Malachi 2:13 Kommentaari

There are two great ordinances which divine wisdom has instituted, the wretched profanation of both of which is complained of and sharply reproved in this chapter. I. The ordinance of the ministry, which is peculiar to the church, and is designed for the maintaining and keeping up of that; this was profaned by those who were themselves dignified with the honour of it and entrusted with the business of it. The priests profaned the holy things of God; this they are here charged with; their sin is aggravated, and they are severely threatened for it (Mal 2:1-9). II. The ordinance of marriage, which is common to the world of mankind, and was instituted for the maintaining and keeping up of that; this was profaned both by the priests and by the people, in marrying strangers (Mal 2:11, Mal 2:12), treating their wives unkindly (Mal 2:13), putting them away (Mal 2:16), and herein dealing treacherously (Mal 2:10, Mal 2:14, Mal 2:15). And that which was at the bottom of this and other instances of profaneness and downright atheism, thinking God altogether such a one as themselves, which was, in effect, to say, There is no God (Mal 2:17). And these reproofs to them are warnings to us.

INTRODUCTION TO MALACHI 2 This chapter contains a reproof both of priests and people for their sins. It begins with the priests, Mal 2:1 and threatens, in case they attend not to glorify the name of the Lord, they and their blessings should be cursed, their seed corrupted, dung spread upon them, and they took away with it, Mal 2:2 and the end of this commandment being sent them, of giving glory to the name of God, was that the covenant might appear to be with Levi, or him that was typified by him, Mal 2:4 of which covenant some account is given, with the reason why the blessings of it were given to him, with whom it was, Mal 2:5 who is described by the true doctrine he preached; by the purity of his lips; by the peaceableness and righteousness of his walk and conversation; and by his usefulness and success in turning many from sin, Mal 2:6 and it being part of the priest's office to preserve true knowledge, and communicate it, it is the duty of the people to seek to him for it; since he is the messenger of the Lord, Mal 2:7 but as for the priests of those times the prophet respects, they were apostates from the way of the Lord; made others to stumble at the law, and corrupted the covenant; and therefore became contemptible, base, and mean, in the sight of the people, Mal 2:8 who are next reproved for their marrying with those of other nations, idolatrous persons; and using polygamy and divorces, which were a profanation of the covenant of their fathers; a piece of perfidy and treachery among themselves; an abomination to the Lord; a profanation of his holiness; and led to idolatry, Mal 2:10 wherefore they are threatened to be cut off from the tabernacles of Jacob, and their sacrifices to be rejected; insomuch that the altar is represented as covered with weeping and tears, because disregarded, Mal 2:12. The reason of which was, because marrying more wives than one, and these strange women, was dealing treacherously with their lawful wives; was contrary to the first creation of man, and the end of it; and therefore such practices ought to be avoided; and the rather, since putting away was hateful to the Lord, Mal 2:14 and the chapter is concluded with a charge against them, that they wearied the Lord with their wicked words; affirming that the Lord took delight in the men that did evil; and that there were no judgment, truth, nor righteousness, in him, Mal 2:17.

And this have ye done again,.... Or "in the second" (b) place; to their rejection and ill treatment of Christ they added their hypocritical prayers and tears, as follows: covering the altar of the Lord with tears and weeping, and with crying out; for the Messiah they vainly expect, pretending great humiliation for their sins: though some, as Kimchi and Aben Ezra, make the first evil to be their offering illegal sacrifices on the altar, complained of in the former chapter Mal 1:1; and this second, their marrying strange wives, on account of which their lawful wives came into the house of God, and wept over the altar before the Lord, complaining of the injury that was done them: insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand; which expresses an utter rejection and abrogation of legal sacrifices; and which some make to be the reason of their covering the altar with tears and weeping: or the altar is represented as weeping, because sacrifice is no more offered upon it; see Dan 9:27. (b) "secundo", Pagninus, Vatablus, Calvin, Cocceius, Burkius.

