” The Lord said there was only one real cause for divorce, and that was adultery, fornication.

Then the Lord said,

You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, Where did we weary him? [He said] When you say that, Every one is good in the eyes of the LORD ( Mal 2:17 ),

“Doesn’t matter, you know, every one is good. There’s a spark of good in everybody.” God said, “You weary Me with your words.” The innate goodness of man, “Everyone is good before the Lord.” There are still those today saying that. And, “God delights in all men.” Where, then, is the God of judgment? God will judge the wicked, and God is wearied by this false philosophy, “Oh, everyone is good. God delights in all men.” The universal fatherhood of God, and the universal brotherhood of man, “No matter who you are, or what you’ve done, we’re all the sons of God and everyone is good in the eyes of God.” Then wherein is the God of judgment? Why does God speak so much about the judgment that is going to fall upon the wicked? “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Mal 2:1-9

ESPECIALLY FOR PRIESTS . . .Mal 2:1-9

(Mal 2:1-2) Here begins a special decree for the priests of Israel who are the cause of Israels infidelity. Ministers, Moore points out, cannot sin or suffer alone. They drag down others if they fall. Thus does God, for the sake of His people, pronounce a curse on their unfaithful spiritual leaders. That which had been their special blessing as priests would become a curse.

Zerr: Mal 2:1. The priests were the men who supervised the services at the altar and who were responsible for their proper performances. That is why this passage is addressed to them as stated in the beginning of the verse. Mal 2:2. Do not lay it to heart signifies that the priests were tolerating this inferior service of the people. They had been guilty of such corruption even before the years of the captivity (Jer 5:31). The present generations of priests were drilting into the same unfaithfulness and the Lord was pronouncing a curse upon them.

(Mal 2:3) The law of the sacrificial victims was, on feast days, the special food of the priests. (Deu 18:3) The stomach, or maw, was regarded as one of the choice delicacies. Instead of receiving this, God threatens to fling dung in their faces because of the defiled offerings from which it came.

By law, the dung of the sacrifices was to be carried outside the gate and disposed of. Because of the awful way the priests insulted God in the offering of blemished animals, they were to be carried with it.

Whether the threat to fling dung in their faces and to carry themselves to the dung heap is to be understood literally or not, it leaves little doubt as to how much God despises those who make a sham of His services. They are to be banished from His presence.

Zerr: Mal 2:3. Dung of your solemn feasts. In preparing an animal for the altar it was required that the internal parts be washed and that would include the removal of the dung. This verse threatened to take that matter and spread it on their faces.

(Mal 2:4) The reason for Gods rebuke of the priests is that the special priestly covenant which He had made with Levi, the priestly tribe, must be maintained.

Zerr: Mal 2:4. Such shameful treatment as described would emphasize guilt. It would also impress them with God’s respect for the service that had started with Levi which means the tribe from which the priesthood came.

(Mal 2:5-9) Here Malachi describes the promises and conditions of the Levitical covenant, Levis former observance of this covenant, and the rewards of such observance. Over against these he sets the consequences of violating this covenant as these priests were doing.

Formerly, God had bestowed life and prosperity upon Levi (the priestly tribe). On him God laid the duty of reverence. In return the priests had revered God and respected His name. They had given true instructions to the people and had spoken no injustice. They had lived in accord with Him and in so doing had turned many people from sin to God. Men then stood in respect of the priests and sought to learn from them because they recognized in them Gods messengers.

The unfaithful priests of Malachis time, in contrast, have left off the righteous practices of their predecessors. Instead of leading many from sin to God, they have caused many to fall into sin. Whereas the former priests of Levi had taken their special relationship to God very much to heart, these have treated it as of no consequence.

As a result, God will make them despicable in the eyes of the people. Because of their sinful lives and unjust application of the law for favor (cp. Lev 19:15) the people would no longer respect them as a special class and their special privileges would cease.

The principles underlying God’s denunciation of the priests through Malachi merit our attention. We, as Christians, are all priests of God (1Pe 2:9). As such, we enjoy blessings those outside of Christ never dream of. We, too, are charged to offer sacrifices to God, holy and acceptable (Rom 12:1-2). To do less is to make a mockery of His name before the world.

If we do not offer ourselves as holy and acceptable sacrifices to God, we may be assured that our relationship to Him will become a curse rather than a blessing. Un-Christian men will be able to point at us and say they have more fear of God than do we. We shall then be stumbling blocks, leading them deeper into sin rather than teaching them God’s truth, for they will not heed the words of priests whose lives do not match their doctrines.

Zerr: Mal 2:5-9. Levi as a tribe showed his fear or reverence for God when he responded to the call to take a stand on the Lord’s side (Exo 32:26). This description of Levi (or that tribe) applies to the time when he came over to the Lord’s side and showed his sincerity by fighting against the rebels. Tbe Lord then honored that tribe with being the custodian of the law. (See Lev 10:11; Deu 17:9.) With such a charge the priests were expected to be informed about the law and see that it was followed. Instead of doing so they had become indifferent and were encouraging the people in their formalities. The Indifference of these priests was causing the common members of the congregation to stumble or become corrupt in their practices. The priesthood was an important and dignified office and should have been respected by the people. But the corruptions that were allowed to creep into the service had lowered the priests in the eyes of all people.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

In dealing with the priests, he declared their corruption, and indicated the line of their punishment. He charged them with profanity, in that they had despised the name of Jehovah; with sacrilege, in that they had offered polluted bread on His altar; with greed, in that none of them was found willing to open the doors of His house for nought; and with weariness, in that they had “snuffed at” the whole system of worship as “a weariness.”

