Malachi 2

2. Your blessings. i.e., everything that should have been a blessing to you.

3. I will corrupt your seed. Rather, as R.V., “I will rebuke the seed,” i.e., prevent the ground from yielding a crop.

the dung of your solemn feasts. That is, the offal of your polluted sacrifices, which shall be flung back, as it were, into your faces, bringing you only disgrace instead of benefit.

[one] shall take you away. Rather, as R.V., “Ye shall be taken away.”

4. And ye shall know, etc. That all these rebukes and chastenings were sent that I might not cast off the house of Levi, but might fulfil the covenant of “life and peace” which I made with the faithful priests of his house: cp. Numb. iii. 5; xxv. 12, 13.

6 iniquity. “Unrighteousness” (R.V.).

7 the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, etc. The spiritual duties of the priests (cp. Deut. xxxiii. 10) are here exclusively dwelt upon, as being the most important, and the most opposed to the formalism of the age.

8 to stumble at the law (or, “in the law,” R.V.). That is, to violate it: cp. Jer. xviii. 15.

9 partial in the law. “Have had respect of persons in the law,” i.e., when acting as judges (Deut. xvii. 8-13).

10 the covenant of our fathers. The covenant which God made with our fathers: cp. Ezra ix. 11, 12.

11 the holiness of the Lord which He loved. That is, that which was holy to the Eternal, which He loved: cp. Jer. ii. 3; Ezra ix. 2. They profaned their sacred character by marrying the daughters (i.e., the votaries) of idols.

12 the master and the scholar. Rather (as R.V.), “him that waketh and him that answereth”: a proverbial expression, derived from the calls and replies of watchmen, and signifying every one: see Psa. cxxxiv.; Isa. lxii. 6.

13. And this have ye done again. This probably means, “And this second thing have ye done”: i.e., beside taking idolatrous wives, ye have divorced your Hebrew wives, whose tears cover My altar, and make your offerings distasteful to Me.

15. And did not He make one? etc.

16 covereth violence with his garment. Rather, “covereth his garment with violence”: i.e., is cruel to his wife by divorcing her. The word “garment” seems to have acquired the meaning of conjugal protection (see Ruth iii. 9; Ezek. xvi. 8), and even to be used for “a wife,” as it is among the Orientals now.

whom ye delight in. For whom you eagerly look, expecting Him to give you the full enjoyment of all the blessings of God’s covenant with Israel; little imagining that when He comes He will abrogate the national and ceremonial, which alone you value (Jer. xxxi. 31-34; Heb. viii. 6-13); and will establish the moral and spiritual (Matt. v. 17-48), which you despise and hate.