(v. 13 ff.) And you have done this again, covering the altar of the Lord with tears, weeping and groaning, so that I will no longer look upon your sacrifices or accept anything pleasing from your hands. Yet you ask, 'Why?' Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have despised, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did not one God create us all? Did not one God give us life and breath? And what does one seek, except the seed of God? Therefore, guard your spirit and do not despise the wife of your youth. When you have hatred, let it go, says the Lord God of Israel; but iniquity will cover its clothing, says the Lord of hosts: guard your spirit and do not despise. LXX: And you have done these things that I hated: you covered the altar of the Lord with tears, weeping and groaning, looking for a sacrifice still worthy of labor, or to receive something acceptable from your hands. And you said, why? Because the Lord has testified between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have abandoned, and she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant, and no other person has done this, and the remainder of your spirit. And you said, what else does God seek besides offspring? And guard in your spirit, and do not abandon the wife of your youth. But if you hate her and divorce her, says the Lord God of Israel, he will cover your thoughts of wickedness, says the Almighty Lord. And guard in your spirit, and do not abandon. Let us interpret the story, and connecting short sentences to each verse, let us discuss what has been handed down to us from the Hebrews. The abandoned wives of the Israelites, contemplating the women of foreign nations in the beds of their husbands, sought refuge only in God's help, prostrating themselves before the altar of the Lord for 966 days and nights with tears, groans, and wails, causing envy towards His providence; because He did not regard human affairs and did not alleviate their miseries. Where God says that he cannot accept sacrifice and offering from the hands of priests who have committed these things, being hindered by the weeping and lamentations of their wives, and moreover, he asks why he does not accept sacrifice from their hands, and immediately he declares: Because the Lord has testified between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have despised, saying: Because of this, a man will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two will become one flesh (Gen. II, 24): and therefore she is called a partner and wife of union and covenant, who was made from the rib of man by God. And the remainder of his spirit, whether of God, as some suppose, or of the husband, as others suspect, because on this account it seems that, in a certain manner, one soul exists in two (persons), with the spirit and mind united. Therefore, when one (person) has made both the man and the woman, on this account the conjunction of both was made by God, so that children would be born. For there is only one God, what does he seek except the seed of God, that is, children generated from the Israelite stock? So when you have fruitful wives and rejoice in children, why do you seek the beauty of women, which is suitable for prostitutes, not for wives? Therefore, God commands through the prophet and says: Guard your spirit; do not be led astray by desire, so that you are not overcome by the love of strangers. And do not despise the wife of your youth, who was first joined to you in virgin marriage, let her remain with you until old age. But it could happen that the rulers, priests, Levites, and people would respond: God commanded through Moses that when we hate our wives, we should divorce them. And it is written: You say to me that it is written: When you hate your wife, divorce her, says the Lord God of Israel (Deut. XXIV). And immediately he replied: Indeed, this is a commandment in the Law, but because of the hardness of your hearts. Which the Lord further expounds in the Gospel: But whoever, except for the cause of fornication, unjustly divorces his wife (Mat. V, 52), his garment of iniquity will cover him, that is, the body in which the soul is clothed, says the Lord of hosts: so that he may be punished in the same way he sinned. Therefore, in this dissolved question, it inculcates and repeats what it said above: Guard your spirit, and do not despise, either the guardianship of your spirit, or certainly a wife, if she is poor or ugly. What we specifically explained according to the book of Ezra concerning abandoned wives, some people believe this statement is generally against those who plunder the possessions of others and unjustly amass wealth, daring to offer gifts to God, which it says it cannot accept, forbidden by the tears of those who have been devastated, and by weeping and groaning. And it is fitting to apply this testimony to that place: Honor God from your just labors (Prov, III, 9). But they also mix in this feeling, those who on account of the loss of family property, the death of their children, shipwreck, and other things that pertain to the loss of worldly possessions, are turned to weeping, and give themselves wholly to mourning and lamentation: not with the strength of mind and hope in God, and disregard everything for the rewards of the future; even if they direct their prayers to God, they are not received by him, because they are defiled by unseemly and incongruous lamentations for a man. But as for what follows: Because the Lord has testified between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have despised; and she is your partner, and the wife of your covenant or testament; and no other has done so; and the remnants of your spirit are interpreted in such a way that they say the natural understanding of the wife of your youth, and the law written in the heart, which is inherent in all human beings. Therefore, even the nations without the law of God do the things that are of the law. And about this wife, it is preached in Proverbs: A wife is joined to a man by God (Prov. XIX, 24); and we are commanded to drink from our own wells and fountains, and let no one share in drinking, and to take delight in the wife of our youth. This wife even impels us to say to the gullible: God will judge, and God will see (Judges VII, 13); and I leave all things to be judged between me and you, about which even Ecclesiastes speaks: And live your life with the woman whom you have loved all the days of your vanity, which have been given to you under the sun (Eccl. IX, 9). This wife is the remaining spirit of ours, because she is always joined to our perception: and if she departs from us, we immediately offend God, and our impiety covers us. Hence it is again suggested: Keep your spirit (Galatians 6), not the flesh in which those who are cannot please God, not the soul: For the animalistic man does not receive those things which are of the spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14); but the spirit: for the Spirit intercedes for us with unspeakable groanings (Romans 8:16).