In a study of these accusations against the priests it is most evident that they resented the charges against them, as the recurrence of the question, “Wherein?” shows. This makes it evident that the prophet was protesting against a formalism which was devoid of reality. He therefore uttered Jehovah’s threatenings against the priests. Their blessings were to be cursed, and the punishment for their corruption would be the contempt of the people.

In this declaration occurs a passage full of beauty, describing the true ideal of the priesthood.

The prophet specifically charged the people with two sins, and in each case pronounced judgment on them. He introduced this charge by enunciating the principle of the common relationship of all to God as Father, and announcing the consequent sin of dealing treacherously with each other.

The first specific sin was the mixed marriages of the people. The second was the prevalence of divorce. Finally, the whole nation was charged with accommodating doctrine to the deterioration of conduct. While failing ethically, the people were saying that notwithstanding their evil doing, Jehovah delighted in the people, and they were inquiring skeptically, “Where is the God of judgment?”

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

the Transgression of the Covenant

Mal 2:1-17

As a contrast to the disgraceful attitude which the prophet had described as characteristic of the priesthood, he paints the picture of the noble priest, whose burning zeal for Gods honor averted evil and punishment from the people. It is desirable that each servant of God should seek to exemplify these traits of character, for it is only they who walk with God in peace and equity who can turn away many from iniquity. The prophet reproves those who had put away their Jewish wives and had contracted marriage with foreigners. In doing this they had ignored the fact that God was the Father of the Hebrew race, of the women as well as the men, in an especial sense in which He was not the Father of the heathen. In answer to the argument of the Jews, who demanded a plurality of wives, Malachi says that God originally made only one woman for one man, though He could have made many. It was a sin, therefore, against the original constitution of the race for a man to have more than one wife, and this is the argument that our Lord employed in Mat 19:4. The one man for the one woman is the secret of a happy home-life and of a godly seed.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Chapter 2

The Sin Of The Priests

In a fuller and more pointed manner are the sins of the priesthood brought home to their consciences in this second chapter. Anointed for temple service, set apart to holiness, and devoted to the most sacred of all offices, ordained for men, in things pertaining to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices, they had proved recreant to their sacred trust, and thought only of their own profit. Supposing that gain is godliness, they lost no opportunity of ministering to their own desires, while neglecting their holy calling.

There is no such official sacerdotal order recognized by God in the present dispensation, but all believers are now anointed priests, both holy and royal, having immediate access to the holiest in virtue of the blood of Jesus. As worshipers they go in to God to offer up spiritual sacrifices. As royal priests separated to Himself, they come out to show His praises to a needy world, and as holy priests they are appointed to intercede on behalf of those who pray not for themselves. What cause, then, for shame and humiliation when our feet stumble and our paths are crooked! All that is here said to the earthly priesthood may well be pondered by the heavenly company, as we challenge our consciences as to whether we too have not failed grievously, as they did.

O ye priests, this commandment is for you. Thus clearly and distinctly the hierarchy is addressed in verse 1. If they refused to hear and heed the word so solemnly given, the Lord would send a grievous curse upon them, cursing their blessings, as He had already begun to do. Their seed should be rejected, and thus the family of Levi set aside from their appointed place of privilege, as has been the case ever since the rending of the veil, though only manifestly since Jerusalems destruction by the Romans under Titus. Their solemn feasts too should be polluted, and they themselves rendered unclean, ceremonially, to set forth the uncleanness of their hearts and hands (vers. 2, 3).

Of old His covenant of life and peace had been with Levi, when he was separated from his brethren to find his all in God. For the fear wherewith he feared Jehovah, when Israel made the calf in the wilderness (Exo 32:25-29), an everlasting covenant had been confirmed to him; but this should not hinder the outpouring of divine wrath during the season of Israels dispersion because of their sins. No longer were they afraid before His name, as they had been in those days of the wilderness. Then the law of truth was in their mouths and iniquity was not found in their lips, when in singleness of heart they walked with God in peace and equity, and were His honored instruments in executing judgment upon evil (vers. 4-6). It is a lovely description of true devotion to the Lord. Only as the priest thus keeps his heart and guards his ways will God be glorified in his life. To talk of separation and holding the truth while neglecting what is here set forth is mere sham and hypocrisy.

The priests lips should keep knowledge and men should seek the law at his mouth, thus approving himself as the messenger of the Lord of hosts (ver. 7). Therefore the need of earnest, prayerful study of the whole word of God, with a view to bringing all the life into practical subjection thereto. The servant of God in the New Testament is exhorted to study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (2Ti 2:15). It is not a question of following some favorite teacher or cleaving to a particular line of doctrines, but giving the Holy Scriptures, in their entirety, that honored place which God intended they should hold as the complete guide for His people and the suited food for their souls.

Nor is it merely Bible study that is enjoined, but we are called to be doers of the Word, allowing no portion of it to be a dead letter to us, but giving it all its due weight and authority over our hearts and consciences, seeking to walk in all that is written therein.

This, the priests addressed by Malachi utterly ignored. Having departed from the path of obedience themselves, they caused the simple to stumble at the law, and to go astray from the word of the Lord. Therefore the covenant of Levi had become corrupted, as they had shown themselves to be anything but the moral seed of Phinehas, whose javelin had stayed the plague, and whose faithfulness would be remembered to all generations. Contemning the law, these recreant priests had been made contemptible themselves, and they should be despised by the people they had misled. Their ways testified against them, so the Lord refused their service (vers. 8, 9).

The tenth verse is the beginning of the second division of the book, which goes on to the end of the prophecy. It is now the people of Judah as a whole who are addressed in the last message they were ever to get directly from God until the coming of the Just One, the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, preceded as to public ministry by John, the messenger whose coming is predicted in the first verse of chapter 3.

