Malachi 2:10-16, Another Covenant Failure

There are three covenants in view in this section of Malachi. He has already mentioned the covenant that Yahweh made with Levi, constituting his tribe as the priestly tribe. Here in this passage, he mentions the “covenant of our fathers,” that is, the covenant God made with Israel to constitute them His people. Lastly, he mentions the covenant of marriage between two Israelites. Failure to keep covenant is a problem in Israel, as it is in our own day.

¹⁰ Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? ¹¹ Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of Yahweh, which He loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. ¹² May God not only cut off every descendant of such a sinner out of the houses of Israel, but anyone who might offer a sacrifice for him in expiation of his sin.

¹³ And secondly, you cover Yahweh ‘s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because He no longer approves your offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. ¹⁴ But you say, “Why does He not?” Because Yahweh was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. ¹⁵ Did He not give each person a portion of spirit? And what was the one man seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. ¹⁶ “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her,” says Yahweh, “the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence,” says Yahweh of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.

There are two sins God is accusing Israel of: (1) marrying foreign wives who worship idols or false gods, and (2) divorcing the wives of their youth, probably a result of marrying younger idolatrous wives. Each of these sins is a violation against those of the Israelite family, whose one Father is Yahweh. And the sins are labeled an abomination.

Bringing idolatrous spouses into the family of God is a profaning of God’s beloved sanctuary, the Temple, which admits only of worship of the one true God, Yahweh. The fate of one who does this is being cut off from the people, putting them outside the pale of those who are redeemed by sacrifice. The social nature of this “cutting off” is highlighted by the wrongness of anyone offering sacrifice for such a one who has been cut off.

Because the sacrifices of such people are not being accepted by God they are making a show of grieving. But the answer is not to grieve but to stop divorcing the wives of their youth whom they are connected to by covenant. This is a violation of the command against adultery. How could a person who has a portion of spirit, that higher power breathed into us, be so faithless against his spouse? If the Israelites argue that there was one man, Abraham, who was allowed to divorce his wife, Hagar, the reason is because God wanted to give Abraham a godly seed, Isaac, and gave Abraham permission to divorce her.

The consequence for the one who divorces his wife without cause is having his garment covered by God with violence. This may reflect what Proverbs says about the faithless man:

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray. (Proverbs 5:22,23)

Many translations have “God hates divorce,” instead of “the man who hates his wife and divorces her.” This may be the correct translation, but it is not to be understood as an absolute, as so many have taken it. As we have seen, God permitted Abraham to divorce Hagar. God Himself divorced Israel for unfaithfulness (Jeremiah 3). It is not divorce that God hates, per se, but divorce without cause (for immorality). Likewise, it is not marriage to foreigners that God hates, per se, but marriage to unbelievers (Ruth was a foreigner but became a believer in Yahweh).