Malachi 2

Malachi 2:1-9

Further charges are here laid against the priests. 1. They professed the ordinance of the ministry, their fee is aggravated, and they are favorably threatened for it, ver. 1, 9. 2. The ordinance of marriage was professed both by priests and people, in marrying strangers, ver. 10, 12. It is coming their name unkindly, ver. 13, putting them away, ver. 16. and herein dealing treacherously, ver. 10, 14, 15. And that which was at the bottom of this, and other instances of profaneness, was downright atheists, thinking God altogether such a one as themselves, which was in effect to say, there is no God, ver. 17. And these reproofs to them are warnings to us.

Chap. i. 8. 1. 1. Lev. xxxi. 2. Re. Deut. xxxii. 3. Re. Jedi. vii. 1p. Adis al. 4. 1 Sam. ii. 2p. Or, it shall take one away to Hunt. xxv. 1p. 2 Or, and Re. xxxii. 3d. Nunc. xxv. 11. Deut. xxxii. 4. Re. Deut. xxxii. 1p. Rev. xiv. 1p. Jer. xxiii. 1p. Don. xii. 2. Lev. x. 11. Deut. xiii. 3. Re. Rea 1p. 1p. Jer. xviii. 1p. Hag. ii. 11. 1p. 4. God. ix. 1p. a Cor. x. xi. 1p. Sam. ii. 1p. Jer. xxiii. 1p. Or, fall in the law. 2. Neh. xiii. 1p. 1p. Sam. ii. 1p. Heh. Arcorded from Mo. xx. 5.

AND now, ‘O ye priests, this commandment is for you. 2. ‘If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to ‘give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curle your blefings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. 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. 4. And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the LORD of hosts. 5. ‘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. 6. ‘The law of truth was in his mouth, and ‘iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. 7. ‘For the priests lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. 8. But ye are departed out of the way: ye have cursed many to stumble at the law: ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts. 9. ‘Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.

This word of God is particularly directed to the priests: And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you; and they were bound deeply to consider the divine rebuke here given them. The prophet shews,

1. What was their duty, v. 7. The priest’s lips should keep knowledge; their mind should be stared with divine wisdom; wife expository of the law of God; ready to answer every rule proposed to them, and diligent to preach and inculcate the truths of God: and they, the people, should seek the law at his mouth; teachable and iniquitive; desiring to know the mind of the Lord; humble hearers, and ready to follow his will, so far as it is made known to them: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts; distinguished with this high honour, and employed in this high office, to carry God’s messages to men, and, as an unfulfilled, to transact the great concerns which belong to the eternal world. Such therefore were bound by every obligation to walk worthy their high vocation and calling.

2. What had been their practice; the very contrary to all this. But ye are departed out of the way; in principle and practice utterly aporbitated from God: ye have cursed many to stumble at the law; corrupted by their false doctrines, and unholdened by their ill examples; for nothing tends to make men infidels and libertines, so much as the wicked, careless, and worldly lives of those who pervaded to be God’s ministers. Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi; defeated the great end and intention of it; as if the priesthood, instead of being instituted in order to lead sinners to a pardoning God, and make them holy and happy, was designed merely to enrich the priests, and fatten them with the spoils of the altar. Ye have not kept my ways; neither the commandments moral or ceremonial: but have been partial in the law, in their observance of it; or accepted persons in the law; giving wrong judgments in favour of some, and to the prejudice of others.

3. Their sins were greatly aggravated by the consideration of the peculiar honour God had put upon them in this covenant of priesthood established with their fathers, and by their degeneracy from their pious examples. My covenant was with Levi: God took that tribe into a peculiar relation, to attend solely on his worship; a covenant of life and peace, containing a promise of long life and prosperity to themselves here, and of endless life and peace hereafter, if they proved faithful. And also their uninistrious were intended to be life to the guilty sinner, whose iniquities, which called for death, should be removed by faith in the blood of the sacrifices offered, and peace with an offended God be restored to their troubled consciences. And I gave them

to him, the blefings of life and peace, for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he had been found for the fear wherewith he

Some apply this to Christ, of whom indeed the Levitical priesthood was a type and figure, and in whom most eminently these things were fulfilled. With him the everlasting covenant of life and peace was established, who in the particular of both for his people, and they are given into his hands to be distributed to the members of his body myshed; and he hath obtained this life and peace for them, because he feared, humbled himself to obey the precept, and submitted to the penalty of the law for us. In his mouth the law of truth, the gospel of our salvation, was found; in his lips was no guile, perfectly spotless in all his conversation, and turning many from iniquity, even all who ever shall be saved.

