Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Malachi 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.
14. hath been witness ] Comp. Gen 31:50.
of thy covenant ] To the tender recollection of “the kindness of youth and the love of espousals” (Jer 2:2), and the binding force of years since spent together in intimate companionship, there is added the solemn obligation of the marriage contract, “the vow and covenant betwixt them made”, of which God is here said to be the “witness”, and which is elsewhere called, “the covenant of God”, Pro 2:17.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And ye say, Wherefore? – They again act the innocent, or half-ignorant. What had they to do with their wives womanly tears? He who knows the hearts of all was Himself the witness between them and the wife of youth of each; her to whom, in the first freshness of life and their young hearts, each had plighted his troth having been entrusted by her with her earthy all. Gen 31:49-50. The Lord, said even Laban, when parting from his daughters, watch between me and thee, when we are absent, the one from the other; if thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness between me and thee.
And he dealt treacherously against her – , violating his own faith and her trusting love, which she had given once for all, and could not now retract. And she is thy companion; she has been another self, the companion of thy life, sharing thy sorrows, joys, hopes, fears, interests; different in strength, yet in all, good and ill, sickness and health, thy associate and companion; the help meet for the husband and provided for him by God in Paradise; and above all, the wife of thy covenant, to whom thou didst pledge thyself before God. These are so many aggravations of their sin. She was the wife of their youth, of their covenant, their companion; and God was the Witness and Sanctifier of their union. Marriage was instituted and consecrated by God in Paradise. Man was to leave father and mother (if so be), but to cleave to his wife indissolubly. For they were to be Mat 19:6, no more twain, but one flesh. Hence, as a remnant of Paradise, even the pagan knew of marriage, as a religious act, guarded by religious sanctions. Among Gods people, marriage was a Pro 2:17 covenant of their God. To that original institution of marriage he seems to refer in the following:
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 14. Ye say, Wherefore?] Is the Lord angry with us? Because ye have been witness of the contract made between the parties; and when the lawless husband divorced his wife, the wife of his youth, his companion, and the wife of his covenant, ye did not execute on him the discipline of the law. They kept their wives till they had passed their youth, and then put them away, that they might get young ones in their place.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Yet ye say, Wherefore? though the fault was so great in the nature of it, and so notorious in the evidence of it, these impudent sinners will not see, but dispute what just cause God hath to reject their offerings.
Because the Lord hath been witness: the prophet answers them God was witness both of the matrimonial contract, when you promised other deportment and affections, and he is witness also of your violating this contract, and hath seen how false and perfidious you have been, what inhumanity you have showed against your wives.
Between thee and the wife of thy youth; whom in thy youth thou marriedst, and hast had the best of her time and strength, and in age shouldst love and deal kindly with.
Dealt treacherously: see Mal 2:10.
Yet is she thy companion; yet she is, what she was by the sacred institution of God made, thy companion, not thy drudge, or slave; thou art most unjust to her, thus to change thy affection and deportment when there is no change in her state and relation.
And the wife of thy covenant: covenants ought to be very exactly kept, and those especially which are of our own freest and most voluntary making, our covenants; such was this between the unnatural husband and his despised wife: all which, as they should have been arguments to his duty, so they are aggravations of his neglect of duty, and provocations to God. And now judge, ye disputing, quarrelling hypocrites, whether God hath not justest cause to reject your offerings.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. Wherefore?Why does Godreject our offerings?
Lord . . . witness betweenthee and . . . wife(so Gen 31:49;Gen 31:50).
of thy youthThe Jewsstill marry very young, the husband often being but thirteen years ofage, the wife younger (Pro 5:18;Isa 54:6).