They had all sprung from one common father, Abraham, and were created by one God, Jehovah of hosts. Why then should brethren deal treacherously with each other by profaning the covenant of their fathers? (ver. 10). It is not the so-called Fatherhood of God that is here declared. There is not the slightest evidence that one father refers to the Deity. It was the Lord Jesus who made known the Father. Only in a national sense could Israel say, Doubtless Thou art our Father. Individually they all had one father, however, in whom they gloried, even Abraham, whose seed they all were. Thus they were a nation of brethren. But, alas, how un-brotherly had they acted!

What can be more shocking than to be called by a name so suggestive of love and tenderness (even as Abraham himself said to Lot, We be brethren), and yet to treat one another with callous indifference and cold-heartedness, amounting at times even to enmity and hatred. Who are these brethren? one is reported to have asked, concerning certain companies of factious saints. They are people, was the reply, who are very particular about breaking bread, and very careless about breaking hearts! What a crying shame that such a testimony concerning any Christians should ever be more than an evil calumny invented by the father of lies! Let brotherly love continue is Gods admonition to us all. And let us bear in mind that, since our Head has gone back to the glory, we manifest our love to Him by love to His members here upon the earth.

The feeble remnant, returned to the place of the Name, separated from the nations, surely needed the strength to be derived from heart-unity and each others love and brotherly encouragement. Outside, the wolves raged and snarled. Inside, the sheep were biting and devouring one another! It is a pitiable picture. Alas, it has been often duplicated by Christs sheep since. It was not the outside opposition that wounded the heart of Nehemiah: but when he found the separated people exacting usury of one another, and treating their brethren with cruelty and rigor, his great soul was moved to its depths. That the evil had never been really departed from, only temporarily checked, Malachi makes evident.

Dealing treacherously every man against his brother, it was only to be expected that they would prove traitors to their God. And this the prophet charges directly upon all Judah and Israel. They had profaned the holiness of Jehovah, that holiness which He loved (how striking the expression!), and had been united in marriage to the daughters of strange gods (ver. 11). These mixed marriages are also mentioned in Nehemiah and Ezra, thus helping us to decide as to the true time of Malachis ministry. Neither true to each other nor to the Lord, they defiled themselves by forming unholy alliances with the idolatrous people around them. When brotherly love is lacking, true godly separation will soon be only a name, and none need be surprised if the rising generation turn to the world for their companions when they have seen bickerings and variance among those professedly separated to the one only Name.

But Gods face is against all those who so act, and He will cut them off. He could not accept offerings from a people so indifferent to His holy character, whatever the outward expression of grief and penitence (vers. 12, 13).

The manner in which they inquired, Wherefore? in response to words of such pathos and solemnity, exhibits the actual state of their souls. He is not slow to reply. He was the witness to all their evil-doing. Forbidden to enter into marriages with the heathen, He had made of twain one flesh among His own people. But they had violated their nuptial pledges by adding to their households outlandish women who were leading them away from Himself. It was that He might seek a godly seed that He had thus decreed concerning their family relationships. But laxity as to divorce, and mixed marriages, were fast corrupting the seed of God (vers. 14, 15).

The practice of setting aside their wives (so common, alas, in our own degenerate times) to gratify a passing whim was detestable in His eyes. He hates putting away. Hidden violence would all be searched out, and could not remain forever covered. All must come to light in due time. Therefore take heed to your spirit, was His word, that ye deal not treacherously (ver. 16).

We need only to turn to the nineteenth chapter of Matthew to see how little effect this remonstrance had upon them. Divorces were granted on most trifling and absurd pretences, and meantime all their lawlessness was covered with a cloak of extreme punctiliousness in outward religious observances. How easy it is to make much of externals while habitually careless as to the true piety and sincere obedience to the weightier matters of the word of God!

The Lord was wearied with their empty religiousness-mere words from the lips, and not the genuine utterance of the heart acceptable in His sight. But again they answer Him with a caviling question, saying, Wherein have we wearied Thee? He replies, When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment? (ver. 17). It was thus they were setting aside His revealed Word and congratulating themselves on being Abrahams seed, and therefore in the line of promise. The merits of the fathers were made to cover all possible delinquencies in their own lives. It could not be, thought they, that God would visit in judgment those in whose veins flowed the blood of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Thus they dwelt negligently in a fools paradise, having already forgotten the lesson of the Babylonish captivity. Nor has it been otherwise with the Church. Ruin and disaster early came in, because of departure from the living God. For centuries spiritual Babylon held sway over the consciences of His children, and kept them in bondage and ignorance.

At last, through the recovery of the word of God, came deliverance and blessing, followed, even in the lifetime of the Reformers, by a lifeless orthodoxy, coupled with relaxation of morals and indifference to that Word so graciously entrusted to them.

Since then, there have been various revival periods when the special work of the Spirit has been to emphasize practical godliness and devotion to Christ. Each successive movement has begun with more or less loyalty to God and to His word. But decay and disintegration have soon followed. At last the truth of the mystery of Christ and the Church was brought to light, and the name of Jesus became the rallying-standard for many of His people, wearied of the failing systems of men. But again have pride and self-will wrought sad havoc; and it remains now to be seen how far there will be a judging of what has thus marred the lovely testimony raised up to the excellency of the peerless name of the Lord.

The hour is late. The Judge is at the door. The coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Lowliness and self-judgment become us all. May we have grace given to discern the signs of the times, and to bow our hearts to His Word.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Mal 2:2

As we think upon this text, we can discern two different shades of sense in which we may understand it. We see two ways in which a blessing may be cursed.