4. Judgment is denounced upon them. They had already begun to feel God’s displeasure, and to the unterrored it shall light upon them. [1.] They had begun to feel God’s wrath. I have already cursed your blefings; they had no comfort in their work, nor any enjoyment of their wages; all their temporal blefings were embittered, and nothing prospered in their hands: because ye do not lay it to heart, to repent of your sins, and glorify God in your ministry. Therefore have I also made you contemptible; since they had made themselves vile, God justly exposed them before all the people, and returned upon their own heads the contempt they had shown of his service. Nor can there be conceived a more infamous and despicable character than that of a profane, wicked, and negligent priest. [2.] What they had felt, if they continued impatient, was but the prelude to greater evils in store for them. If ye will not hear their warnings, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, by an immediate return to him with broken hearts, and desire of ministry henceforth to God’s glory, I will ever find a curse upon you; even that wrath which shall burn like fire: and I will curse your blefings; their benedictions on the people shall be turned into curfes, and their worldly good things be imbittered with the sense of his displeasure, or destroyed. Behold, I will corrupt your seed, that it shall not under the clad, and famine be the consignature; and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; so far should these be from pleading God, that he would treat them with the utmost contempt and aversion, as if the dung of the beasts they brought were cast into their faces: and one shall take you away; either the Romans, or any other person would count them fit only for the dungful; or the devil, the sinner’s tormentor, shall seize them, and drag them with him into the pit of destruction. Note, (1.) They who refit on the external performances of religion, so far from pleading God, will find that their dependance on these will render them abominable in his light. [2.] The day is coming, when God will take away all the wicked from the earth, and deliver them over to the tormentor.

5. ‘Have we not all one father?’ hath not one God created us? why do we shall treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11. ¶ Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god. 12. The LORD will cut off the man

