Malachi 2:10

The Rebellion of the People

2:10 Do we not all have one father? ¹  Did not one God create us? Why do we betray one another, in this way making light of the covenant of our ancestors?

Malachi 3:18

3:18 Then once more you will see that I make a distinction between ²  the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not.

Malachi 2:15

2:15 No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. ³  What did our ancestor ⁴  do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth. ⁵ 

Malachi 3:16

3:16 Then those who respected ⁶  the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord took notice. ⁷  A scroll ⁸  was prepared before him in which were recorded the names of those who respected the Lord and honored his name.

Malachi 1:10

1:10 “I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, ⁹  so that you no longer would light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and I will no longer accept an offering from you.

Malachi 2:3

2:3 I am about to discipline your children ¹⁰  and will spread offal ¹¹  on your faces, ¹²  the very offal produced at your festivals, and you will be carried away along with it.

Malachi 2:5

2:5 “My covenant with him was designed to bring life and peace. I gave its statutes to him to fill him with awe, and he indeed revered me and stood in awe before me.

Malachi 2:16

2:16 “I hate divorce,” ¹³  says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” ¹⁴  says the Lord who rules over all. “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.”

Malachi 1:14

1:14 “There will be harsh condemnation for the hypocrite who has a valuable male animal in his flock but vows and sacrifices something inferior to the Lord. For I am a great king,” ¹⁵  says the Lord who rules over all, “and my name is awesome among the nations.”

Malachi 2:17

Resistance to the Lord through Self-deceit

2:17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” Because you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the Lord’s opinion, ¹⁶  and he delights in them,” or “Where is the God of justice?”

[2:10]  ¹ sn The rhetorical question Do we not all have one father? by no means teaches the “universal fatherhood of God,” that is, that all people equally are children of God. The reference to the covenant in v. 10 as well as to Israel and Judah (v. 11) makes it clear that the referent of “we” is God’s elect people.

[3:18]  ² tn Heb “you will see between.” Cf. NRSV, TEV, NLT “see the difference.”

[2:15]  ³ tn Heb “and not one has done, and a remnant of the spirit to him.” The very elliptical nature of the statement suggests it is proverbial. The present translation represents an attempt to clarify the meaning of the statement (cf. NASB).

[2:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “the one.” This is an oblique reference to Abraham who sought to obtain God’s blessing by circumventing God’s own plan for him by taking Hagar as wife (Gen 16:1-6). The result of this kind of intermarriage was, of course, disastrous (Gen 16:11-12).

[2:15]  ⁵ sn The wife he took in his youth probably refers to the first wife one married (cf. NCV “the wife you married when you were young”).

[3:16]  ⁴ tn Or “fear” (so NAB); NRSV “revered”; NCV “honored.”

[3:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “heard and listened”; NAB “listened attentively.”

[3:16]  ⁶ sn The scroll mentioned here is a “memory book” (סֵפֶר זִכָּרוֹן, sefer zikkaron) in which the Lord keeps an ongoing record of the names of all the redeemed (see Exod 32:32; Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1; Rev 20:12-15).

[1:10]  ⁵ sn The rhetorical language suggests that as long as the priesthood and people remain disobedient, the temple doors may as well be closed because God is not “at home” to receive them or their worship there.

[2:3]  ⁶ tc The phrase “discipline your children” is disputed. The LXX and Vulgate suppose זְרוֹעַ (zÿroa’, “arm”) for the MT זֶרַע (zera’, “seed”; hence, “children”). Then, for the MT גֹעֵר (go’er, “rebuking”) the same versions suggest גָּרַע (gara’, “take away”). The resulting translation is “I am about to take away your arm” (cf. NAB “deprive you of the shoulder”). However, this reading is unlikely. It is common for a curse (v. 2) to fall on offspring (see, e.g., Deut 28:18, 32, 41, 53, 55, 57), but a curse never takes the form of a broken or amputated arm. It is preferable to retain the reading of the MT here.

[2:3]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew term פֶרֶשׁ (feresh, “offal”) refers to the entrails as ripped out in preparing a sacrificial victim (BDB 831 s.v. פֶּרֶשׁ). This graphic term has been variously translated: “dung” (KJV, RSV, NRSV, NLT); “refuse” (NKJV, NASB); “offal” (NEB, NIV).

[2:3]  ⁸ sn See Zech 3:3-4 for similar coarse imagery which reflects cultic disqualification.

[2:16]  ⁷ tc The verb שָׂנֵא (sane’) appears to be a third person form, “he hates,” which makes little sense in the context, unless one emends the following word to a third person verb as well. Then one might translate, “he [who] hates [his wife] [and] divorces her…is guilty of violence.” A similar translation is advocated by M. A. Shields, “Syncretism and Divorce in Malachi 2,10-16,” ZAW 111 (1999): 81-85. However, it is possible that the first person pronoun אָנֹכִי (’anokhi, “I”) has accidentally dropped from the text after כִּי (ki). If one restores the pronoun, the form שָׂנֵא can be taken as a participle and the text translated, “for I hate” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT).

[2:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “him who covers his garment with violence” (similar ASV, NRSV). Here “garment” is a metaphor for appearance and “violence” a metonymy of effect for cause. God views divorce as an act of violence against the victim.

[1:14]  ⁸ sn The epithet great king was used to describe the Hittite rulers on their covenant documents and so, in the covenant ideology of Malachi, is an apt description of the Lord.

[2:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “in the eyes of the Lord.”