wife of thy covenantnotmerely joined to thee by the marriage covenant generally, but by thecovenant between God and Israel, the covenant-people, whereby asin against a wife, a daughter of Israel, is a sin against God[MOORE]. Marriage also iscalled “the covenant of God” (Pr2:17), and to it the reference may be (Gen 2:24;Mat 19:6; 1Co 7:10).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Yet ye say, Wherefore?…. What is the meaning of the women covering the altar with tears? as if they knew not what was the reason of it, when they were so notoriously guilty of breach of covenant with them; which is an instance of their impudence, as Abarbinel observes: or, “if ye say, wherefore?” as the Targum and Kimchi interpret the words; should you say, what is the reason why the Lord will not regard nor receive our offerings? the answer is ready,
Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth: when espoused together in their youthful days, the Lord was present at that solemn contract, and saw the obligations they were laid under to each other, and he was called upon by both parties to be a witness of the same; and at the present time he was a witness how agreeably the wives of the Israelites had behaved towards their husbands, and how treacherously they had acted towards them; he saw and knew, that, whatever pretensions they made, they did not love them, nor behave as they should towards them; and therefore had just cause of complaint against them, and must be a witness for the one, and against the other: this sin of hating and divorcing their wives, or of marrying others besides them, which prevailed much in our Lord’s time, is particularly mentioned, though they were guilty of many other sins, as a reason of the Lord’s not accepting their offerings: the aggravations of it are, that they had broken a contract God was witness to, and dealt injuriously with wives they had espoused in the days of their youth; see Pr 2:17:
against whom thou hast dealt treacherously; by divorce or polygamy: the Vulgate Latin version renders it, “whom thou hast despised”: and the Septuagint and Arabic versions, “whom thou hast left”; divorced and took others, which arose from hatred and contempt of their former: other aggravations follow:
yet [is] she thy companion; or, “and she is”, or “though she is thy companion” c: has been so in time past, and ought to be so still, and so accounted: the wife is a part of a man’s self, is one flesh with him; a partaker of what he has; a partner with him in prosperity and adversity; a companion in life, civil and religious, and ought to remain so till death part them; for, whom God has put together, let no man put asunder:
and the wife of thy covenant; wherefore either to divorce her, or marry another, was a breach of covenant; for by “covenant” is not meant the covenant of God made with the people of Israel, in which they both were; but the covenant of marriage made between them, and which was broken by such practices.
c “et ipsa est socia tua”, Montanus, Drusius, Burkius; “quum sit socia tua”, Pagninus, Munster, Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Prophet tells us here as before how prone the priests were to make a clamor, and it is a very common thing with hypocrites immediately to set up a shield to cover their vices whenever they are reproved; and hence it appears, that men are in a manner fascinated by Satan, when they attain such hardness as to dare to answer God, and with obstreperous words to repel all warnings. Malachi has several times already used this mode of speaking; we may hence conclude, that the people had become then so hardened that warnings were of no account with them. But he mentions one particular, by which it seems evident that they had lapsed into vices which were not to be borne. There is indeed no doubt but that he points out one of the many vices which prevailed. There is then in this verse an instance of stating one thing for the whole, as though he had said, “Your hypocrisy is extremely gross; but, to omit other things, by what pretext can you excuse this perfidy — that there is no conjugal fidelity among you? Were there any integrity and a sense of religion in men, they would surely appear in their conjugal connection; but ye have cast away all shame, and have taken to yourselves many wives. There is then no ground for you to think that you can escape by evasions, because this one glaring vice sufficiently proves your guilt.” This is the import of the Prophet’s answer.
We have indeed seen that the priests were implicated in other vices; the Prophet then does not now charge them with perfidy as though they were free from other sins, but he meant to show, as I have already said, by one thing, how wickedly and shamelessly they sought to evade God’s judgment, though they had violated the marriage pledge, which was wholly to destroy the very order of nature; for there can be, as it has been already said, no chastity in social life except the bond of marriage be preserved, for marriage, so to speak, is the fountain of mankind.
But in order to press the matter more on the priests, he calls their attention to the fact that God is the founder of marriage. Testified has Jehovah, he says, between thee and thy wife (232) He intimates in these words, that when a marriage takes place between a man and a woman, God presides and requires a mutual pledge from both. Hence Solomon, in Pro 2:17, calls marriage the covenant of God, for it is superior to all human contracts. So also Malachi declares, that God is as it were the stipulator, who by his authority joins the man to the woman, and sanctions the alliance: God then has testified between thee and thy wife, as though he had said, “Thou hast violated not only all human laws, but also the compact which God himself has consecrated, and which ought justly to be deemed more sacred than all other compacts: as then God has testified between thee and thy wife, and thou now deceivest her, how darest thou to come to the altar? and how canst thou think that God will be pleased with thy sacrifices or regard thy oblations?”
