Malachi 2:12

The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this,.... That is guilty of such treachery, wickedness, and idolatry: or "to the man that doeth this" (y); all that belong to him, his children and substance:

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.

The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this; the family of those who do this shall be destroyed utterly by the hand of God, he will punish this crime. The master and the scholar; him that calleth and him that answereth; there shall be left neither any to teach nor any to learn, none to call nor any to answer, all the living cut off. Out of the tabernacles of Jacob: this points to the people, or laity, who dwelt in the cities of Jacob, they shall be rooted out of the land. And him that offereth an offering; the priests that are guilty of this fault shall be put out of the office of priest, and minister no more before the Lord.

Malachi 2:12 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.Ver. 12. The Lord will cut off the man that doth this] Though the magistrate be careless and corrupt; though he either cannot punish this evil, it being grown so universal, or will not (and so impunity in the magistrate maketh impenitence in the offenders), God will take the sword in hand, and cut off every mother’ s child that doth this, nisi currat poeniteatia; as a surgeon cutteth off a rotten member, so will God destroy such for ever, Metaphora est a Medicis ducta (Polan.): he will take them away, and pluck them out of their dwellingplaces, and root them out of the land of the living, Psalms 52:5. Neither shall this be done to himself only, but to his wretched posterity (such a legacy, like Joab’ s leprosy, leaves every graceless man to his children), for so the Chaldee here rendereth and interpreteth that proverbial expression in the text, both the master and the scholar, filium et filium filii, his son, and his son’ s son, though he teach never so well by wholesome instruction, and political advisement, to prevent the mischief. Agreeably hereunto for sense Piscator rendereth this text thus, The Lord will cut off his children that doth thus, the children that he begets of the daughter of a strange god. A heavy curse, surely, and frequently inflicted, as upon Ahab; though he, to avoid it, so followed the work of generation, that he left seventy sons behind him; which yet would not do. And him that offereth an offering, &c.] That is, although he be a priest; or, although he seek to make peace with me by an offering; as hoping thereby to stop my mouth or stay my hand, to expiate his sin, or to purchase a dispensation, as those Micah 6:6-7 Isaiah 58:2-3. Thus Saul sacrificeth; Ahab trembleth and humbleth; Jeroboam’ s wife goeth to the prophet; Joab taketh hold of the horns of the altar; the King of Persia, having lost some of his children by untimely death, as Ctesias reporteth, sends earnestly to the Jews for prayers for him and his, Ezra 6:10. So did Maximinus in like case to the Christians. Cicero (de Nat. Deor.) tells us that they which prayed whole days together and offered sacrifice, ut sui liberi superstites sibi essent, that their children might outlive them, these were first called superstitious persons; afterwards the word was taken in a larger sense. But devotion without holy conversation avails nothing to avert God’ s judgments, Isaiah 1:12; Isaiah 1:15; Isaiah 66:3. He that killeth an ox, unless he also kills his corruptions, is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, unless by faith he lay hold upon the Lamb of God, is as if he cut off a dog’ s neck; he that offereth an oblation, &c.

(12) The man.—Better, to the man.The master and the scholar.—This is the Talmudic interpretation of the Hebrew expression, which occurs only in this passage, but it is unsuitable (besides being philologically precarious), for the passage refers to the whole nation rather than to those who were their appointed scholars and teachers. It is better to render it, “watchman and answerer: i.e., the watchman who cried in the city, “Who comes there?” and him who answers, “Friend,” which is an exhaustive expression for all living persons, and so, in this context, “all posterity.” This is the interpretation of Gesenius, who quotes in support of it an Arabic expression from the life of Tímúr-lang (Timur the lame, Tamerlane):—“When he left the city, there was not a crier or an answerer in it”—i.e., there was not a person left alive. “Neither root nor branch” is another exhaustive term used by our prophet (Malachi 4:1). The Chaldee paraphrase gives the sense of the words in “son and son’s son.” And him that offereth an offering . . .—Some refer this to the case in which the offender is a priest (Nehemiah 13:28); others understand it as “any one who might offer a sacrifice for him in expiation of his sin.” But since the highest privilege of the Jew was to bring offerings to the Sanctuary, the words may be merely a repetition of the former expression in different terms, and mean “a descendant enjoying religious privileges.” The intermarriage with heathens referred to here is that mentioned in Nehemiah 13:23-28, not the earlier case recorded in Ezra 9, 10.

Verse 12. The master and the scholar] He who teachers such doctrine, and he who follows this teaching, the Lord will cut off both the one and the other.

12. the man] Rather, to the man, as R.V., i.e. out of his family. the master and the scholar] Rather, as A.V. margin and R.V., him that waketh and him that answereth. It is a proverbial expression, like “him that is shut up and him that is left at large” (1 Kings 21:21), meaning all without exception. It is taken from sentries or watchmen who as they go their rounds give their challenge and receive the watch-word in reply. In the same sense the Arabs say, ‘no one crying out, and no one answering, i.e. no one alive’. See Gesen. Thes. p. 1004 a. him that offereth] nor shall the religious service, whether of priest or layman, avert his doom.

The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar - , literally “The Lord cut off from the man that doeth this, watcher and answerer.” A proverbial saying apparently, in which

OF MIXED AND OF DIVORCE, Malachi 2:10-16.With Malachi 2:10, begins a new section, which, until quite recently, has been universally interpreted as dealing with marriage alliances between Jews and