REPROOF OF THE PRIESTS FOR VIOLATING THE COVENANT; AND THE PEOPLE ALSO FOR MIXED MARRIAGES AND UNFAITHFULNESS. (Mal. 2:1-17) for you--The priests in particular are reproved, as their part was to have led the people aright, and reproved sin, whereas they encouraged and led them into sin. Ministers cannot sin or suffer alone. They drag down others with them if they fall [MOORE].

done again--"a second time": an aggravation of your offense (Neh 13:23-31), in that it is a relapse into the sin already checked once under Ezra (Ezr 9:10) [HENDERSON]. Or, "the second time" means this: Your first sin was your blemished offerings to the Lord: now "again" is added your sin towards your wives [CALVIN]. covering . . . altar . . . with tears--shed by your unoffending wives, repudiated by you that ye might take foreign wives. CALVIN makes the "tears" to be those of all the people on perceiving their sacrifices to be sternly rejected by God.

Mal 2:13. "And this ye do a second time: cover the altar of Jehovah with tears, with weeping and signs, so that He does not turn any more to the sacrifice, and accept the well-pleasing thing at your hand. Mal 2:14. And ye say, Wherefore? Because Jehovah has been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, towards whom thou hast acted treacherously; whereas she is nevertheless thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. Mal 2:15. And not one did so who had still a remnant of spirit. And what (did) the one? He sought seed of God. Therefore shall ye take heed for your spirit, and deal not faithlessly to the wife of thy youth. Mal 2:16. For I hate divorce, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel; and he will cover wickedness over his garment, saith Jehovah of hosts. Thus shall ye take heed to your spirit, and not deal treacherously." In these verses the prophet condemns a second moral transgression on the part of the people, viz., the putting away of their wives. By shēnı̄th (as a second thing, i.e., for the second time) this sin is placed in the same category as the sin condemned in the previous verses. Here again the moral reprehensibility of the sin is described in Mal 2:11, before the sin itself is named. They cover the altar of Jehovah with tears, namely, by compelling the wives who have been put away to lay their trouble before God in the sanctuary. The inf. constr. introduces the more minute definition of זאת; and בּכי ואנקה is a supplementary apposition to דּמעה ot , added to give greater force to the meaning. מאין עוד, so that there is no more a turning (of Jehovah) to the sacrifice, i.e., so that God does not graciously accept your sacrifice any more (cf. Num 16:15). The following infinitive ולקחת is also dependent upon מאין, but on account of the words which intervene it is attached with ל . רצון , the good pleasure or satisfaction, used as abstractum pro concreto for the well-pleasing sacrifice. Mal 2:14. This sin also the persons addressed will not recognise. They inquire the reason why God will no more graciously accept their sacrifices, whereupon the prophet discloses their sin in the plainest terms. על־כּי = על־אשׁר, as in Deu 31:17; Jdg 3:12, etc. The words, "because Jehovah was a witness between thee and the wife of thy youth," cannot be understood as Ges., Umbreit, and Koehler assume, in accordance with Mal 3:5, as signifying that Jehovah had interposed between them as an avenging witness; for in that case העיד would necessarily be construed with ב, but they refer to the fact that the marriage took place before the face of God, or with looking up to God; and the objection that nothing is known of any religious benediction at the marriage, or any mutual vow of fidelity, is merely an argumentum a silentio, which proves nothing. If the marriage was a berı̄th 'Elōhı̄m (a covenant of God), as described in Pro 2:17, it was also concluded before the face of God, and God was a witness to the marriage. With the expression "wife of thy youth" the prophet appeals to the heart of the husband, pointing to the love of his youth with which the marriage had been entered into; and so also in the circumstantial clause, through which he brings to the light the faithless treatment of the wife in putting her away: "Yet she was thy companion, who shared thy joy and sorrow, and the wife of thy covenant, with whom thou didst made a covenant for life." In Mal 2:15 the prophet shows still further the reprehensible character of the divorce, by rebutting the appeal to Abraham's conduct towards Hagar as inapplicable. The true interpretation of this hemistich, which has been explained in very different, and to some extent in very marvellous ways, is obvious enough if we only bear in mind that the