I. Blessings may be said to be cursed, if God deprives us of the power of enjoying them. You know that when a blind man looks at the most beautiful scene, he sees nothing of it. The blue of the sky and the green of the earth to him are one great blank. Worldly blessings have a natural and great power to make a man cheerful and happy. It does tend to make any one pleased and cheerful when his circumstances are prosperous, his friends kind, his home comfortable, and his character respected. But in one moment God can make an end of all this. In one moment, without changing in the least our outward aspect, or our outward circumstances, God can make our souls as incapable of feeling happiness in the possession of our outward blessings as the blind man’s eyes are of discerning the light of day.

II. Blessings may be said to be cursed if God suffers them to have an evil tendency upon our souls. All the blessings which God bestows upon us are sent with a specific purpose. They have all a natural tendency, and this tendency, generally expressed, is to lead men to think seriously about their souls, and earnestly to turn to Christ. But it is possible they may have quite an opposite effect; they may do us harm spiritually. They may make it more and more unlikely-they may even make it impossible-that we should find our home in heaven at last. And whenever this comes to be their tendency and result, then we say that God has cursed these blessings. This is true, (1) of such earthly blessings as wealth, comfort, friends, (2) of spiritual blessings, such as (a) the means of grace, (b) the regenerating, comforting, sanctifying, Holy Spirit of God.

A. K. H. B., Sunday Afternoons in the Parish Church, p. 109.

References: Mal 2:5.-J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 361. Mal 2:6.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 99. Mal 2:17.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv., No. 1415. Mal 3:1.-Ibid.,vol. viii., No. 470; H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2611; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 332; vol. xvi., p. 24; A. J. Griffith, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 299; Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 183.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

SERMON #7. SEEKING A GODLY SEED

Text:Mal 2:1-17

Subject:Gods Unfailing Purpose

Date:Sunday Evening June 28, 2009

MALACHI CHAPTER 2

1 And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you.

2 If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.

3 Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.

4 And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.

5 My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name.

6 The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.

7 For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

8 But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.

9 Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.

10 Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?

11 Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god.

12 The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts.

13 And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand.

14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.

15 And did not he make one? (ADAM) Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

16 For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.

17 Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?

Introduction

Our business as the people of God in this world is to glorify and honor the Lord our God by the preaching of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Gospel of Christ, the Gospel of the Glory of Christ. The church of God has no other purpose for her existence in this world but to preach the Gospel. Our Savior commands us to go everywhere preaching the Gospel, to carrying the good news of redemption and grace in Christ to the four corners of the earth, seeking the salvation of Gods elect, seeking a godly seed to worship and serve Him.

That is the title of my message SEEKING A GODLY SEED. In Mal 2:15 the Spirit of God tells us that Gods purpose in the creation of the entire human race in one man, in our father Adam, indeed Gods purpose in all His wondrous works of predestination, creation, providence and grace is this one thing: He is seeking a godly seed for Himself.

(Mal 2:15) And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

There is in this world a chosen people who must and shall be saved, Gods elect, who are referred to throughout the Book of God as His seed.

(Psa 22:30-31) A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. (31) They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.

(Psa 89:29) His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.

(Psa 89:36) His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.

(Isa 53:10) Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

This chosen people are call a godly seed. The words might be translated Gods seed or a seed of God or a seed for God. But it seems best that they be read just as our translators have given them, a godly seed. They are a people who are already a godly seed. They are called a holy seed in Ezr 9:2 and in Isa 6:13. They are already holy and godly because they were justified in eternity, made holy and accepted in the Beloved before the world began, by Christ the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.

The reason Adam did not perish from off the face of the earth the second he ate of that forbidden fruit was just this: This chosen, godly seed was in him. God made all men in that one man. Yet had he the residue of the spirit.

And the reason why Christ has not yet come to destroy this world and make all things new is there are still some of the godly seed that must be sought out and found, some of the godly seed yet to be called.

(2Pe 3:9) The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

(2Pe 3:15) And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you.

Now, turn back to the 2nd chapter of Malachi, and learn what the Lord God tells us about His great work of seeking godly seed. When the Lord opened this passage up before my heart, I had to say with the psalmist, Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things (Psa 72:18). Let me show you six things in these 17 verses that I hope will rejoice your heart.

1.Blessings neglected, despised, abused and abused are made a curse to destroy. That which ought to have been Israels salvation was made Israels curse (Mal 2:1-3).

(Mal 2:1-3) And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. (2) If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. (3) Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.

The words one shall take you away with it refer to Israels sacrifices and solemn feast. Those very things instituted to teach sinners the way of life, God made a curse to the nation of Israel!

2.The purpose of God is not frustrated, overturned, or in any way even hindered by the wickedness of men, but only fulfilled (Mal 2:4).

The God of Glory uses the wrath of man to accomplish His purpose (Psa 76:10).

(Mal 2:4) And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.

(Rom 3:3-4) For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? (4) God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

(Rom 9:6) Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:

(Rom 11:25-29) For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. (26) And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: (27) For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. (28) As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. (29) For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

3.Gods covenant of life and peace is an everlasting covenant, sure and unalterable, a covenant He made with one Man, a covenant entirely dependent upon one Man, whom He trusted as the Surety of the covenant; and that Man is our Lord Jesus Christ (Mal 2:4-7).

Blessed be God that Man, Christ Jesus, is and has proved Himself worthy as Gods Covenant Surety and Covenant Messenger.

(Mal 2:4-7) And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the LORD of hosts. (5) My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. (6) The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. (7) For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

This is Gods covenant.

It is a covenant of life and peace.

It is Gods covenant with Levi, that is with Christ. Levi was not such a man as is here described. He was but the type and figure of this Man (Deu 33:8).

The covenant stands with Him who feared me and was afraid before my name. Christ in Gethsemane.

The law of truth was in His mouth.

Iniquity was not found in His lips.

He walked with Me in peace and equity.

He turned many away from iniquity.

His lips kept knowledge. He is the Revelation of God.

He is the Messenger of the Lord of hosts.

