Bible Commentaries
Malachi 2

Verses 6-9

The Question of Proper Respect for God (1:6-2:9)

The next section of Malachi’s argument with his contemporaries is addressed primarily to the priests, since they are responsible for the conduct of worship, but it concerns also the offerings actually presented by the people.

Malachi begins by stating what was axiomatic in his day, "A son honors his father, and a servant his master." In a "how much more" deduction from this premise, Malachi raises the question for the Lord, "If then I am a father, where is my honor?" Then, turning to the priests, the prophet addresses them as those "who despise my name." Again, their question — uttered or implied — forms the basis for an exposition of the abuses of the ritual current in that day.

Priests and people have despised the name of the Lord "by offering polluted food" on God’s altar. They have polluted the offerings "by thinking that the Lord’s table may be despised." Malachi is not arguing in a circle, for he continues with specific charges: the people, led by their priests, have brought blind, lame, and sick animals as their sacrifices. The law required perfect animals; no blemished animal was to be presented to God (Deuteronomy 15:21). Some even went further: they vowed to present an unblemished male from their flock, but then presented a blemished substitute (Malachi 1:14).

Much of the first paragraph of this lengthy indictment (Malachi 1:6-14) is addressed to the layman, who should be able to see how his behavior has been contemptuous of God. "Present that to your governor," says the prophet in the name of God; "will he be pleased with you or show you favor?" Genuine respect should result in the presentation of the best sort of gifts; even self-interest prompts people to present acceptable gifts to the politically powerful.

Interrupting his bill of particulars, the prophet looks in vain for "one . . . who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire upon my altar in vain!" No sacrifice at all would be preferable to the blemished offerings that have been presented.

In this connection the prophet makes the most striking statement of all (Malachi 1:11), declaring that from east to west, "in every place," the name of God is great among the nations and incense and a pure offering are offered to the name of God. It is clear that Malachi has a high view of God as "a great King" (Malachi 1:14), but the idea that God accepts any conscientiously offered sacrifice is unexpected, to say the least. Such universalism is not elsewhere expressed in the Bible, though at many points in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament the idea of the participation of non-Jews in the worship of God is expressed (see, for example, Isaiah 2:2-3 and Zechariah 14:16). Malachi’s statement is as broad as that of the author of the Letter to the Hebrews (Malachi 11:6), "Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him," but it is more specific in including the worship of pagans. Taken in its context with reference to the necessity for due respect to God, it may be understood as other prophetic hyperboles are understood: blemished Jewish sacrifices are not acceptable; pagan sacrifices, conscientiously offered, are far more acceptable. The statement may offer some clue to the beginnings of Jewish proselytism in the period between the Old and New Testaments. As thoughtful pagans began to repudiate the more sensual and polytheistic elements of their traditional beliefs, it became possible for Jews to consider them as proselytes, or, as in the case of Malachi, to see them as sharing essentially the same faith. Malachi’s view of such pagans, however, did not prevail.

Malachi’s indictment turns to the priests and in a strongly worded paragraph (Malachi 2:1-9) threatens them with disgrace before the people and exclusion from the presence of God. Their offerings will be cursed, in fact, have already been cursed; their offspring: will be rebuked; the dung of offerings will be spread on their faces. The reason is at first simply stated: "If you will not listen, if you will not . . . give glory to my name." Later, the prophet adds another explanation: "Inasmuch as you have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in your instruction."

Instruction is the Hebrew word, Torah, or Law, used here in its simplest sense. Instruction was the priest’s specific guidance to> the individual worshiper, an example of which appears in Deuteronomy 26:1-15. It was the duty of the priest to assist in the performance of rituals, to see to it that the worshiper said the right words (Deuteronomy 26), and to see that the animal was killed in the right way, as in the later laws recorded in Leviticus 1:1-17. Any such direct guidance provided the worshiper by the priest was "instruction." It was this which the priests of Malachi’s time had perverted.