subordinate clause וּשׁאר רוּח לו, from its very position and from the words themselves, can only contain a more precise definition of the subject of the principal clause. The affirmation "a remnant of spirit is (was) to him" does not apply to God, but only to man, as L. de Dieu has correctly observed. Rūăch denote here, as in Num 27:18; Jos 5:1; Kg1 10:5, not so much intelligence and consideration, as the higher power breathed into man by God, which determines that moral and religious life to which we are accustomed to give the name of virtue. By 'echâd (one), therefore, we cannot understand God, but only a man; and לא אחד (not any one = no one, not one man) is the subject of the sentence, whilst the object to עשׂה must be supplied from the previous sentence: "No man, who has even a remnant of reason, or of sense for right and wrong, has done," sc. what ye are doing, namely, faithlessly put away the wife of his youth. To this there is appended the objection: "And what did the one do?" which the prophet adduces as a possible exception that may be taken to his statement, for the purpose of refuting it. The words וּמה האחד are elliptical, the verb עשׂה, which may easily be supplied from the previous clause, being omitted (cf. Ecc 2:12). האחד, not unus aliquis, but the well-known one, whom it was most natural to think of when the question in hand was that of putting away a wife, viz., Abraham, who put away Hagar, by whom he had begotten Ishmael, and who was therefore also his wife (Genesis 21). The prophet therefore replies, that Abraham sought to obtain the seed promised him by God, i.e., he dismissed Hagar, because God promised to give him the desired posterity, not in Ishmael through the maid Hagar, but through Sarah in Isaac, so that in doing this he was simply acting in obedience to the word of God (Gen 21:12). After meeting this possible objection, Malachi warns his contemporaries to beware of faithlessly putting away their wives. The Vav before nishmartem is the Vav rel., through which the perfect acquires the force of a cohortative as a deduction from the facts before them, as in ועשׂית in Kg1 2:6 (see Ewald, 342, c). נשׁמר בּרוּחו is synonymous with נשׁמר בּנפשׁו in Jer 17:21, and this is equivalent to נשׁמר לנפשׁו in Deu 4:15 and Jos 23:11. The instrumental view of ב ("by means of the Spirit:" Koehler) is thus proved to be inadmissible. "Take heed to your spirit," i.e., beware of losing your spirit. We need not take rūăch in a different sense here from that in which it is used in the clause immediately preceding; for with the loss of the spiritual and moral vis vitae, which has been received from God, the life itself perishes. What it is that they are to beware of is stated in the last clause, which is attached by the simple copula (Vav), and in which the address passes from the second person into the third, to express what is affirmed as applying to every man. This interchange of thou (in wife of thy youth) and he (in יבגּד) in the same clause appears very strange to our mode of thought and speech; but it is not without analogy in Hebrew (e.g., in Isa 1:29; cf. Ewald, 319, a), so that we have no right to alter יבגּד into תּבגּד, since the ancient versions and the readings of certain codices do not furnish sufficient critical authority for such a change. The subject in יבגּד is naturally thought of as indefinite: any one, men. This warning is accounted for in Mal 2:16, first of all in the statement that God hates putting away. שׁלּח is the inf. constr. piel and the object to שׂנא: "the sending away (of a wife), divorce." שׂנא is a participle, the pronominal subject being omitted, as in maggı̄d in Zac 9:12, because it may easily be inferred from the following words: אמר יי (saith the Lord of hosts). The thought is not at variance with Deu 24:1., where the putting away of a wife is allowed; for this was allowed because of the hardness of their hearts, whereas God desires that a marriage should be kept sacred (cf. Mat 19:3. and the comm. on Deu 24:1-5). A second reason for condemning the divorce is given in the words וכסּה חמס על ל, which do not depend upon כּי שׂנא, but form a sentence co-ordinate to this. We may either render these words, "he (who puts away his wife) covers his garment with sin," or "sin covers his garment." The meaning is the same in either case, namely, that wickedness will adhere irremoveably to such a man. The figurative expression may be explained from the idea that the dress reflects the inward part of a man, and therefore a soiled garment is a symbol of uncleanness of heart (cf. Zac 3:4; Isa 64:5; Rev 3:4; Rev 7:14). With a repetition of the warning to beware of this faithlessness, the subject is brought to a close.