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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Malachi 2:1 - 2:1
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The rebuke administered to the priests for their wicked doings is followed by an announcement of the punishment which they will bring upon themselves in case they should not observe the admonition, or render to the Lord the reverence due to His name when discharging the duties of their office. Mal 2:1. “And now, ye priests, this commandment comes to you. Mal 2:2. If ye do not hear and lay it to heart, to give glory to my name, saith Jehovah of hosts, I send against you the curse and curse your blessings, yea I have cursed them, because ye will not lay it to heart. Mal 2:3. Behold I rebuke your arm, and scatter dung upon your face, the dung of your feasts, and they will carry you away to it. Mal 2:4. And ye will perceive that I have sent this commandment to you, that it may be my covenant with Levi, saith Jehovah of hosts.” Mal 2:1. introduces the threat; this is called mitsvâh, a command, not as a commission which the prophet received, for the speaker is not the prophet, but Jehovah Himself; nor as “instruction, admonition, or warning,” for mitsvâh has no such meaning. Mitsvâh is rather to be explained from tsivvâh in Nah 1:14. The term command is applied to that which the Lord has resolved to bring upon a person, inasmuch as the execution or accomplishment is effected by earthly instruments by virtue of a divine command.
The reference is to the threat of punishment which follows in Mal 2:2 and Mal 2:3, but which is only to be carried out in case the priests do not hear and lay to heart, namely, the warning which the Lord has addressed to them through Malachi (Mal 1:6-13), and sanctify His name by their service. If they shall not do this, God will send the curse against them, and that in two ways. In the first place He will curse their blessings; in fact, He has already done so. Berâkhōth, blessings, are obviously not the revenues of the priests, tithes, atonement-money, and portions of the sacrifices (L. de Dieu, Ros., Hitzig), but the blessings pronounced by the priests upon the people by virtue of their office. These God will curse, i.e., He will make them ineffective, or turn them into the very opposite. וְגַם אָרוֹתִיהָ is not a simple, emphatic repetition, but אָרוֹתִי is a perfect, which affirms that the curse has already taken effect. The emphatic vegam, and also, and indeed, also requires this. The suffix הָ attached to אָרוֹתִי is to be taken distributively: “each particular blessing.” In the second place God will rebuke אֶת־הַזֶּרַע, i.e., the seed. But since the priests did not practise agriculture, it is impossible to see how rebuking the seed, i.e., causing a failure of the corps, could be a punishment peculiar to the priests. We must therefore follow the lxx, Aquila, Vulg., Ewald, and others, and adopt the pointing הַזְּרֹעַ, i.e., the arm. Rebuking the arm does not mean exactly “laming the arm,” nor manifesting His displeasure in any way against the arm, which the priests raised to bless (Koehler). For it was not the arm but the hand that was raised to bless (Lev 9:22; Luk 24:50), and rebuking signifies something more than the manifestation of displeasure. It is with the arm that a man performs his business or the duties of his calling; and rebuking the arm, therefore, signifies the neutralizing of the official duties performed at the altar and in the sanctuary. Moreover, God will also deliver them up to the most contemptuous treatment, by scattering dung in their faces, namely, the dung of their feasts. Chaggı̄m, feasts, is used metonymically for festal sacrifices, or the sacrificial animals slain at the festivals (cf. Psa 118:27). The dung of the sacrificial animals was to be carried away to an unclean place outside the camp and burned there, in the case of the sin-offerings, upon an ash-heap (Lev 4:12; Lev 16:27; Exo 29:14). Scattering dung in the face was a sign and figurative description of the most ignominious treatment. Through the expression “dung of your festal sacrifices,” the festal sacrifices offered by these priests are described as being themselves dung; and the thought is this: the contempt of the Lord, which they show by offering blind or lame animals, or such as are blemished in other ways, He will repay to them by giving them up to the greatest ignominy. The threat is strengthened by the clause וְנָשָׂא אֶתְכֶם אֵלָיו, which has been interpreted, however, in different ways. The Vulgate, Luther (“and shall remain sticking to you”), Calvin, and others take peresh as the subject to נָשָׂא: “the dung will draw the priests to itself, so that they will also become dung.” But נָשָׂא has no such meaning; we must therefore leave the subject indefinite: they (man) will carry you away, or sweep you away to it, i.e., treat you as dung. When they should be treated in this ignominious manner, then would they perceive that the threatening had come from the Lord. “This commandment (mitsvâh) is the mitsvâh mentioned in Mal 2:1. The infinitive clause which follows announces the purpose of God, in causing this threat to come to pass. But the explanation of these words is a disputed point, since we may either take berı̄thı̄ (my covenant) as the subject, or supply hammitsvâh (the commandment) from the previous clause. In the first case (“that my covenant may be with Levi”) the meaning could only be, that the covenant with Levi may continue. But although hâyâh does indeed mean to exist, it does not mean to continue, or be maintained. We must therefore take hammitsvâh as the subject, as Luther, Calvin, and others have done (“that it, viz., my purpose, may be my covenant with Levi”). Koehler adopts this, and has explained it correctly thus: “They will perceive that just as Jehovah has hitherto regulated His conduct towards Levi by the terms of His covenant, which was made with it at the time of its departure from Egypt, so will He henceforth let it be regulated by the terms of the decree of punishment which He has resolved upon now, so that this decree of punishment takes the place, as it were, of the earlier covenant.” Lēvı̄ is the tribe of Levi, which culminated in the priesthood. The attitude of God towards the priests is called a covenant, inasmuch as God placed them in a special relation to Himself by choosing them for the service of the sanctuary, which not only secured to them rights and promises, but imposed duties upon them, on the fulfilment of which the reception of the gifts of divine grace depended (vid., Deu 10:8-9; Deu 33:8-10; Num 18:1., Num 25:10.).