4.The Lord God is never fooled by religious hypocrisy. He sees through all pretense and despises it (Mal 2:8-17).

He will not tolerate the attempts of men to corrupt His covenant. As He made Israel contemptible and overthrew that nation, let that nation stand as a glaring beacon to warn all who try to fake it with God (Rom 11:21).

(Rom 11:21) For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.

(Mal 2:11-13) Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god. (12) The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts. (13) And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand.

5.Yet, the Lord God, in the midst of all His judgments, and by His judgments in the earth, is seeking a godly seed, that holy seed He has promised to His Son (Mal 2:15).

(Mal 2:15) And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

(Isa 62:10-12) Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people. (11) Behold, the LORD hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. (12) And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.

6. And, blessed be His holy name forever, our God will never cast off His holy seed, our Savior will never deal treacherously with His chosen Bride, because as we read in Mal 2:16, He hateth putting away!

That which God hates in men He will never perform Himself. He will never cast away His chosen.

(Psa 89:1-4) Maschil of Ethan the Ezrahite. I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. (2) For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. (3) I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, (4) Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah.

(Psa 89:14-15) Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face. (15) Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance.

(Psa 89:19) Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people.

(Psa 89:24) But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted.

(Psa 89:28-37) My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. (29) His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven. (30) If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; (31) If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; (32) Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. (33) Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. (34) My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. (35) Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. (36) His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. (37) It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.

(Rom 11:33-36) O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (34) For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? (35) Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? (36) For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

Mal 1:6, Jer 13:13, Lam 4:13, Hos 5:1

Reciprocal: Lev 21:1 – Speak Lev 21:24 – Aaron 1Sa 2:12 – the sons Eze 22:26 – priests Eze 34:7 – General Hos 4:6 – I will also reject Hos 4:10 – they shall eat Mal 3:3 – the sons

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A CORRUPT PRIESTHOOD

O ye priests!

Mal 2:1

I. In contrast with the disgraceful traits which the prophet had described as characteristic of the priesthood, he proceeds to paint with a few bold touches the noble priest whose burning zeal for Gods honour averted His wrath from the people, and secured for himself and his seed after him the covenant of an everlasting priesthood (Num 25:10-13).

II. The prophet next turns to reprove those who had put away their Jewish wives and had contracted marriages with foreigners.

III. The Jews seem to answer the prophet by pointing to their comparative prosperity.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Chapter 2 continues the solemn warnings that have been occupying us. The priests, who were, so to speak, the finest specimens of the tribe of Levi, are further denounced for their sinful practices, and warned that already a curse lay upon them. They are reminded in verses Mal 2:4-6, of God’s original covenant with that tribe, when for a time they answered to it and walked suitably before their God. Now all was sadly changed. As ever, God viewed their defection in the light of the original calling and behaviour. How do we stand? we may well ask, in the light of the original calling and behaviour of the church, as we see it in the opening chapters of the Acts. Another matter to search our hearts very deeply.

Another very serious thing about the priests of those days comes to light in verses Mal 2:7-8. The priest was intended to be a ‘messenger’, who should possess a knowledge of the law, and so be able to convey it to the masses of the people. Though the ‘law of truth’ was in the mouth of Levi at the outset, it was not so in Malachi’s day. It was departed from the hearts and lips of the priests. They were not only out of the way themselves, but they were a cause of stumbling, leading many others out of the way. Thus they had corrupted God’s original covenant with their tribe.

Once again we have to note how God always reverts to that which He establishes at the beginning. Man’s beginnings are imperfect. His inventions are crude at the outset, and improved as time goes on. God establishes that which is perfect in its time and place. If men think to improve, they actually only deface. In the things of God today, let us remember this. As soon as departure from the faith of Christ became manifest. the Spirit of God began to emphasize ‘that which was from the beginning’, as John’s epistles show. Amid the confusions of Christendom we are on safe and right ground if we revert to the simplicity, both in faith and in practice, of that which was divinely established at the outset of the dispensation.

Verses Mal 2:9-13 that follow, show how departure from God’s purpose and plan had disorganized and corrupted all behaviour amongst the people themselves. The priests had become contemptible in the popular view, and false dealing abounded amongst the people. Idolatry crept in, and the holiness of the Lord outraged. When this brought down God’s judgment upon them, there was much outcry and covering the altar with tears, but this was not real repentance, but only a protest against their troubles. Hence God paid no regard to it.

This disregard on God’s part was an offence to them, and they in petulant fashion asked, ‘Wherefore?’ This led to a more specific charge being laid against them. There was much marital infidelity: much putting away of their wives in treacherous fashion, in disregard of God’s original purpose in making both man and his wife to be one. Here once more we see that God’s original design stands unshaken, no matter how far it may be forsaken and forgotten. We also see that when God is ignored and His things forgotten, confusion soon ensues as to our own things.

We have to notice also that when evil of this sort is allowed, it not only spreads but persists. When some centuries later our Lord was on earth, the Pharisees came with the question, ‘Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?’ (Mat 19:3), which infers that these loose practices were still common. We know how our Lord referred them at once to what God established at the beginning.

Having read thus far, the last verse of Mal 2:1-17 does not surprise us. They had indeed wearied the Lord with their words, refusing to admit any charge that had to be brought against them, but rather challenging the accusation in very insolent fashion. But even this remonstrance they met in the same self-satisfied way, asking, ‘Wherein have we wearied Him?’ They were not prepared to admit anything. They would rather cast an aspersion on God Himself.

So the prophet is led to bring home the charge against them in two specific ways. First, there were those who sought to make God to be, so to speak, a partner in their evil, as though He approved of it, treating as good that which was evil. This is a religious trick, not uncommon, we fear, in our day. All too many would claim they are serving God and pleasing Him in practising things wholly astray from His truth. The priests and people, that Malachi addressed, were religious folk, and this is an evil specially seen in the religious sphere.