Malachi contrasts the present ministry of the priests with that of a somewhat idealized Levi, the ancestor of the priests and the Levites. According to Malachi’s picture the Lord had made a covenant with Levi, promising life and peace if he "feared" God. Here Levi did actually "fear" the Lord; that is, he spoke true instruction, and no wrong was upon his lips. By this instruction the idealized Levi "turned many from iniquity" and walked with God in peace and uprightness. Peace should be understood in this context as referring to wholeness or its modern near equivalent, "integrity." Levi was, according to this view of him, a true messenger of the Lord to his generation, instructing wisely and serving as an ideal priest.

The covenant with Levi alluded to in this ideal sketch is not clearly defined in the Old Testament. In Numbers 25:10-13 (and Psalms 106:30-31) a covenant with Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, is mentioned in connection with his zeal for the Lord during the religious debacle at Peor when the Israelites sacrificed to Baal with the Moabites. Deuteronomy 33:8-11 may refer to the same incident, but there Levi stands for the priestly tribe, and the setting is at Massah and the waters of Meribah. The bitterness expressed against Levi in Genesis 49:5-7 has been entirely forgotten in the blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy (33:8-11) and in Malachi’s words. In Malachi’s idealized picture, Levi is the representative of the priestly tribe. Evidently Malachi transferred the recollection of the incident with Phinehas and the establishment of a special covenant with him to his tribal ancestor, Levi. To this ideal from the ancient past the contemporary priests have not been true. Being the recognized leaders of Malachi’s day, the priests had a heavy responsibility and deserved severe rebuke and punishment for their faithlessness.

Verses 10-16

The Question of General Faithfulness (2:10-16)

Turning from the priests to the people as a whole, Malachi raises the question of faithfulness in regard to two specific areas: first with regard to the worship of false gods and then with regard to marriage vows. Beginning again with an axiomatic statement expressed as a pair of rhetorical questions, he affirms the unity of his people under the creative action of God. "Why then," he asks, "are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?" Earlier prophets would have stressed the ethical failures of the time (for example, false swearing, oppression, to which Malachi does refer in 3:5), but at this point Malachi is still concerned with the proper worship of the Lord. "Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord." "He . . . has married the daughter of a foreign god," says the prophet. This does not refer to mixed marriages among the people, but to participation in pagan rituals. Malachi does not provide any more specific information regarding such pagan rituals, and it is not clear that they were actually performed in the Temple. Perhaps he had in mind household customs brought into the life of the Jewish people through their mixed marriages. Whatever the precise way in which the people had been faithless, Malachi calls down a curse upon those who were guilty: May the Lord eliminate the family of any man who is faithless, so that his family will have no representative in community gatherings or in the presentation of offerings to the Lord!

The second area (Malachi 2:13-16) in which Malachi’s contemporaries had proved faithless was in relation to their wives. Again Malachi approaches his thought indirectly, this time observing that the people are weeping and groaning at the altar because God does not accept their offerings. Why not? "Because the Lord was witness to the covenant between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless." The prophet proceeds to present the Old Testament doctrine of marriage in its highest form, pointing to its nature as a covenant relationship sanctioned by God, intended to provide for companionship and for the procreation of godly offspring.

God, says the prophet, hates divorce. Twice Malachi exhorts the people to take heed and not to be faithless in this important area. Monogamy appears to be assumed as normal; polygamy is not a permissible alternative in the postexilic period. Divorce, as the way out of a relationship which the husband feels to be undesirable, is to cover "one’s garment with violence," according to Malachi. This last expression appears to refer to the custom of throwing a cloak over a woman as a sign of protection or of willingness to marry her, as in Ruth 3:9. In Malachi’s time, however, the men of Jerusalem apparently were divorcing their wives after years of marriage and taking younger women, perhaps from the surrounding pagan peoples. But this was to do violence to the covenant relationship sanctioned by God, and to injure the legitimate wife.

