Malachi 2:10–16

2:10–11 Malachi begins by contrasting the Judahites sins against each other with God’s unchanging character. As in 1:6, Malachi invokes God as Father and Creator to show his attentive care, both in the present and at his people’s creation. Malachi twice tells us that Judah’s Father and Creator is “one,” emphasizing the uniqueness and distinctiveness of Judah’s God (Deut. 6:4; cf. the use of “one” in Song 6:9). The passage also creates a context in which Judahite betrayal appears all the more stark.

“Betrayal” is not too strong a word for the verb rendered by “faithless” (Mal. 2:10–11; cf. Judg. 9:23; Prov. 11:3). The bonds of those under the covenant care of one Father should be inviolable, yet betrayal is pervasive in the postexilic community: Malachi says (lit.) “Each one betrays his brother,” nationwide (Mal. 2:11). No individual in Malachi’s audience can excuse himself from this rupture in which the entire community is implicated.

Finally, at the end of verse 11, we learn the nature of this betrayal: mixed marriages. Malachi has heightened his audience’s expectation by delaying this information. Was it because such marriages were not regarded as problematic that Malachi overloads his expressions of covenant infidelity before revealing their source? Is Malachi helping his audience recalibrate their sensitivities before God in order to recognize an ugly betrayal where they saw none?

Marriage with a member of another people group is problematic in the OT not because of the different race or ethnicity of the spouse but because of the competing spiritual commitments that person would bring to the marriage (cf. Deut. 7:3; Lev. 18:24–25 and its context; but note the exception of the marriage of the Moabite Ruth to Boaz because of her devotion to the Lord, Ruth 1:16). It is exactly this issue Malachi focuses on at the end of 2:11: the problem is not foreignness as such, but devotion to a foreign god. Such a spouse has a different spiritual father.

Malachi calls such marriages a violation and sacrilege of the covenant (v. 10). The devotion and attention involved in marriage to a woman with other spiritual commitments betrays other Israelites by compromising the people’s holy status as set apart for God’s service and purposes. Furthermore, the sanctuary Yahweh loves, the sacred place where God and man meet, is desecrated by these marriages. This is the “abomination”; the same word describes the Canaanites’ defiling the land in Leviticus 18:22, 26–30.

The phrase “covenant of our fathers” does not distinguish a specific covenant (the phrase is used for the covenant with Abraham in Deut. 4:31; 7:12–14; 8:18; and for the covenant at Sinai in 2 Kings 17:15; Jer. 34:13). The phrase further binds the covenant community together: under one divine father, generations of Israelites have been keeping covenant with God. Thus mixed marriages damage the community’s relationship not only with its God and its present members but also with its past. Spiritually faithless marriages have far-reaching consequences that Malachi’s audience had probably not considered.

Malachi includes himself in the question of 2:10 (“Why then are we faithless?”) not because he had engaged in this betrayal but because he speaks as part of the community. It would be especially hypocritical for a prophet seeking to repair the unity of God’s people to stand above and outside that community, condemning its faithlessness.

2:12 Without an intervening question (as in 1:2, 6, etc.), Malachi moves directly to God’s judgment on mixed marriages: as these Israelites have betrayed the covenant community, they will be excluded from it. The verb “cut off” (a form of krt) is frequently used in the Pentateuch for excommunication from the covenant community (and even for execution) for various transgressions (e.g., regarding the Passover in Ex. 12:15 or the peace offering in Lev. 7:20). The phrase “who brings an offering” shows that this curse falls on those who continue to participate in the worship of the covenant community as if no wrong has been done (this is exactly the situation in Neh. 13:23–31).

The ESV’s “any descendant” renders a confusing Hebrew phrase, “one who wakes and answers.” Some understand this as a merism (a figure of speech expressing totality using contrasting parts), the point being that the Lord will cut off every last man who participates in mixed marriages; but since “wake” and “answer” are not obvious opposites, this is unlikely. Another possible translation is “protector and oppressor,” another merism. A very slight change in the Hebrew (from ʻer to ʻed) would yield either “a witness or respondent” (another merism) or “a witness who answers,” perhaps speaking of those who participate in such marriages. The ESV follows the Syriac and Aramaic translations here; if this is the correct reading, it fits well with Malachi 2:15. The meaning of the verse as a whole is clear whatever option one takes.

2:13 In addition to this abomination, the Judahites commit a second sin: weeping and groaning because God no longer accepts their sacrifices. The Judahites probably thought highly of their pious grief, but the Lord rejects it as another failure in the covenant relationship. Although the people cannot seem to make the obvious connection, Malachi clarifies for them that the Lord refuses to receive covenantal worship as long as betrayal in marriage continues.

2:14 Malachi varies the charge slightly from mixed marriages to divorce. (Although it is possible Judahite wives were being abandoned for foreign ones, the passage does not make this connection explicit.) The divorced wife is described in three ways: “the wife of your youth,” “your companion,” and (lit.) “the wife of your covenant” (ESV, “your wife by covenant”). These terms intensify the betrayal involved in unnecessary divorce: it destroys a relationship with an ally and close friend that has existed for years (cf. the use of the word that is here translated “companion,” in Judg. 20:11; Pss. 94:20; 119:63). The husband has entered into covenant with this woman—the most solemn formalizing of a relationship available to an ancient Israelite. The use of “covenant” echoes Malachi 2:10, and with this repetition Malachi helps his audience understand the far-reaching implications of these divorces.

Finally, it should be noted that the Lord “was witness” on behalf of the abandoned wife. This verb is used for solemn testimony or warning when a serious wrong is alleged (cf. Deut. 8:19; Neh. 13:15; Amos 3:13). The Lord takes up the cause of these women, who had limited options to redress the wrong done to them.

2:15–16 Malachi sets these divorces within the context of God’s original intention for marriage, but the Hebrew is brief to the point of being cryptic. The first clause of verse 15 could be translated in a number of ways: “Not one acts (thus),” “Did not one make?” or “Did he not make (them) one?” The subsequent clauses could be woodenly rendered “And a portion of spirit to him [or “it”]. And what was the one seeking? Seed of God.” Although the first clause might be saying that no one with a portion of God’s spirit (or understanding) would act in this way regarding marriage, the ESV correctly interprets God as the subject of each clause: just as God’s people as a whole are bound together by their one God and Father, so God makes a human couple one and seals their unity by giving a portion of his Spirit to “it,” i.e., their oneness in marriage. God’s intention is godly seed, a new generation of covenant believers. Marriage is defined by the one God in covenant with his (ideally) unified people, who (ideally) produce many offspring who continue in the spiritually unified covenant community. Divorce betrays this.

Malachi closes the passage by calling for an end to all such frivolous divorces. The men initiating these divorces are to guard themselves in their own spirit (v. 15b). The focus changes from God’s spirit to ours. Malachi warns Judahite husbands to protect themselves at the deepest level of their being against this kind of betrayal. Such great caution is needed because of God’s strong opposition to divorce, aroused because of the violence caused by it (v. 16). (The point is the same regardless of which reading one accepts; cf. ESV mg.) To “cover one’s garment with violence” may have a number of implications: perhaps hiding the violence committed against the wife, or completely contaminating the husband (cf. Ps. 73:6). Malachi may also be playing on the image of a man covering with his garment the woman he intends to marry (Deut. 22:30; Ruth 3:9; Ezek. 16:8), implying that an action of protection and commitment has been twisted into an act of violence. Such sin must not only stop—it is to be guarded against vigilantly.