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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Malachi 2:10 - 2:10
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Mal 2:10. “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? wherefore are we treacherous one towards another, to desecrate the covenant of our fathers? Mal 2:11. Judah acts treacherously, and abomination has taken place in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has desecrated the sanctuary of Jehovah, which He loves, and marries the daughter of a strange god. Mal 2:12. Jehovah will cut off, to the man that doeth this, wakers and answerers out of the tents of Jacob, and him that offereth sacrifices to Jehovah of hosts.” Malachi adopts the same course here as in the previous rebuke, and commences with a general clause, from which the wrongfulness of marriages with heathen women and of frivolous divorces necessarily followed. The one father, whom all have, is neither Adam, the progenitor of all men, nor Abraham, the father of the Israelitish nation, but Jehovah, who calls Himself the Father of the nation in Mal 1:6. God is the Father of Israel as its Creator; not, however, in the general sense, according to which He made Israel the people of His possession. By the two clauses placed at the head, Malachi intends not so much to lay emphasis upon the common descent of all the Israelites, by virtue of which they form one united family in contrast with the heathen, as to say that all the Israelites are children of God, and as such spiritual brethren and sisters. Consequently every violation of the fraternal relation, such as that of which the Israelite was guilty who married a heathen woman, or put away an Israelitish wife, was also an offence against God, a desecration of His covenant. The idea that the expression “one father” refers to Abraham as the ancestor of the nation (Jerome, Calvin, and others), is precluded by the fact, that not only the Israelites, but also the Ishmaelites and Edomites were descended from Abraham; and there is no ground whatever for thinking of Jacob, because, although he had indeed given his name to Israel, he is never singled out as its ancestor. Nibhgad is the first pers. plur. imperf. kal, notwithstanding the fact that in other cases bâgad has cholem in the imperfect; for the niphal of this verb is never met with. The Israelite acted faithlessly towards his brother, both when he contracted a marriage with a heathen woman, and when he put away his Israelitish wife, and thereby desecrated the covenant of the fathers, i.e., the covenant which Jehovah made with the fathers, when He chose them from among the heathen, and adopted them as His covenant nation (Exo 19:5-6; Exo 24:8).
The reason for this rebuke is given in Mal 2:11, in a statement of what has taken place. In order the more emphatically to describe this as reprehensible, bâgedâh (hath dealt treacherously) is repeated and applied to the whole nation. Yehūdâh (Judah), construed as a feminine, is the land acting in its inhabitants. Then what has taken place is described as תּוֹעֵבָה, abomination, like idolatry, witchcraft, and other grievous sins (cf. Deu 13:15; Deu 18:9.), in which the name Israel is intentionally chosen as the holy name of the nation, to indicate the contrast between the holy vocation of Israel and its unholy conduct. In addition to Israel as the national name (= Judah) Jerusalem is also mentioned, as is frequently the case, as the capital and centre of the nation. What has occurred is an abomination, because Judah desecrates קֹדֶשׁ יי, i.e., neither the holiness of Jehovah as a divine attribute, nor the temple as the sanctuary, still less the holy state of marriage, which is never so designated in the Old Testament, but Israel as the nation which Jehovah loved. Israel is called qōdesh, a sanctuary or holy thing, as עַם קָדוֹשׁ, which Jehovah has chosen out of all nations to be His peculiar possession (Deu 7:6; Deu 14:2; Jer 2:3; Psa 114:2; Ezr 9:2 : see Targ., Rashi, Ab. Ezra, etc.). Through the sin which it had committed, Judah, i.e., the community which had returned from exile, had profaned itself as the sanctuary of God, or neutralized itself as a holy community chosen and beloved of Jehovah (Koehler). To this there is appended, though not till the last clause, the statement of the abomination: Judah, in its individual members, has married the daughter of a strange god (cf. Ezr 9:2.; Neh 13:23.). By the expression בַּת אֵל נֵכָר the person married is described as an idolatress (bath, daughter = dependent). This involved the desecration of the holy calling of the nation. It is true that in the law it is only marriages with Canaanites that are expressly forbidden (Exo 34:16; Deu 7:3), but the reason assigned for this prohibition shows, that all marriages with heathen women, who did not give up their idolatry, were thereby denounced as irreconcilable with the calling of Israel (see at 1Ki 11:1-2). This sin may God punish by cutting off every one who commits it. This threat of punishment (Mal 2:12) is indeed only expressed in the form of a wish, but the wish has been created by the impulse of the Holy Spirit. Very different and by no means satisfactory explanations have been given of the expression עֵר וְעֹנֶה, the waking one (עֵר the participle of עוּר) and the answering one, a proverbial description of the wicked man formed by the combination of opposites (on the custom of expressing totality by opposites, see Dietrich, Abhandlung zur hebr. Gramm. p. 201ff.), in which, however, the meaning of the word עֵר still continues a matter of dispute. The rabbinical explanation, which is followed by Luther, viz., teacher and scholar, is founded upon the meaning excitare given to the verb עוּר, and the excitans is supposed to be the teacher who stimulates by questioning and admonishing. But apart from all other reasons which tell against this explanation, it does not suit the context; for there is not a single word to indicate that the prophet is speaking only of priests who have taken foreign wives; on the contrary, the prophet accuses Judah and Jerusalem, and therefore the people generally, of being guilty of this sin. Moreover, it was no punishment to an Israelite to have no rabbi or teacher of the law among his sons. The words are at any rate to be taken more generally than this. The best established meaning is vigil et respondens, in which עֵר is taken transitively, as in Job 41:2 in the chethib, and in the Chaldee עִר, watcher (Dan 4:10-13 and Dan 4:14-17), in the sense of vivus quisque. In this case the proverbial phrase would be taken from the night-watchman (J. D. Mich., Ros., Ges. Thes. p. 1004). It is no conclusive objection to this, that the words which follow, וּמַגִּישׁ מִנְחָה, evidently stand upon the same line as עֵר וְעֹנֶה and must form part of the same whole, and therefore that עֵר וְעֹנֶה cannot of itself embrace the whole. For this conclusion is by no means a necessary one. If the two expressions referred to portions of the same whole, they could not well be separated from one another by מֵאָֽהֳלֵי יַעֲקֹב. Moreover, the limitation of עֵר וְעֹנֶה to the age of childhood founders upon the artificial interpretation which it is necessary to give to the two words. According to Koehler עֵר denotes the child in the first stage of its growth, in which it only manifests its life by occasionally waking up from its ordinary state of deep, death-like slumber, and עֹנֶה the more advanced child, which is able to speak and answer questions. But who would ever think of calling a child in the first weeks of its life, when it sleeps more than it wakes, a waker? Moreover, the sleep of an infant is not a “deep, death-like slumber.” The words “out of the tents of Jacob,” i.e., the houses of Israel, belong to יַכְרֵת. The last clause adds the further announcement, that whoever commits such abominations shall have no one to offer a sacrificial gift to the Lord. These words are not to be taken as referring to the priestly caste, as Hitzig supposes; but Jerome has given the correct meaning: “and whoever is willing to offer a gift upon the altar for men of this description.” The meaning of the whole verse is the following: “May God not only cut off every descendant of such a sinner out of the houses of Israel, but any one who might offer a sacrifice for him in expiation of his sin.”