And now, O you priests, this commandment is for you. Jump to: Barnes • Benson • BI • Calvin • Cambridge • Clarke • Darby • Ellicott • Expositor's • Exp Dct • Gaebelein • GSB • Gill • Gray • Haydock • Hastings • Homiletics • JFB • KD • KJT • Lange • MacLaren • MHC • MHCW • Parker • Poole • Pulpit • Sermon • SCO • TTB • WES • TSK EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE) II.(1-9) The decree against the priests. (1) Commandment.—Better, decree. (Comp. the use of the verb from which this substantive is derived in Nahum 1:14; Psalm 7:6; Psalm 42:8.) Malachi 2:1-4. O ye priests, this commandment is for you — Or decree, rather, for properly speaking no commandment is here given to the priests, only punishment is denounced upon them if they did not repent. If ye will not hear, &c., to give glory unto my name — Which you have despised and dishonoured, by your irreverent performance of my service, Malachi 1:6. I will send a curse upon you — I will send poverty and affliction upon you, and you shall not prosper in any thing. And I will curse your blessings — I will turn your blessings into curses, or rather, remove your blessings and send curses and calamities in their stead; behold, I will corrupt your seed — The seed wherewith you sow your ground: I will cause it to rot so that it shall bring forth little or nothing. And spread dung upon your faces — I will make you as contemptible and vile as if some one had covered your faces with filth and dung. And one shall take you away with it — You shall be cast out of the temple as so many nuisances, only fit to be removed out of sight. And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you — By the punishment which will follow upon your neglecting to lay what hath been said to heart, and to give glory unto my name, as you are here enjoined: see Malachi 2:1-2. That my covenant might be with Levi —That the covenant which I made with the tribe of Levi, that they should be mine, and employed in my service, might continue firm to their posterity. Some render the clause, Because my covenant was with Levi, for the breach of which you are accountable.2:1-9 What is here said of the covenant of priesthood, is true of the covenant of grace made with all believers, as spiritual priests. It is a covenant of life and peace; it assures all believers of all happiness, both in this world and in that to come. It is an honour to God's servants to be employed as his messengers. The priest's lips should not keep knowledge from his people, but keep it for them. The people are all concerned to know the will of the Lord. We must not only consult the written word, but desire instruction and advice from God's messengers, in the affairs of our souls. Ministers must exert themselves to the utmost for the conversion of sinners; and even among those called Israelites, there are many to be turned from iniquity. Those ministers, and those only, are likely to turn men from sin, who preach sound doctrine, and live holy lives according to the Scripture. Many departed from this way; thus they misled the people. Such as walk with God in peace and righteousness, and turn others from sin, honour God; he will honour them, while those who despise him shall be lightly esteemed.And now this is My commandment unto you - , not a commandment, which He gave them, but a commandment in regard to them. As God said of old, upon obedience , "I will command My blessing unto you," so now He would command what should reach them, but a curse. "He returns from the people to the priests, as the fountain of the evil, whose carelessness about things sacred he had rebuked before. Let the priests of the new law hear this rebuke of God, and conceive it dictated to them by the Holy Spirit to hear, from whom God rightly requires greater holiness, and so will punish them more grievously, if careless or scandalous in their office." All Christians are, in some sense 1 Peter 2:9, "a royal, holy priesthood," over and above the special "Christian priesthood;" as the Jews, over and above the special priesthood of Aaron, were a Exodus 19:6, "kingdom of priests." What follows then belongs, in their degree, to them and their duties. CHAPTER 2 Mal 2:1-17. Reproof of the Priests for Violating the Covenant; and the People Also for Mixed Marriages and Unfaithfulness. 1. for you—The priests in particular are reproved, as their part was to have led the people aright, and reproved sin, whereas they encouraged and led them into sin. Ministers cannot sin or suffer alone. They drag down others with them if they fall [Moore].The priests are sharply reproved for profaning the covenant which was given them, Malachi 2:1-9; and the people for marrying strange wives, Malachi 2:10-12, and treacherously putting away their former ones, Malachi 2:13-16; and for impiety, Malachi 2:17. this commandment is for you: of giving glory to the name of God; of taking care of his worship; of teaching the people knowledge, and directing them in the way in which they should walk; as follows: And now, O ye {a} priests, this commandment is for you.