The unfaithfulness of the Jews toward God
2
📚“And now, O priests, this commandment is for you. 2 📚If you will not listen, and if you will not take it to heart to give glory 📖 to my name, says the LORD of hosts, I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings 📖. Yes, I have cursed them already, because you do not take it to heart 📖.3 📚“See, I will rebuke your offspring 📖, and spread refuse on your faces 📖, the refuse of your solemn feasts; and you will be taken away with it. 4 📚And you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant might be with Levi 📖, says the LORD of hosts. 5 📚My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace 📖, and I gave them to him that he might fear me. And he did fear me and showed reverence toward my name. 6 📚The law of truth was in his mouth, and injustice was not found in his lips. He walked with me 📖 in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from sin 📖.
7 📚“For the priest’s lips should preserve knowledge, and the people should seek the law from his mouth, for he is the messenger 📖 of the LORD of hosts.
2:6-7 God describes what a priest should be and what some had been.⚜
8 📚But you have departed from the way 📖. You have caused many to stumble 📖 at the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts. 9 📚Therefore I have also caused you to be despised and abased before all the people, because you have not kept my ways, but have shown partiality 📖 in the law”.
2:9 They had treated God with contempt; so He made them appear contemptible to the people. Compare Ps 18:25-26; Gal 6:7.⚜
Profaning the covenant and temple of God
10 📚Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why does each of us act treacherously against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers 📖?
11 📚Judah has acted treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of the LORD which the LORD loves 📖, and has married the daughter of a foreign god 📖. 12 📚The LORD will cut off from the tents of Jacob 📖 the man who does this, the master and the scholar, though he brings an offering 📖 to the LORD of hosts.
2:12 Intermarriage with unbelievers was an abomination and the prophet wanted God to show them that by taking severe action against the guilty. See also Ezra 9:1-2; Neh 13:23-27; 2 Cor 6:14.⚜
The unfaithfulness of the people in the matter of marriage
13 📚And you have also done this: You cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and wailing because he no longer regards the offering, or receives it with pleasure from your hand.
2:13 Because they did not repent and obey His Word, God was not pleased with their tears. They vainly thought they could get God’s blessings by their offerings and tears even though they trampled God’s law underfoot. See what God wants in Isa 1:16-19; 2 Cor 7:10-11.⚜
14 📚Yet you say, “Why?” Because the LORD is a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have acted treacherously, though she is your companion, and your wife by covenant.
2:14 As long as they were unfaithful to their wives, or guilty of other evils, their weeping and wailing came to nothing.⚜
15 📚And did he not make them one 📖, having a remnant of the Spirit. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring 📖. Therefore keep watch over 📖 your spirit, and let no one act treacherously against the wife of his youth.
16 📚For the LORD, the God of Israel, says that he hates divorce 📖; for it is like covering violence with one’s garment, says the LORD of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not act treacherously.
The people’s words brought grief to God
17 📚You have wearied the LORD with your words 📖. Yet you say, “How have we wearied him?” When you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them”, or, “Where is the God of justice 📖?”