The Question of the Reality of God’s Judgment (2:17-3:5)

From Malachi’s point of view, seeing conditions as God sees them, it is obvious why the Lord does not show favor to the offerings of people who are guilty of such contempt for God and such faithlessness as he has described. No amount of "weeping and groaning" at the altar (Malachi 2:13) could remedy the defect in the personal character of the Jews of Jerusalem.

God has become weary of the words of the people (Malachi 2:17). It is easy to see here a projection of the feelings of the people (comparing 1:13 with 2:17): they have felt weary of the ritual of sacrifice; God himself must be weary. But the prophet declares: the people have wearied God by saying (in actions, perhaps, rather than words), "Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them." It seemed that God took no thought of relative goodness or evil. Or, expressed in another way, the people were wondering, "Where is the God of justice?" When evil seems to prosper without restraint, when pious men find no reality in worship and are content to offer less than their best to God, the reality of God’s judgment is called in question. God either does not see the abuses or he does not care. The question was not new with Malachi (for example, see Habakkuk 1:2-4), and it remains relevant in every age.

As Malachi’s question is oriented toward the ritual of public worship, so the answer provided through him is related to the coming of the Lord to his Temple (Malachi 3:1-5). The coming of the Lord will be preceded, as was proper in the processions by which oriental monarchs approached their thrones, by the arrival of an advance messenger. The messenger will "sit as a refiner and purifier of silver" (see an earlier prophet’s use of the figure in Jeremiah 6:27-30), purifying the tribe of Levi until they offer sacrifices which God can accept. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will again be acceptable to the Lord as it was in ancient times, perhaps as far back as the idealized period following the episode at Peor, to which the prophet has apparently referred in 2:4-7 (see Numbers 25:10-13). Not only the ritual of the cult will be purified, but also the social behavior of the people; verse 5 pronounces a judgment against sorcerers, adulterers, false swearers, and oppressors of the weak. Beginning at the house of God, the judgment of the messenger of the covenant will purify the whole life of the people.

The effects of the promised divine visitation are thus clear enough. None can endure its arrival; priests will be first to be affected, but all others will be reached. Purification will be the order of the day. The consuming effects of the visitation are not mentioned here, but they are at 4:1; the important consequence is the re-establishment of an offering pleasing to the Lord. Protestant scholars deny the Roman Catholic view that this prophesies the establishment of the Mass, but they have provided little constructive interpretation to take the place of this idea. Actually Malachi does not look ahead as far as the Christian era, but only to a time when a proper worship of God will be central in Jerusalem and offered by a people who fear the Lord and who do not disobey his commands. The Christian equivalent is a community where worship is central and vital and where social relationships are animated by the high ethics of the Sermon on the Mount.

The problem of the identity of the messenger and of his relationship to the Lord has vexed interpreters from the time of the editor of the book to the present day. The editor of the book appears to have believed that the looked-for messenger was the prophet himself; an annotator (Malachi 4:5) seems to have thought that Elijah would be brought back to earth to be the messenger of the Covenant. Mark (1:2) and the early Christian community believed that John the Baptist was the expected messenger. It is probable that the writer of the prophecy thought only of the messenger who announced the coming of a royal personage, to be seen by the populace. The messenger is thus an agent, representing the coming of the Lord to his Temple, rather than a particular historical person. The prophet may have expected a priest to accomplish the reformation in the Temple, since his earlier idealization of Levi suggests the kind of messenger he would have approved.

But the Lord’s place in the expectation of Malachi must be considered. The messenger of the Covenant is closely related to the Lord himself, so closely related that it is difficult to determine whether God himself performs the cleansing function. It is clear that the traditional Davidic Messianic figure does not appear; instead, the direct intervention of the Lord himself is all that can be seen, Malachi’s expectations cannot be defined further, and it is unlikely that he had precise ideas of future events. Using expressions of the effects of the coming of the Lord similar to those of the earlier prophets, Malachi brought to his time a new sense of the reality of divine judgment.