But then again, there were others, who did not attempt to make God a partner in their evil. They were less crafty, but more bold. They apparently challenged God’s judgment, when He by the prophet challenged them. Their question, ‘Where is the God of judgment?’ may not have insinuated that He had no right to judge, but rather that He had not exercised His right of judgment in the matters that were in question. Whatever was their exact meaning, they evidently endeavoured to thrust God, and His word, out of the whole matter. The spirit, that lay behind this form of reasoning in self-defence, is not dead in our day.

Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary

Vital Questions

Mal 1:1-14; Mal 2:1-17; Mal 3:1-18

INTRODUCTORY WORDS

The Book of Malachi presents questions asked by God. In response, instead of a direct answer, the chosen people, Israel, ask God questions in return. As these pairs of questionings have to do with the theme in hand, we have decided to give a brief description of the varied questions that are in the Book as a whole.

1. The first pair of questions.

God says, “A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is Mine honour? and if I be a master, where is My fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise My Name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised Thy Name?” (Mal 1:6).

The Lord is speaking of the utter lack of filial honor, and servant-fear, which Israel manifested. If Israel desired to claim God as their father, God asks, “Where is Mine honor?” If Israel claims God as Master, God says, “Where is My fear?”

The reason God asks His question is because His people had offered polluted bread on His altar.

Israel answers God’s question by asking one. She says,

“Wherein have we despised Thy name?”

“Wherein have we polluted Thee?”

God replied at once, “In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible.” Then the Lord continues with a series of questions:

“And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts. And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the Lord of hosts. Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire in Mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand” (Mal 1:8-10).

We trust that some who hear these words will stop and ponder their own course? How many of our gifts must displease the Lord, who so richly gave us His best; yea, His all. How can we treat the Lord Jesus Christ as we do. We find many who give to Him no more than the “left overs,” or, the no-account and worthless remains of things already sapped of their value.

When, on the other hand, we serve Him, we demand a good sum. We would not shut His doors, unless we were to receive something in coin or in honor from men. No marvel God says that He has no pleasure in us.

2. The second series of questions.

This time Israel speaks first. After God has charged His people concerning their sins, and laid bare their ignominy, showing how they had wearied the Lord, then Israel asks, “Wherein have we wearied Him?”

The Lord’s people are feigning innocency. They would seek to hide their shame. With a false piety they ask, “Wherein have we wearied Him?” God quickly places His finger on their sin, and specifies their iniquity. He says, “When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delighteth in them: or, Where is the God of judgment?”

God then tells Israel how He will send His messenger before His face, how He will come suddenly to the Temple, and then God asks,-“But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap.”

Let those who act foolishly and deceitfully with the Lord, remember that a day of judging lies ahead.

3. The third series of questions.

We now come to the verses assigned for today’s study. God calls unto Israel to return unto Him. Israel, still professing innocency, asks, “Wherein shall we return?”

In answer to this query, God asks some questions and makes some statements:

“Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts” (Mal 3:8-11).

How wicked it is to receive from the hand of the Lord, but never to return to Him! To take, but never to give. God gave definite command to Israel as to their tithes and offerings. When these were withheld, His people were no more than robbing Him. Are we better than they? Have we not received from the Lord, good measure, pressed down, and running over? Shall we then give back into His hand the miserable pittance that marks too many gifts. Shall Christians give a tenth? We reply that we certainly should not give less. Grace is not meaner than Law. Larger blessings demand larger gifts.

After God has said that He would hold back from Israel His blessings, as a punishment for their infidelity, then He says that their words have been stout against Him. Then follows:

4. The fourth series of questions.

“Your words have been stout against Me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against Thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?” (Mal 3:13-14).

The questions this time are from Israel. She still persists in her innocency. She claims thus not to have spoken against the Lord. She even goes so far as to assert that she had served God in vain. She claimed to have kept the ordinances of God and to have walked mournfully before Him in vain.

Thank God the Book continues to give a prophecy of the time when Israel will seek the Lord, and when He will be gracious unto her.

Read also carefully 2Co 8:1-5, 2Co 8:9.

Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water

Mal 2:1. The priests were the men who supervised the services at the altar and who were responsible for their proper performances. That is why this passage is addressed to them as stated in the beginning of the verse.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Mal 2:1-4. O ye priests, this commandment is for you Or decree, rather, for properly speaking no commandment is here given to the priests, only punishment is denounced upon them if they did not repent. If ye will not hear, &c., to give glory unto my name Which you have despised and dishonoured, by your irreverent performance of my service, Mal 1:6. I will send a curse upon you I will send poverty and affliction upon you, and you shall not prosper in any thing. And I will curse your blessings I will turn your blessings into curses, or rather, remove your blessings and send curses and calamities in their stead; behold, I will corrupt your seed The seed wherewith you sow your ground: I will cause it to rot so that it shall bring forth little or nothing. And spread dung upon your faces I will make you as contemptible and vile as if some one had covered your faces with filth and dung. And one shall take you away with it You shall be cast out of the temple as so many nuisances, only fit to be removed out of sight. And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you By the punishment which will follow upon your neglecting to lay what hath been said to heart, and to give glory unto my name, as you are here enjoined: see Mal 2:1-2. That my covenant might be with Levi

That the covenant which I made with the tribe of Levi, that they should be mine, and employed in my service, might continue firm to their posterity. Some render the clause, Because my covenant was with Levi, for the breach of which you are accountable.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Mal 2:1-2. Oh ye priestsif ye will not hear the Lord will send a curse upon you. Sins in the sanctuary are always put among the most grievous sins. Elis sons lost the ark, the Hebrew priests filled the temple with idols, and the Lord sent the Chaldeans to burn it.I was in France at the beginning of the revolution, and heard strong words uttered against the clergy. They had sixty priests in St. Maloes; they were accused of strutting about in robes and silk stockings, from one house of infamy to another. They lost their altar, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord. A nation must become infidel when the priests are infidel.