¶ 1 Cor. xii. ¶ Eph. ii. 1. Job xiii. 1p. 2. Jer. ix. 4. 3. Chom xvi. 2p. 4f Jer. ii. 3. 1f Adis xii. 1p. 4. East. x. 1. 5. v. 1. 16th xvi. 2p. that that doeth this: 7 the matter and the scholar out of the tabernacles of Jacob, 8 and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hoft. 13. And 9 this have ye done 2 again, 10 covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, inhomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or recoverth it with good will at your hand. 14 ¶ Yet ye fay, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witnefs between thee and 11 the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hath dealt treacherously: 12 yet is the thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. 15. And 13 did he not make one? yet had he the residue of the Spirit: and wherefore one? that he might fork 14 ¶ goofy feed: therefore take heed to your Spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. 16. For the LORD the God of Israel faith, 17 that he hureth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, faith the LORD of hofts: therefore take heed to your Spirit, that you deal not treacherously. 17 ¶ Yet fave wearied the LORD with your words: yet ye fay, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye fay, Every one that doeth evil, it good in the fight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, 18 where is the God of judgment? W. 10—17. As corrupt principles naturally lead to corrupt practices, so on the other hand, the love of sin, and the service of it, harden the heart in infidelity and atheism. 1. Their practices were very bad. In general they shall treacherously every man against his brother; perverting justice, and having respect to persons, and in all their dealings full of dishonalty; thus proforma the covenant of their fathers, wherein such injustice and fraud were forbidden; and which was peculiarly criminal in them, who had one father, were brethren in a peculiar flesh, as sprung from Abraham, and one God their Creator; not merely as men, but who had formed them in a covenant of peculiarity as a people for himself. But of all their other treacherous dealings, that which especially is here brought to account, is their violation of God’s covenant with regard to their marriages, both taking wives of the heathen, which had been so experially forbidden, Read. xxxiv. 15. and abusing and divorcing tho’fe of their own nation. (1.) They took wives of the heathen, called here, the doughters of a strange god, trained in their worthy and service, as a child in the family; and this was to preform the holiness of the Lord which he loved. They were set apart for a peculiar people, dedicated to God, and to be observant of his holy law; and he then loved and delighted in them, when they approved their fidility to him; but by these strange marriages they professed their covenant of separation, and became an abomination in the fight of God, W. 11. for which he threatens to cut them off, both matter and scholar; or, as in the margin, hath him that unabouch, the magistrates and elders, whose office it was to call and excite the people to their duty; and him that anastom, the people in general, who should be obedient to their admonitions, as a servant to his master’s call. These God will destroy together, and him that offereth an offering unto the Lord of befit, the griefs who should be found guilty of the like crime, as many of them were, Exodus 8. 18, 44. Note, (1.) They who profess the faith of Jesus, should no more be yoked now with unbelievers, than these with the daughters of a strange god; and ministers especially should thus be unequal a connection. (2.) Nothing more fatily endangers the soul, and exposes it to everlasting perdition, than roffit taking those to be our wives or husbands, who are dead in trespasses and sins. The daughter of a strange god will much sooner make a convert of her husband to idolatry, to the ways of sin and this world, than be can ever hope to bring her to the knowledge and worship of Jesus. (2.) This have ye done again, or in the second place; abused and divorced the wives of their own nation, probably to make room for these foreigners; so that they covered the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying; complaining of the ill usage of their husbands: inhomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or recollect it with good will at your hand. These tears stood on the altar as a memorial against them, and all their offerings were but hypocritical, whilst they perished in such wickedness. Yet ye fay, Wherefore? why should not God accept our offerings? The reason is obvious; because the Lord hath been witness of those plighted vows which were exchanged between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast death treacherously; divorcing thee, or marrying others to vex her; and he will be an awful avenger of this breach of contract, aggravated as the sin is by various considerations. She is a wife of youth; placed her affections upon thee in those half days of youth and beauty, and therefore not afterwards to be neglected or abhorred. She is thy companion; hath been the partner of all thy cares and griefs, and born an equal share in them; and the wife of thy covenant; bound to her by every sacred tie, till death shall part; and therefore it would be most cruel, safe, ungrateful, and unjust, to treat her with falsehood, or break the marriage-bond. And did not he make one? When the great Creator formed us, did it not evidently appear, that he intended one man should have not one wife, in the case of our first parents; yet had he the residue of the Spirit, and could as easily have formed many lives as one. And wherefore one? The reason is, that he might seek a godly seed, or a seed of God; a noble and legitimate offspring, a seed to serve him, which is the great end of marriage; not to gratify men’s lawfuls, lusts and apparities, but to beget children, who may be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Therefore take heed to your Spirit; keep your hearts, keep your eye, keep every weavering fellow in subjection, which would lead you after forbidden objects: and let none deal treacherously until the wife of his youth; but he constant, faithful, affectionate, and cleave to her alone: for the Lord the God of Israel faith, that he hath putting away; and though permitted for the hundreds of their hearts, to prevent world consequences, it was displeasing to God, and contrary to his original infatuation; and therefore the author of such separation will be abhorred of God. For one covereth viounce with his garment, and thanks, by pretending the permission of the law, he can cover the violence done his wife by the divorce; or he grieves, wears, and ill uses her in private, and in public calls his garment over thee, as if he would protect and cherish her; but God sees, and will punish the unfaithful: therefore take heed to your Spirit, that you deal not treacherously; and great need there is that we, whose hearts are by nature so corrupt, should take heed to them; especially in this estate we need watch against every alienation of affection and unabouch; for if but once a breach be made, the mischief is often afterwards irreparable. 2. Their principles were corrupt, and their words correponded with their works. To have wearied the Lord with your words; speaking, pervertely, and vindicating themselves in their wickedness, which was highly provoking. Yet ye fay, Wherein have we wearied him? denying the charge, and maintaining their innocence, which aggravated their crime. When ye fay, Every one that doeth evil is good in the fight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; observing the prosperity of the wicked, they concluded God approved and rewarded him, which call the most blasphemous imputation on the holiness of God. Or where is the God of judgment? why doeth he not appear to punish sin as he hath threatened? They infer from his patience, that he hath forsaken the earth, and that let men live as they fall, they have nothing to fear. Such infidel scoffers there were of old, that said, Where is the promise of his coming? and such there shall be, who put far away the evil day, and say, To, God careth not for it; but they will be terribly undereived when this God of judgment shortly appears to punish ungodly sinners, among their other crimes, for all the hard speeches they have spoken against him, Jude 15.