Malachi 2:14

Yet ye say, Wherefore?.... What is the meaning of the women covering the altar with tears?

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. Yet ye say, Wherefore?

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 . 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.

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.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, 1 Samuel 15:19-23, and these questionists here to God, whom, as before often and again after, they put to his proofs. His answer is ready: Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth] The heathen could say, “ 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, Proverbs 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," Hebrews 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 Hosea 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, Romans 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.

(14) Again with supercilious surprise they ask, “Wherefore?” Witness.—Comp. Genesis 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.

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.

14. hath been witness] Comp. Genesis 31:50. of thy covenant] To the tender recollection of “the kindness of youth and the love of espousals” (Jeremiah 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”, Proverbs 2:17.

And ye say, Wherefore? - They again act the innocent, or half-ignorant. What had they to do with their wives’ womanly tears?

14. Wherefore — Wherefore does Jehovah pay no attention to them? This cry gives the prophet an opportunity to present the accusation.