Malachi 2:8

But ye are departed out of the way,.... Of truth and righteousness, of life and peace, of eternal salvation and happiness, pointed to by Christ and his forerunner, and by his apostles and ministers

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.

But ye, priests that now are in office, now live, when I, Malachi, am sent to preach, are departed, have shamefully degenerated and turned away from your duty, are apostates, out of the way of God’ s law, and of those holy priests your predecessors; out of the way of truth, holiness, peace, and equity. Ye have caused many to stumble at the law; your expositions of the law, your manner of worshipping God, and your manner of living, all together were great scandals to very many; and too many of these, that were offended by these things, these faults of yours, fell to sinning with you. Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, the covenant of priesthood, , chargeth them with this sin, and therefore they have no reason to expect the blessings of this covenant, viz. life and peace, since their making the covenant void on their part had cut off all claim and right to the blessings promised in that covenant, and had exposed them to the curses God threatened them with. But ye, priests that now are in office, now live, when I, Malachi, am sent to preach, are departed, have shamefully degenerated and turned away from your duty, are apostates, Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, the covenant of priesthood, , chargeth them with this sin, and therefore they have no reason to expect the blessings of this covenant, viz. life and peace, since their making the covenant void on their part had cut off all claim and right to the blessings promised in that covenant, and had exposed them to the curses God threatened them with.

Malachi 2:8 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.Ver. 8. But ye are departed out of the way] Heb. From that way, viz. that good old way of your progenitors: you are nothing like Levi, but are woefully degenerated from the practice of your predecessors, and have swerved from your fathers’ footsteps, though ye have the same place, and enjoy the same privileges. This is a foul fault, and condemned even by the heathen sages. Seneca tells us, with indignation, that Socrates’ sons were more like their mother, a froward woman, than their father, the wisest of men; according to that saying, Partus sequitur ventrem, the birth follows the belly. Young Cicero was, for his intemperance and excess in drinking, surnamed Tricongius. Caligula, that monster, was the son of noble Germanicus ( Heroum filii noxae). But we have Scriptural instances not a few. Not to speak of Eli’ s sons, and of Samuel’ s, Solomon degenerates from his father David, who had carefully taught him better, Proverbs 4:4, and so had his mother, Proverbs 31:1 (which one calls Bathsheba’ s catechism; another Lemuel’ s lesson). Jehoram is taxed for his not walking in the ways of his father Jehoshaphat and his grandfather Asa, as if there had been no intervention of a Hezekiah. "Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh," that idolatrous priest, mentioned Judges 18:30, is thought to have been the grandson of Moses; so the Hebrews tell us; and that therefore the Nun in Manasseh is suspended above the rest of the letters. Certain it is that Nabal, the fool, was of the line of faithful Caleb, 1 Samuel 25:3, to teach us that virtue is not, as lands, inheritable. All that is traduced with the seed is either evil, or not good. Grace is by gift, and not by descent. Hence that prayer of David’ s courtiers, 1 Kings 1:47, God make the name of Solomon better than thy name. Agreeable whereunto is Hector’ s prayer in Homer, for his son - πατροςδογεπολλοναμεινων, I wish he may be a better man than his father. And that of Juvenal, “ Male pater tibi sit Thersites, dummodo tu sis Aeacidae similis, Vulcaniaque arma capessas, Quam te Thersitae similem producat Achilles. ” Ye have caused many to stumble at the law] Which is a very dangerous thing; like as it is to stumble on a bridge. A bridge is made to give us a safe passage over a dangerous river; but he who stumbles on the bridge is in no small danger to fall into the river.

(8) But ye.—Priests of the present day have done in every respect the reverse. Caused many to stumble at the law.—Or rather, in the Law; and ye have given them false instruction in the Law, and allowed those things which were forbidden, and so ye have corrupted the covenant of the (tribe of) Levi: ye have turned the Law, which ought to have been a light to their feet and a lamp to their path, into a stumbling-block.

Verse 8. But ye are departed out of the way] Ye are become impure yourselves, and ye have led others into iniquity.

8. at the law] This rendering is quite defensible (Leviticus 26:37; Nahum 3:3); and the idea of the Law itself being made the stumbling-block of the people, by the tortuous interpretations put upon it by the priests and by their inconsistent conduct, is forcible, and is in keeping with the representation of Christ Himself as a “stumbling-stone” (Isaiah 8:14; Romans 9:32-33). As however the figure of the Law as a road or path in which men should walk smoothly and safely is of very constant occurrence in the Old Testament, it is possible to render “in the law”, with R.V. and A.V. margin. corrupted the covenant of Levi] Compare Nehemiah’s complaint, and the example he gives, Nehemiah 13:28-29.

But ye - o are departed out of the way “of knowledge, truth, equity, fear of God, which I appointed to Aaron and the Levites.” “Ye have caused many to stumble at the law.” He does not simply say, “in the law,” but “at” it.

7. This conduct of Levi corresponded to the divine purpose concerning the priests, who as messengers of Jehovah of hosts should speak and live the truth continually.