Mal 2:7. The priests lips should keep knowledge. The Lord here speaks not of what the priests were, but of what they ought to be; for instead of keeping knowledge for the people, they were grossly ignorant, and negligent of their duty. He would therefore make them contemptible and base before all the people, as in Mal 2:9. No man is so much despised as an ignorant and profane minister. The pastor of a christian church ought to be a regenerate man, of holy conversation, and mighty in the scriptures. He should have a fountain of eloquence in his own breast, should be possessed of talent and of science, able to instruct the ignorant, and face an ungodly world. He should ever have his eye on his ministry, and make the care of souls his sole delight.

Mal 2:11-15. Judah hath dealt treacherously. The prophet here gives a full stroke at the sins of Judah, in putting away their wives for pretences, and consorting with heathen concubines. To divorce a woman for infirmity is a greater affliction added to a less.

(1) Has not the husband and the wife one Father and Creator?

(2) Did he not make them one flesh in paradise?

(3) Did he not breathe into man a living soul, and breathe the residue of the spirit into the woman?

(4) Are not the children ruined, branded, and alienated, by such divorces?

(5) Will not God himself be a witness against the wretch who divorces his wife on slight pretences? Yes, he will testify against the breach of covenant.

(6) If this cunning man think to build a patriarchal house by such divorces, God here says, that he will cut him off, and drive him from the tabernacles, or the cities of Jacob, as the Chaldaic reads.

REFLECTIONS.

Marriage must be without spot, else our children are unclean. The promises of the residue of the Spirit are to us and to our children. We must therefore seek a holy seed, and train them up and present them to the Lord.

God is offended when the sacred laws of marriage are broken, either by divorce or polygamy, or in any other manner whatever, as well as when we marry persons guilty of idolatry. Malachi shows that all those disorders are contrary to the first institution of marriage, since God created but one man and one woman at the beginning; and this point our Lord settles still more plainly in the gospel, where he proves, by the first institution after the creation, that marriage is a holy state, and an indissoluble bond, which equally binds the wife and the husband.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Mal 1:6 to Mal 2:16. Israels Disregard of this Love.This section falls into two parts, one dealing with the priesthood (Mal 1:6 to Mal 2:9), the other with the people (Mal 2:10-16). Yahweh has not received the honour due to a father from a son, or to a master from a servant. The priests (note the sudden application, Mal 1:6) have brought His service into contempt by offering polluted bread (an archaic expression for sacrificial flesh) upon His altar. They bring imperfect and inferior animals which were forbidden by the Law (Lev 22:20-24) and which they would not think of offering to their Persian governor. They see no harm in this(ye say) it is nothing serious (Mal 1:8)but the prophet ironically asks them whether they think God will accept their persons, i.e. receive them favourably (Heb. lift up the face of a suppliant). They might as well shut the Temple doors and cease from the task of offering these unworthy and unpalatable sacrifices. Yahweh prefers the religious earnestness of the Gentiles to the insincerity of Israel. Mal 1:11 is not a prediction (as AV and mg.) but a contrast (cf. Mal 1:14) existing in Malachis own time; perhaps he had come into contact with the comparatively pure heathenism of the Persians. His remark is an anticipation of Peters word in Act 10:35. The expression my name need not be forced so as to presuppose a Divine revelation and to refer to the Jews of the Diaspora as being more mindful of Yahweh among the heathen than their lax compatriots were at Jerusalem. This would involve our interpreting incense and offering in the sense of prayer and praise. Nor need we with early Christian writers like Justin (Trypho, 41) and Irenus (IV. xvii. 5) see here a prediction of the Eucharist. Malachis point is that among the Gentiles there were monotheists, and that when offerings were presented to God as One, they were accepted by Yahweh as presented to Him. In contrast to their earnestness the priests of Israel not only offer unworthy gifts, but regard the service of the sanctuary as a bore, a mere wearisome routine. They snuff at, i.e. sniff at or despise the altar (Mal 1:13; cf. Psa 10:5, Hag 1:9). The laity are included (Mal 1:14) in the charge of disrespect amounting to deceita man vows a valuable male animal and then redeems his vow by offering an inferior or blemished beast. Mal 2:1-9 turns again to the priests and shows how unworthy they are as descendants of Levi, whose covenant fear of God had issued in faithful and reverent service (Mal 2:6). Unless a speedy and thorough reformation is forthcoming, Yahweh will send His curse upon them and openly disgrace them; nay, this retribution is so certainly determined that it may be regarded as already brought about (Mal 2:9).

Mal 2:3. I will rebuke your seed: i.e. make your field unfruitful. But as priests were not tillers of the soil we may, changing the Heb. vowel points, read with LXX rebuke your arm (mg.). A further slight change yields hew off your arm (cf. 1Sa 2:31); in any case their functions and authority are threatened. The following words threaten a greater indignity For sacrifices read pilgrimages (Exo 23:14-17).

Mal 2:4. that my covenant might be with Levi: that my covenant with the tribe of Levi might stand firm. As in Mal 3:3 so here and in Mal 2:8, Malachi has in view the wider connotation of the term Levite as used in Dt., according to which every member of the tribe, ipso facto, possessed priestly rights. The narrower sense is found in P, which rigidly limits the priesthood to the descendants of Aaron and makes the Levites a subordinate order.

Mal 2:5. Read with Driver, My covenant was with him: life and peace, and I gave them unto him; fear, and he feared me. Yahweh gives His priests welfare and prosperity, they in turn give Him reverence.