He calls her the wife of his youth, because the more filthy is the lust when husbands cast away conjugal love as to those wives whom they have married in their youth. The bond of marriage is indeed in all cases inviolable, even between the old, but it is a circumstance which increases the turpitude of the deed, when any one alienates himself from a wife whom he married when a girl and in the flower of her age: for youth conciliates love; and we also see that when a husband and his wife have lived together for many years, mutual love prevails between them to extreme old age, because their hearts were united together in their youth. It is not then without reason that this circumstance is mentioned, for the lust of the priests was the more filthy and as it were the more monstrous, because they forsook wives whom they ought to have regarded with the tenderest love, as they had married them when they were young: Thou hast dealt unfaithfully with her, he says, though she was thy consort and the wife of thy covenant
He calls her a consort, or companion, or associate, (233) because marriage, we know, is contracted on this condition — that the wife is to become as it were the half part of the man. As then the bond of marriage is inseparable, the Prophet here goads the priests, yea, touches them to the quick, when he reproves them for being unmindful of what was natural, inasmuch as they had blotted out of their minds the memory of a most sacred covenant. The wife of thy covenant is to be taken for a covenanted wife, that is, “The wife who has been united to thee by God’s authority, that there might be no separation; but all integrity is violated, and as it were abolished.” He then adds
(232) Or, “a witness has Jehovah been between thee and thy wife.” But Theodoret, Cyril, and Jerome, and also Cocceius, refer this to God’s testimony in the first institution of marriage, in Gen 2:24. More suitabele to the context no doubt is to consider God as a witness to the marriage contract; and this is the view taken by Drusius, Henry, Scott, Newcome, and Henderson. — Ed.
(233) “ Κοινωνός — partner,” by the Septuagint; “ ὁμόσαρκος — of the same flesh,” by Cyril; “ particeps — partner,” by Jerome; “companion,” in our version, and by Newcome and Henderson. The word comes from חבר, to conjoin, to couple, to fit together. “Partner” perhaps would be the most appropriate term. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(14) Again with supercilious surprise they ask, Wherefore?
Witness.Comp. Gen. 31:49-50 : The LORD watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another. If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness betwixt me and thee. If people would seriously consider the meaning of this verse of Genesis, they would not be so fond of putting MIZPAH on their rings, for it denotes a strong suspicion as to the fidelity of the other party.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
14. Wherefore Wherefore does Jehovah pay no attention to them? This cry gives the prophet an opportunity to present the accusation.
Because Jehovah hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth Of the marriage as well as of the wicked putting away, and as a righteous God he must avenge the wrong; he cannot look with favor upon a hypocrite (Gen 31:50; compare Isa 54:6).
Dealt treacherously In putting her aside when he should have loved her faithfully.
Thy companion In joy and sorrow. This companionship should have united them more closely.
The wife of thy covenant Not the marriage covenant, but the covenant with Jehovah (Mal 2:10). In contrast to “the daughter of the strange god” (Mal 2:11), the wife belonging to the religious community of Jehovah. To cast off such a one is a desecration of the covenant (Mal 2:10).
The translation and interpretation of 15a are matters of dispute; indeed, it is very doubtful if, without deep-going emendations, an entirely satisfactory sense can be had; but who can be certain that the “emended” text represents the thought of the prophet? Two interpretations of the text as it stands may be given. The one is that of Pusey, who follows closely the translation of A.V.
Did not he God.
Make one Adam. “In order to designate the unity of marriage, he willed to create but one.”
Yet had he the residue of the spirit The breath of life by which man became a living soul (Gen 2:7); this God possessed in an abundant measure, so that, had he desired, he might have created any number of men or women, but he deliberately chose the other way.
Wherefore one? Wherefore did God create one man, and did create from him a mate, the two to be one, never to be put asunder? The answer is supplied by the succeeding clause.
That he might seek a godly seed A seed worthy of God. Only in the manner selected could he accomplish this purpose. 15b is an exhortation to the prophet’s contemporaries. These things being so, they would better be careful about their conduct. Embodying this interpretation, Perowne gives the following translation of 15a: “Did not he (God) make one (one man, and out of him one woman, and the twain ‘one flesh’)? And (yet) the residue of the spirit (of life) was his (so that he could, had it pleased him, have created, for example, one man and many women). And why (did he make) the one? He sought (what only by the purity and integrity of the marriage bond can be secured) a godly seed.” Much, indeed, has to be read between the lines, but when all that is placed in parenthesis is read in or gathered from the text, the result is not inappropriate. But is it the thought Malachi desired to express? He certainly might have expressed it with less obscurity.
Most scholars who retain the present text prefer an entirely different translation and interpretation. In part this translation is given in margin R.V.; for the whole of 15a that of Von Orelli may be quoted: “And not one has done this, while yet a remnant of spirit was in him. And how (did) the one so? In seeking a seed of God.” 15b is again understood as an appeal to the prophet’s contemporaries. According to this translation the prophet means to contrast the conduct of his contemporaries with the actions of past generations, and he declares that no one who had even a remnant of reason or of sense for right and wrong had ever put away his wife in the manner in which they were doing it.
Spirit A sense of right and wrong, the faculty that determines moral and religious actions. How did the one so? (see translation above) These words must be understood either as an objection raised by some bystander, or by the prophet himself to forestall an objection by some one else. The one would be Abraham, who put away Hagar. If their conduct is so reprehensible in the sight of God, how did this friend of God come to put away one who had borne children to him? To this the prophet replies, he did so in order to raise up a godly seed. Had he retained Hagar and her child, the covenant seed might have become tainted and corrupt.
This translation reproduces the Hebrew more faithfully than the other, but again much has to be read between the lines. The construction is peculiar, and the one as a designation of Abraham, who has not yet been named, appears strange. Besides, the analogy breaks down, for Abraham did not put away the wife of his youth, Sarah, but Hagar, who had never been his legitimate wife. It is a very easy way out of the difficulty to say, “One feels the holy indignation under the power of which the prophet speaks in the style, which is abrupt and obscure.” The present writer, however, is inclined to think that the obscurity has arisen not so much from “holy indignation” as from a corruption of the text. Wellhausen rewrites the text, “Hath not one God (compare Mal 2:10) created and sustained our breath?
And what does he desire? A seed of God.” This gives good sense, for it furnishes two reasons why the hearers should abstain from their evil practices: (1) one God has created both husband and wife (see on Mal 2:10); (2) he desires a pure offspring, which can be had only if they retain their Jewish wives. But is it the original text?
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
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.
Ver. 14. Yet ye say, Wherefore? ] A senseless question; but there is nothing more stupid and stubborn than a hypocrite; he will not yield, though never so clearly convinced, but will have still somewhat to say though to small purpose, as had Saul to Samuel, 1Sa 15:19-23 , and these questionists here to God, whom, as before often and again after, they put to his proofs. See Trapp on “ Mal 1:2 “ See Trapp on “ Mal 1:6 “ His answer is ready:
Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth
“ Maxima debetur pueris reverentia siquid
Turpe paras: ”
And again,
“ Turpe quid acturus tu, sine teste, time.
We should not do wickedly if but a child be by. And, when thou art about to do aught amiss, fear thine own conscience, which is a thousand witnesses. But if God be by as a witness, should not men fear to offend him? Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob. He that dares sin, though he know God be an eye witness, is more impudent in sinning than was Absalom, when he spread a tent upon the top of the house, and went in to his father’s concubines, in the sight of all Israel, and of the sun. These treacherous husbands could not but know that they had entered into a covenant of God, Pro 2:17 , when they married; that the bond was made to God, and that upon the violation of it he would be ready enough to take the forfeiture; for “whoremongers and adulterers God will judge,” Heb 13:4 . That God had been witness, or had protested ( Protestatus est ), so Montanus renders it, and withal had, by interposing of his own authority, confirmed the contract and compact, saying, verbis conceptis, as Hos 3:3 , Thou shalt not be for another man, so will I also be for thee, and not for another woman, till God shall separate us by death. Indeed, if the husband or the wife is dead, the surviving party is at liberty to marry again, Rom 7:2 , whatsoever the Canonists say against bigamy. Jerome tells us of an old man in Rome that had buried twenty wives, which he had married one after the death of another; and that he had taken to wife the one-and-twentieth, who also had buried nineteen husbands. And that, burying that wife too, he followed the corpse to the church, so his neighbours would needs have it, with a garland of bays upon his head in manner of a triumpher. But against polygamy (which is, when a man or woman couples himself or herself in marriage to more than one) here are a heap of arguments in the text, which we shall take as they lie in order. Meanwhile it is worthy our observation, that the first author of polygamy was that Thrasonical Lamech, noted for a profane and wicked person; as was likewise Esau, another polygamist. Laban, though he had cheated Jacob into the having of his two daughters to wife, yet he could not but confess it to be a sin against the light of nature. Hence at parting he takes a solemn oath of Jacob, Gen 31:50 “If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness between me and thee.” Some of the fathers were herein faulty, as Abraham, David, &c., and some say it was their privilege; but that is not likely. Rather it was their ignorance or incogitancy (they considered not that it was a breach of the first institution of marriage), or, as some conceive, it was their mere mistake of that text, Lev 18:18 “Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her lifetime.” Here they took the word (sister) for one so by blood, which was spoken of a sister by nation, Eze 16:46 , as those clauses to vex her, and during her life, do evince. One thing was, the commonness of the sin, and the long custom of it. So long had it continued, and was grown so fashionable, that it seemed to be no sin. But debt is debt, whether a man know of it or not; and sin, as a debt, may sleep a long time, and not be called out for many years, as Saul’s sin in killing the Gibeonites slept forty years, and Joab’s killing of Abner slept all David’s days. Another thing that might cause desire of many wives, was want of love and chaste affection to the wife of their youth. Isaac is noted for a most loving husband to his Rebecca; and he never desired more wives than her. “Rejoice in the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe.” This will keep thee from being ravished with a strange woman, or embracing the bosom of a stranger, Pro 5:18-20 . The hind and the roe are most loving to their mates, and, therefore, most faithful to them. So, among birds, are the turtle dove and the stork. The former, they say, as he keeps close to his mate while she lives; so when she dies, he groans and moans continually, and never sits upon a green bough. The latter are chaste and severe in punishing those of the kind that are not. It is credibly reported by some that have seen it, that whole flocks of storks, meeting in a meadow, they have set in the midst of them two of their company that have been found disloyal, and, running upon them with main force, have killed them with their beaks. So that the company breaking up, and all the rest flying away, the two offending storks only have been found dead in the place.
Against whom thou hast dealt treacherously
Yet she is thy companion
And the wife of thy covenant
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Malachi
A DIALOGUE WITH GOD
Mal 2:12
It is obvious from the whole context that divorce and foreign inter-marriage were becoming increasingly prevalent in Malachi’s time. The conditions in these respects were nearly similar to that prevailing in the times of Ezra and Nehemiah. It is these sins which the Prophet is here vehemently condemning, and for which he threatens to cut off the transgressors out of the tents of Jacob, and to regard no more their offerings and simulated worship. They might cover ‘the altar of the Lord with tears,’ but the sacrifice which they laid upon it was polluted by the sins of their daily domestic life, and therefore was not ‘regarded by Him any more.’ Malachi is true to the prophetic spirit when he denounces a religion which has the form of godliness without its power over the practical life. But his sharp accusations have their edge turned by the question, ‘Wherefore?’ which again calls out from the Prophet’s lips a more sharply-pointed accusation, and a solemner warning that none should ‘deal treacherously against the wife of his youth,’ ‘for I hate putting away, saith the Lord.’ We may dismiss any further reference to the circumstances of the text, and regard it as but one instance of man’s way of treating the voice of God when it warns of the consequences of the sin of man. Looked at from such a point of view the words of our text bring before us God’s merciful threatenings and man’s incredulous rejection of them.
I. God’s merciful threatenings.
No sin can stay our reception of a multitude of good gifts appealing to our hearts and revealing the patient love of our Father in heaven, but every sin draws after it as certainly as the shadow follows the substance, evil consequences which work themselves out on the large scale in nations and communities, and in the smaller spheres of individual life. And surely it is the voice of love and not of anger that comes to warn us of the death which is the wages of sin. It is not God who has ordained that ‘the soul that sinneth it shall die,’ but it is God who tells us so. The train is rushing full steam ahead to the broken bridge, and will crash down the gulph and be huddled, a hideous ruin, on the rocks; surely it is care for life that holds out the red flag of danger, and surely God is not to be blamed if in spite of the flag full speed is kept up and the crash comes.
The miseries and sufferings which follow our sins are self-inflicted, and for the most part automatic. ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that’-and not some other crop-’will he also reap.’ The wages of sin are paid in ready money; and it is as just to lay them at God’s door as it would be to charge Him with inflicting the disease which the dissolute man brings upon himself. It is no arbitrary appointment of God’s that ‘he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption’; nor is it His will acting as that of a jealous despot which makes it inevitably true that here and hereafter, ‘Every transgression and disobedience shall receive its just recompense of reward,’ and that to be parted from Him is death.
If then we rightly understand the connection between sin and suffering, and the fact that the sorrows which are but the echoes of preceding sins have all a distinctly moral and restorative purpose, we are prepared rightly to estimate how tenderly the God who warns us against our sins by what men call threatenings loves us while He speaks.
II. Man’s rejection of God’s merciful threatenings.
The ‘Wherefore?’ of our text is widely asked in the present day as an expression of utter bewilderment at the miseries of humanity, both in the wide area of this disordered world and in the narrower field of individual lives. There are whole schools of so-called political and social thinkers who have yet to learn that the one thing which the world and the individual need is not a change of conditions or environment, but redemption from sin. Man’s sorrows are but a symptom of his disease, and he is no more to be healed by tinkering with these than a fever-stricken patient can be restored to health by treating the blotches on his skin which tell of the disease that courses through his veins.
But sometimes the question is more than an expression of bewilderment; it conceals an arraignment of God’s justice, or even a denial that there is a God at all. There are men among us who hesitate not to avow that the miseries of the world have rooted out of their minds a belief in Him; and who point to all the ills under which humanity staggers as conclusive against the ancient faith of a God of love. They, too, forget that that love is righteousness, and that if there be sin in the world and God above it, He must necessarily war against it and hate it.
Our right response to God’s merciful threatenings is to ask this question in the right spirit. We are not wise if we turn a deaf ear to His warnings, or go on in a headlong course which He by His providences declared to be dangerous and fatal. We use them as wise men should, only if our ‘Wherefore?’ is asked in order to learn our evil, and having learned it, to purge our bosoms of the perilous stuff by confession and to seek pardon and victory in Christ. Then we shall ‘know the secret of the Lord’ which is ‘with them that fear Him’; and the mysteries that still hang over our own histories and the world’s destiny will have shining down upon them the steadfast light of that love which seeks to make men blessed by making them good.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Wherefore? Supply the Ellipsis: “Wherefore [doth He not accept it]? “
companion = consort, or mate.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Wherefore: Mal 1:6, Mal 1:7, Mal 3:8, Pro 30:20, Isa 58:3, Jer 8:12
the Lord: Mal 3:5, Gen 31:50, Jdg 11:10, 1Sa 12:5, Jer 42:5, Mic 1:2
the wife: Mal 2:15, Pro 5:18, Pro 5:19, Ecc 9:9, Isa 54:6
thy companion: Gen 2:18, Pro 2:17, Son 1:15, *marg. Eze 16:8
Reciprocal: Gen 2:24 – and they shall be one flesh Rth 4:10 – ye are witnesses 1Ch 14:3 – took Jer 3:4 – the guide Jer 29:23 – even I Mal 2:10 – why Mal 2:17 – Wherein Mal 3:13 – What Mat 5:32 – whosoever Mat 19:3 – Is it Mat 19:6 – God Mat 19:8 – because Mar 10:6 – God 1Co 7:2 – let 1Co 7:10 – Let Col 3:19 – love 1Pe 3:7 – ye
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Mal 2:14. They said Wherefore? meaning to ask why God was rejecting their service. The answer was in the form of an accusation of their un faithfulness to their marriage relation. The priests had behaved treacherously against the women whom they had taken into covenant relation to be their life companions.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mal 2:14-15. Yet ye say, Wherefore Ye will, perhaps, still inquire wherefore God regards not your offerings; if so, the answer is ready, namely, because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth Because the Lord sees how you act toward your wives; that when you have enjoyed the flower of their youth, and they begin to grow old, you contemn them, and use them ill. Yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant Yet didst thou thyself make choice of her to be thy companion through life; and didst enter into covenant or contract with her, to live with her in true love and affection. And did not he make one, &c. Among various interpretations of the words, says Lowth, this seems the most probable, that the prophet puts the Jews in mind of the first institution of marriage in paradise, (as Christ did afterward upon a like occasion, Mat 19:5,) and tells them God made but one man at first, and made the woman out of him, when he could have created more women if he had pleased; to instruct men that this was the true pattern of marriage, ordained for true love and undivided affection, and best serving the chief end of matrimony, namely, the religious education of children, whereas in polygamy, the children are brought up with more or less care in proportion to the affection men bear to their wives. Therefore take heed to your spirit Do not give way to an inordinate and irregular passion.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2:14 Yet ye say, {s} 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 {t} companion, and the wife of thy {u} covenant.
(s) This is another fault, of which he accuses them, that is, that they broke the laws of marriage.
(t) As the one half of yourself.
(u) She that was united to you by a solemn covenant, and by the invocation of God’s name.