(a) He speaks mainly to them, but under them he includes the people also. EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES) Ch. Malachi 2:1-9. Threatened Punishment of the Priests1. O ye priests] The discourse turns again in direct appeal to the priests. The exact order of the words is emphatic: And now, for you is this commandment, O priests. this commandment] Some commentators would make “commandment” here mean purpose, or decree, and refer it to the punishment threatened in Malachi 2:2-4. There seems no reason, however, to depart here and in Malachi 2:4 from the usual meaning of the word. The passage (Malachi 2:2-4) is a commandment to reform, with threatened consequences if they disobey it.Verses 1-4. - § 4. For these derelictions of duty the priests are threatened with punishment. Verse 1. - This commandment. The threat or announcement is called a commandment, because God ordains it and imposes its execution on certain instruments. (For the expression, camp. Leviticus 25:21.) The threat is contained in vers. 2, 3. Zechariah 5:9. "And I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold there came forth two women, and wind in their wings, and they had wings like a stork's wings; and they carried the ephah between earth and heaven. Zechariah 5:10. And I said to the angel that talked with me, Whither are these taking the ephah? Zechariah 5:11. And he said to me, To build it a dwelling in the land of Shinar: and it will be placed and set up there upon its stand." The meaning of this new scene may easily be discovered. The ephah with the woman in it is carried away between earth and heaven, i.e., through the air. Women carry it because there is a woman inside; and two women, because two persons are required to carry so large and heavy a measure, that they may lay hold of it on both sides (תּשּׂנה with the א dropped; cf. Ges. 74, Anm. 4). These women have wings, because it passes through the air; and a stork's wings, because these birds have broad pinions, and not because the stork is a bird of passage or an unclean bird. The wings are filled with wind, that they may be able to carry their burden with greater velocity through the air. The women denote the instruments or powers employed by God to carry away the sinners out of His congregation, without any special allusion to this or the other historical nation. This is all that we have to seek for in these features, which only serve to give distinctness to the picture. But the statement in Zechariah 5:11 is significant: "to build it a house in the land of Shinar." The pronoun לה with the suffix softened instead of לּהּ, as in Exodus 9:18; Leviticus 13:4 (cf. Ewald, 247, d), refers grammatically to האיפה; but so far as the sense is concerned, it refers to the woman sitting in the ephah, since a house is not built for a measure, but only for men to dwell in. This also applies to the feminine form הנּתחה, and to the suffix in מכנתהּ. The building of a house indicates that the woman is to dwell there permanently, as is still more clearly expressed in the second hemistich. הוּכן refers to בּית , and is not to be taken hypothetically, in the sense of "as soon as the house shall be restored," but is a perfect with Vav consec.; and hūkhan, the hophal of kūn, is not to be taken in the sense of restoring, but, in correspondence with mekhunâh, in the sense of establishing or building on firm foundations. Mekhunâh: the firmly established house. In this the woman of sin is brought to rest. The land in which the woman of sin carried away out of the holy land is permanently to dwell, is the land of Shinar. This name is not to be identified with Babel, so as to support the conclusion that it refers to a fresh removal of the people of Israel into exile; but according to Genesis 10:10 and Genesis 11:2, Shinar is the land in which Nimrod founded the first empire, and where the human race built the tower of Babel which was to reach to the sky. The name is not to be taken geographically here as an epithet applied to Mesopotamia, but is a notional or real definition, which affirms that the ungodliness carried away out of the sphere of the people of God will have its permanent settlement in the sphere of the imperial power that is hostile to God. The double vision of this chapter, therefore, shows the separation of the wicked from the congregation of the Lord, and their banishment into and concentration within the ungodly kingdom of the world. This distinction and separation commenced with the coming of the Messiah, and runs through all the ages of the spread and development of the Christian church, until at the time of the end they will come more and more into outward manifestation; and the evil, having been sifted out by the judicial power of God and His Spirit, will form itself into a Babel of the last days, as Ezekiel 38 and 39 clearly show, and attempt a last struggle with the kingdom of God, in which it will be overcome and destroyed by the last judgment. Links Malachi 2:1 InterlinearMalachi 2:1 Parallel Texts Malachi 2:1 NIV Malachi 2:1 NLT Malachi 2:1 ESV Malachi 2:1 NASB Malachi 2:1 KJV Malachi 2:1 Bible Apps Malachi 2:1 Parallel Malachi 2:1 Biblia Paralela Malachi 2:1 Chinese Bible Malachi 2:1 French Bible Malachi 2:1 German Bible Bible Hub |
    |