Mal 2:6. The law of truth: sound oral counsel on matters of religion. So in Mal 2:7the true priest is skilled in the knowledge of the Law on its ethical and ceremonial sides (cf. the Blessing on Levi in Deu 33:8-11).

Mal 2:9. base: abased, humiliated.but have had respect of persons: apparently the priests had been open to bribery (cf. Mic 3:11), but perhaps we ought to read, nor respect me.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

2:1 And now, O ye {a} priests, this commandment [is] for you.

(a) He speaks mainly to them, but under them he includes the people also.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

E. Negative motivation: the results of disobedience 2:1-9

Whereas the emphasis in Malachi’s argument shifts at this point somewhat from the sins of the priests (cf. Mal 1:6; Mal 2:1) to their possible fate, there is a continuing emphasis on their sins. In the preceding sections (Mal 1:6-14) the cultic activity of the priests (i.e., offering sacrifices) was prominent, but in this one (Mal 2:1-9) their teaching ministry is. As with the second hortatory discourse (Mal 2:10 to Mal 3:6), this first one begins with positive motivation (Mal 1:2-5) and ends with negative motivation (Mal 2:1-9).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Malachi announced an admonition to the priests from the Lord. If they did not pay attention to His rebuke and sincerely desire to honor Yahweh’s name, the Lord would curse them (cf. Deu 27:15-26; Deu 28:15-68). He would cut off their blessings; troubles would plague their lives. Blessing was their business, and by cursing their blessings the Lord would render their pronounced blessings vain. This curtailment of blessing may also include their income from the people as well as spiritual blessings. In fact, He had already begun to do so.

"The inevitable result of covenant unfaithfulness was the imposition of the curses that were always spelled out in covenant texts (cf. Lev 26:14-39; Deu 27:11-26; Deu 28:15-57)." [Note: Merrill, p. 405.]

"No single prophetic book contains all twenty-seven types of curses or all ten types of restoration blessings. The shorter books normally contain few of either. Malachi, on the other hand, contains a fairly high proportion of both types relative to its length, confirming what readers of the book have long noticed: the Book of Malachi is closely concerned with fidelity to the covenant and the consequences (thus curses and blessings) of keeping or breaking the law of Moses." [Note: Stuart, pp. 1260-61.]

Notice the importance of the priests taking to heart what the Lord was saying, repeated twice in Mal 2:2 for emphasis.

"The word ’heart’ (leb/lebab) denotes in Hebrew what may be called the command center of a person’s life, where knowledge is collected and considered and where decisions and plans are made that determine the direction of one’s life. In view of the 814 occurrences of the word in the Old Testament in reference to the human ’heart’ (’the commonest of all anthropological terms’ [Note: Footnote 173: H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, p. 40.] ) and the common usage of ’heart’ in English of emotions, it is important to differentiate the Hebrew meaning from the English and so to ’guard against the false impression that biblical man is determined more by feeling than by reason.’ [Note: Footnote 174: Ibid., p. 47.] " [Note: Clendenen, p. 288.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

3. THE PRIESTHOOD OF KNOWLEDGE

Mal 2:1-9

In the third section of his book “Malachi” addresses himself to the priests. He charges them not only with irreverence and slovenliness in their discharge of the Temple service-for this he appears to intend by the phrase “filth of your feasts”-but with the neglect of their intellectual duties to the people. “The lips of a priest guard knowledge, and men seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the Angel” the revealing Angel-“of Jehovah of Hosts.” Once more, what a remarkable saying to come from the legal age of Israels religion, and from a writer who so emphasizes the ceremonial law! In all the range of prophecy there is not any more in harmony with the prophetic ideal. How needed it is in our own age!-needed against those two extremes of religion from which we suffer, the limitation of the ideal of priesthood to the communication of a magic grace, and its evaporation in a vague religiosity from which the intellect is excluded as if it were perilous, worldly, and devilish. “Surrender of the intellect” indeed! This is the burial of the talent in the napkin, and, as in the parable of Christ, it is still in our day preached and practiced by the men of one talent. Religion needs all the brains we poor mortals can put into it. There is a priesthood of knowledge, a priesthood of the intellect, says “Malachi,” and he makes this a large part of Gods covenant with Levi. Every priest of God is a priest of truth; and it is very largely by the Christian ministrys neglect of their intellectual duties that so much irreligion prevails. As in “Malachis” day, so now, “the laity take hurt and hindrance by our negligence.” And just as he points out, so with ourselves, the consequence is the growing indifference with which large bodies of the Christian ministry are regarded by the thoughtful portions both of our laboring and professional classes. Were the ministers of all the Churches to awake to their ideal in this matter, there would surely come a very great revival of religion among us. “And now this Charge for you, O priests: If ye hear not, and lay not to heart to give glory to My Name, saith Jehovah of Hosts, I will send upon you the curse, and will curse your blessings-yea, I have cursed them-for none of you layeth it to heart. Behold, I you and I will scatter filth in your faces, the filth of your feasts And ye shall know that I have sent to you this Charge, to be My covenant with Levi, saith Jehovah of Hosts. My covenant was with him life and peace {Num 25:12} and I gave them to him, fear and he feared Me, and humbled himself before My Name. The revelation of truth was in his mouth, and wickedness was not found upon his lips. In whole-heartedness and integrity he walked with Me, and turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest guard knowledge, and men seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the Angel of Jehovah of Hosts. But ye have turned from the way, ye have tripped up many by the Torah, ye have spoiled the covenant of Levi, saith Jehovah of Hosts. And I on My part have made you contemptible to all the people, and abased in proportion as Ye kept not My ways and had respect of persons in delivering your Torah.”

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary