Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Malachi 2:3
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.
3. corrupt ] Rather, reprove, margin A.V.; or rebuke, R.V. Comp. ch. Mal 3:11: “I will rebuke (the same word) the devourer.” God will wither with His rebuke the seed so that it shall not germinate, or shall not come to maturity. Thus the priests would suffer both in tithes and in offerings (Joe 1:2-13).
The LXX. (reading for ) render, , “I set apart for you the shoulder,” that being the part of the victim reserved for the priest. Lev 7:34. Ewald, “I will rebuke your (the priests’) arm.”
of your solemn feasts ] If this rendering be retained, it will of course mean the dung of the sacrifices offered at such feasts. The R.V. has feasts in the margin, but sacrifices in the text.
The figure is very forcible. It is as though Jehovah sees nothing in the droves of diseased and blemished animals that are brought to His altar on some great Festival, but the mass of filth and offal that necessarily accompanies the sacrifice. It is all one vast abomination! Flinging back in holy indignation the polluted offerings into the faces of the unworthy priests, He overwhelms them beneath the ftid heap, and thus they are swept forth with it from the sacred precincts. Comp. Exo 29:14, 1Ki 14:10.
one shall take you ] It is more in accordance with our English idiom to render, with R.V., ye shall be taken. Comp. Isa 9:5: “His name shall be called”; lit. “he (one) shall call His name”.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Lo, I will rebuke the seed for your sake – o, i. e., that it should not grow. He who worketh by His sustaining will all the operations of nature, would at His will withhold them. Neither priests nor Levites cultivated the soil; yet, since the tithes were assigned to them, the diminution of the harvest affected them. The meal-offering too was a requisite part of the sacrifice. (See also Joe 1:13; Joe 2:14.)
And spread dung upon your phaces, the dung o of your solemn feasts – , or, of your sacrifices. It was by the law carried without the camp and burned with the animal itself. They had brought before the face of God maimed, unfitting sacrifices; they should have them cast back, with their refuse, upon them; as a lord that rejecteth a gift, brought to him by his servant, casts it back in his time. Of your sacrifices, not of Mine, for I am not worshiped in them: ye seek to please, not Me, but yourselves. So God said of Eli 1Sa 2:30, them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.
And one shall take you away with it – , literally to it. They should be swept away, as if they were an appendage to it, as God said 1Ki 14:10, I will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, until all be gone. As are the offerings, so shall it be with the offerers.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 3. Behold, I will corrupt your seed] So as to render it unfruitful. Newcome translates, – “I will take away from you the shoulder.” This was the part that belonged to the priest, Le 7:32; De 18:3.
Spread dung upon your faces] Instead of receiving a sacrifice at your hands, I will throw your offerings back into your faces. Here God shows his contempt for them and their offerings.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Behold; note it well, and consider.
I will corrupt your seed; take away the prolific virtue and strength of it, that it shall bring forth none or little fruit: your seed you make plentiful, but you cannot make your harvest so, nor will I, till you give me the glory I contend for, and will have ere I have done. I will rebuke or check your seed, which will surcease to grow thereupon: though your vices checked thrive still, your seed for harvest cannot grow up under my checks.
Spread dung upon your faces: it is an expression of greatest contempt cast upon a person; it is a token of utmost undervalue and scorn: so I will expose you, as you have exposed my name to contempt.
The dung of your solemn feasts; your most solemn days and feasts, which are by you accounted most holy, and in which you think you offer the most holy and acceptable sacrifices, shall be as loathsome to me as dung, and shall make you, who offer them illegally, as polluted, unclean, and loathsome as if I had thrown the dung of those sacrifices into your faces.
One shall take you away with it; you shall be taken away with it, removed as unclean as the dung itself, as unfit as that to be in the temple, as fit to be cast out to the dunghill; so contemptible shall you be, if you lay it not to heart.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. corrupt, c.literally,”rebuke,” answering to the opposite prophecy of blessing(Mal 3:11), “I will rebukethe devourer.” To rebuke the seed is to forbid its growing.
yourliterally, “foryou” that is, to your hurt.
dung of . . . solemnfeastsThe dung in the maw of the victims sacrificed on thefeast days; the maw was the perquisite of the priests (De18:3), which gives peculiar point to the threat here. You shallget the dung of the maw as your perquisite, instead of the maw.
one shall take you away withitthat is, ye shall be taken away with it; it shall cleave toyou wherever ye go [MOORE].Dung shall be thrown on your faces, and ye shall be taken away asdung would be, dung-begrimed as ye shall be (1Ki14:10; compare Jer 16:4;Jer 22:19).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Behold, I will corrupt your seed,…. Or, “the seed for you” r; that is, for your sake, as Kimchi and Ben Melech explain it; meaning the seed they cast into the earth, which the Lord threatens to corrupt and destroy; so that it should not spring up again, and bring forth any increase: or, “rebuke” s it, as the word sometimes signifies; and so the Targum,
“behold, I will rebuke you in the increase, the fruit (son) of the seed.”
The sense is the same; corrupting the seed being a rebuke to them; and rebuking the seed being a corruption of that, or hindering it from growing up. It is a threatening of a sore famine that should be in the Jewish nation; and which Cocceius thinks was that which happened in the days of Claudius Caesar, Ac 11:28. The Septuagint version renders it, “behold, I separate to you the shoulder”; the Arabic version, “the right hand”, or arm; and the Vulgate Latin is, “behold, I will cast forth to you the arm”; the right shoulder of the sacrifice, which was given to the priests, and here threatened to be cast to them with indignation, Le 7:32 but the former sense is best:
and spread dung upon your faces, [even] the dung of your solemn feasts; that is, the dung of their beasts which were slain for sacrifice at their solemn feasts: so this word is used for a beast offered for sacrifice at a festival, Ps 118:27. The sense is, that their sacrifices and solemn feasts were so far from being acceptable to God, that he would reject both them and their persons, and would cast the very dung of the creatures brought for sacrifice into their faces, and spread it over them: a phrase expressive of the utmost contempt of them, and of exposing them to the greatest shame and confusion for their sins. So the Targum,
“I will make manifest the shame of your sins upon your faces; and will cause to cease the magnificence of your feasts.”
The Septuagint render it, the ventricle, or “maw”; which was given to the priests, De 18:3 and in which the dung was contained:
and [one] shall take you away with it; with the dung spread upon them; they looking like a heap of dung, being covered with it, and had in no more account than that: or “to it” t; that is, as Jarchi explains it, to the dung of the beasts of your sacrifices they shall carry you; or you shall be carried to it, that ye may be rejected and despised as that. Kimchi’s note is
“the iniquity (you are guilty of) shall carry you to this contempt; measure for measure; you have despised me, and ye shall be despised:”
or “with him”, or “to himself” u; meaning he, or it that shall take them away; either the wind or dung; or the enemy, as Aben Ezra interprets it; by whom the Romans may be designed, who took them away out of their own land, and carried them captive. According to the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, this is to be understood of God, who render the words, “I will take you together”, or “with it”.
r “propter vos”, Munster, Drusius. s “increpabo”, Tigurine version; “increpo”, Drusius, Cocceius; “increpans”, Burkius. t , , Sept.; “ad istud”, so some in Vatablus, De Dieu. u “Ad se”, Pagninus, Montanus, Munster, Tigurine version: Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius, Calvin, Burkius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
He confirms here again what he had said in the last verse, — that they would perceive God’s curse in want and poverty. The curse of God is any kind of calamity; for as God declares especially his favor by a liberal support, so the sterility of the land and defective produce most clearly evidence the curse of God. The Prophet then shows, by mentioning one thing, what sort of curse was nigh the Jews, — that God would destroy their seed. Some read, but improperly, “I will destroy you and the seed.” I wonder how learned men make such puerile mistakes, when there is nothing ambiguous in the Prophet’s words. I will destroy then for you the seed; that is, “Sow as much as you please, I will yet destroy your seed, so that it shall produce no fruit.” In short, he threatens the Jews with want and famine; for the land would produce nothing when cursed by God. (214)
But as the Jews flattered themselves on account of their descent, and ever boasted of their fathers, and as that preeminence with which God had favored them proved to them an occasion of haughtiness and pride, the Prophet here ridicules this foolish confidence, I will scatter dung, he says, on your faces: “Ye are a holy nation, ye are the chosen seed of Abraham, ye are a royal priesthood; these are your boastings; but the Lord will render your faces filthy with dung; this will be your nobility and preeminence! there is then no reason for you to think yourselves exempt from punishments because God has adopted you; for as ye have abused his benefits and profaned his name, so ye shall also find in your turn, that he will cover you with everything disgraceful and ignominious, so as to make you wholly filthy: ye shall then be covered all over with dung, and shall not be the holy seed of Abraham.”
But as they might have again raised a clamor and say, “Have we then in vain so diligently served God? Why has he bidden a temple to be built for him by us and promised to dwell there? God then has deceived us, or at least his promises avail nothing.” — The Prophet gives this answer, “God will overwhelm you with disgrace and also your sacrifices.” But he calls them the dung of solemnities, as though he had said, “I will cover you with reproach on account of your impiety, which is seen in your sacrifices.” Had the Jews any holiness they derived it from their sacrifices, by which they expiated their sins and reconciled themselves to God: but the Prophet says that it was their special ill-savor which offended God, and which he abominated, because they vitiated their sacrifices. Nor is that to be disapproved which some of the rabbins have said, that the Prophet alludes to the oxen, calves, and rams; for when the Jews from various places brought their sacrifices, there must have been much dung from all that vast number. There is then here a striking allusion to the victims themselves, as though he had said, “Ye think that I can be pacified by your sacrifices, as though loads of dung were pleasing to me; for when ye bring such a vast number, even the place itself, the area before the temple, throws an ill-savor on account of the dung that is there. Ye are then, forsooth! holy, and all your filth is cleansed away by means of this dung. Begone then together with the dung of your solemnities; for I will cast this very dung on your heads.”
We now perceive what the Prophet means: and emphatical are the words, Behold I; for God by these single words cuts off all those pretences by which the Jews deceived themselves, and thought that their vices were concealed from God: “I myself,” he says, “am present, to whom ye think your sacrifices to be acceptable; I then will destroy your seed, and I will also cast dung on your faces; all the dignity which ye pretend shall be abolished, for ye think that ye are defended by a sort of privilege, when ye boast yourselves to be the seed of Abraham: it is dung, it is dung,” he says. He afterwards shows what was especially the dung and the filth: for when they objected and said, “What! have our sacrifices availed nothing?” he answers, “Nay, I will cast that dung upon you, because the chief pollution is in your sacrifices, for ye vitiate and adulterate my service: and what else is your sacrifice but profanation only? ye are sacrilegious in all your empty pomps. Since then all your victims have an ill-savor and displease me, and as I nauseate them, (as it is also said in the first and last chapter of Isaiah,) I will heap the dung on your own heads, because ye think it to be your chief expiation.”
He adds at last, It shall take you to itself; that is, “Ye shall be dung altogether; and thus all your boastings, that ye are descended from the holy Patriarch Abraham, shall be wholly useless; though I made a covenant and promised that you should be to me a royal priesthood, yet the dung shall take you to itself, and thus whatever dignity I have hitherto conferred on you shall be taken away.” (215) Let us proceed
(214) The word זרע, means “the shoulder” as well as “seed,” and it is so rendered by the Septuagint, and the Arabic, and also by Grotius and Newcome, —
Behold, I will withhold from you the shoulder.
The shoulder belonged to the priests, see Lev 7:32; Deu 18:3. This rendering suits the context better than the other. — Ed.
(215) Participles and vers are often connected by “and” in Hebrew, and so in Welsh; but then the auxiliary is understood. Such is the case here, and the Septuagint have so regarded it, “ καὶ λήψομαι ὑμας εἰς το ὰυ᾿τό — and I will take you to the same.” — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(3) I will corrupt your seed.Better, I will destroy for you the seedviz., of the crops. It must be remembered that because the people neglected to pay the tithes, the Levites were obliged to go and till the fields (Neh. 13:10). The LXX. for seed reads corn.
Dung of your solemn feasts.Or rather, of your festival sacrifices. (Comp. Exo. 23:18; Psa. 118:27.) The dung of the sacrificial animals was to be carried to an unclean place outside the camp, and burnt there. The priests, because they had profaned Gods Name by offering unfit animals in sacrifice, were to be treated in the most ignominious manner.
And one shall take you away with iti.e., according to a Hebrew idiom, and ye shall be carried away to it (comp. Isa. 8:4):ye shall be treated like it.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Mal 2:3. Behold, I will corrupt your seed, &c. Behold, I am about to take away the shoulder from you [namely, the right shoulder, which, by the law, was the peculiar portion of the priests]; and to throw the fat into your faces, even the fat which is offered in your sacrifices [meaning the fat which covered the intestines, and which was burnt upon the altar]; and it shall take you away with it. God threatens that he will not accept this gift, but will reject it, and throw it with disdain into the faces of the priests, and by that stroke repulse or drive them from the altar. He goes on, Mal 2:4. And ye shall know, that I have sent this commandment or statute concerning you, [that is to say, to drive you from mine altar, Mal 2:1.] that it may be instead of the covenant with Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts. That is, “this shall be established, that Levi be driven from the priesthood;” for berith, is here taken in a bad sense, as this passage is full of threats, and not of promises; and therefore the word signifies here, not covenant, properly speaking, but that which is ratified, certainly fixed and determined, as in many other places. This is Houbigant’s interpretation.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mal 2:3 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.
Ver. 3. Behold, I will corrupt your seed ] And so mar your hopes of a harvest; I will bring famine upon you, that sore judgment, worse than that of the sword, Lam 4:9 , which yet is the slaughter house of mankind, and the very hell of this present world. By this scourge God will tame his prodigals, and starve their bodies; who, by the contempt of his ordinances, starve their own souls, Hag 1:4 . Either by immoderate drought God can cause a famine, Joe 1:10 , or by immoderate moisture, Joe 1:17 “The seed rotting under the clods,” &c., to revenge the quarrel of his covenant. Israel was plagued with famine for breaking their faith with the Gibeonites, 2Sa 21:1 . What may they expect that keep not in touch with God? David knew that the natural cause of that famine was drought; but he inquired (though it were long first) after the supernatural. As Jacob inquired who stood on the top of the ladder and sent the angels to and fro? Gen 28:13 ; so must we, in case of public calamities, ascend to the top of them, and see who sends them, and what is the cause of them, that we may cast the traitor’s head over the wall, and he may return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him. For till then we may look that he should cut off our provision and victuals, as wise princes use to do from their rebels whom they have gotten up into a walled town.
And spread dung upon your faces
Even the dung of your solemn feasts
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Behold. Figure of speech Asterismos App-6.
corrupt = rebuke; as in Mal 3:11. Psa 106:9. Isa 17:13. Hebrew gaar. Occurs fourteen times. Always rendered rebuke” except here, and Jer 29:27 (“reproved”).
dung = refuse; always sacrificial. Occurs seven times.
feasts. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct), App-6, for the sacrifices offered at the feasts.
it: i.e. the refuse.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
I will: Joe 1:17
corrupt: or reprove
spread: Heb. scatter, Mal 2:9, 1Sa 2:29, 1Sa 2:30, 1Ki 14:10, 2Ki 9:36, 2Ki 9:37, Job 20:7, Psa 83:10, Jer 8:2, Nah 3:6, Luk 14:35, 1Co 4:13
one shall take you away with it: or, it shall take you away to it
Reciprocal: Lev 21:9 – the daughter Num 31:23 – abide Deu 28:18 – the fruit of thy body 2Ki 5:27 – leprosy Psa 7:16 – General Phi 3:8 – but dung 1Pe 1:23 – not
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
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.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
2:3 Behold, I will corrupt {d} your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, [even] the {e} dung of your solemn feasts; and [one] shall take you away with it.
(d) The seed you sow will come to no profit.
(e) You boast of your holiness, sacrifices, and feasts, but they will turn to your shame and be as vile as dung.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Part of this curse involved rebuking the priests’ offspring (Heb. zera’, physical descendants) and spreading (Heb. zarah) refuse from their feasts on their faces (cf. Zec 3:3-4). The disgusting picture is of God taking the internal waste of the sacrificial animals and smearing it on the priests’ faces. Consequently both sacrifices and priests would have to be taken outside for disposal. This play on words communicates a double curse (cf. Mal 2:2). The priests’ descendants would not continue because the priests would cease to bear any or many children, and their inferior sacrifices would render them unclean. They would not, then, be able to continue to function in their office.