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Conclusion of the Rebuke to the Priests
v. 1. And now, O ye priests, this commandment Is for you, they must be aware of the seriousness of the situation and accept the Lord's rebuke and threat accordingly.
v. 2. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay It to heart, if they persisted in their callousness over against His commands, to give glory unto My name, saith the Lord of hosts, by a worship in agreement with His commands, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings, His own gifts to them turning into the opposite and bringing harm upon them; yea, I have cursed them already because ye do not lay it to heart, presenting an indifferent front to the Lord's admonitions.
v. 3. Behold, I will corrupt your seed, rebuking that which had been sowed in the fields, thus reducing also the amounts which the priests received as tithes, and spread dung upon your faces, as an expression of His extreme contempt, even the dung of your solemn feasts, that of the sacrificial animals, which was ordinarily dumped outside of the city; and one shall take you away with it, treating them as though they were themselves dung, to be thrown out in disgraceful heaps.
v. 4. And ye shall know, by the token of this punishment, that I have sent this commandment unto you, this decree of punishment, which they thought they might so calmly disregard, that My covenant might be with Levi, all the priests, saith the Lord of hosts. The Lord's sentence of punishment upon all those who despised His worship was included in the original covenant with the members of the tribe of Levi.
v. 5. My covenant was with him of life and peace, with the promise of life and peace attached; and I gave them, namely, life, deliverance, and salvation, to him for the fear wherewith he feared Me, as a reward for this attitude, and was afraid before My name, Cf Num_25:12.
v. 6. The Law of Truth was in his mouth, so that everything which he did and taught was in agreement with the divine truth, and iniquity was not found in his lips, he was in no way guilty of perverseness in his ministry; he walked with Me in peace and equity, in a communion of peace, integrity, and righteousness, and did turn many away from iniquity, this being the praise which the Lord bestowed upon the members of the tribe of Levi.
v. 7. For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, preserving the right understanding of Jehovah among the people as a precious treasure, and they, the people, should seek the Law at his mouth, to be instructed in it; for he Is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. That is what the Lord found praiseworthy in the members of the tribe of Levi in the early days; that is as it should he.
v. 8. But ye, the present members of the tribe, are departed out of the way, leaving the path shown them by the Law of the Lord; ye have caused many to stumble at the Law, so that they became guilty of transgressing the Law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, that which their fathers had kept so faithfully, saith the Lord of hosts.
v. 9. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base, an object of contempt and loathing, before all the people, according as ye have not kept My ways, in the same degree as they had transgressed, but have been partial in the Law, in applying the Law to the conduct of the people. The conduct of the spiritual leaders of people is particularly reprehensible if it misleads others and plunges them into sin and guilt.