Malachi Chapter 2 verse 10 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 10-16 - Part II. CONDEMNATION OF PRIESTS AND PEOPLE FOR ALIEN MARRIAGES AND FOR DIVORCES. Verse 10. - Have we not all one Father? In proceeding to his new subject, the violations of the law of marriage, the prophet pursues his habitual method. He starts with a general principle, here assuming an interrogative form, and on it builds his rebuke. The priests were guilty, if not of profane marriages, at any rate of sinful neglect in not warning the people against them. Many take the "one father" to be Abraham (Isaiah 51:2), and it is no objection to this view that he was also the progenitor of Ishmaelites, Edomites, etc., because there was at this time no question about marriage with these nations, but with Canaanites, Moabites, Egyptians, and so on. But the parallelism with the following clause shows that by the Father is meant Almighty God (comp. Malachi 1:6; Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 63:16). Hath not one God created us? Hath not God taken us as his peculiar people, so as to call us his sons and his firstborn (comp. Exodus 4:22, 23; Deuteronomy 32:18; Isaiah 1:2; Jeremiah 3:19)? Of course, God created all men; but the Jews alone recognized him as Creator. The prophet's proposition is that all Israelites were spiritual brothers and sisters, equally loved and chosen by God. From this he argues that in sinning against one another, they offended their common Father, and broke the family compact. Deal treacherously. Act faithlessly against one another. He does not yet say in what this treachery consists, but adds, by profaning the covenant of our fathers. He unites himself with them, because he suffered in their sin. They violated the covenant by which God chose them to be his peculiar people and placed himself in mysterious relation to them, on condition that they should keep themselves aloof from the evil nations around them, and avoid all connection with them and their practices. By intermarriages with the heathen, they profaned this covenant. This evil was one which Ezra had done his best to eradicate, using most stringent measures for its suppression (Ezra 9, 10.); Nehemiah, too, contended against those who had contracted these marriages, when he found on his return to Jerusalem many such transgressors (Nehemiah 13:23-28); and now the prophet lifts up his voice in the cause of purity and obedience. The warning against throe mixed unions is found in Exodus 34:16; Deuteronomy 7:3; Joshua 23:12, 18.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(10-17) The prophet now rebukes the two great sins of the nation at this time: (1) marriage with idolatresses; (2) divorce of the first (Israelitish) wife. He introduces this rebuke by a general statement, similar to that of Malachi 1:2.(10) One father--i.e., not Adam, Abraham, or Jacob (as various commentators have held), but God Himself (Malachi 1:6; Deuteronomy 32:6; Deuteronomy 32:18), who is the spiritual Father of the nation, and in whom they are all brothers and sisters; so that when an Israelite married a heathen woman, or divorced an Israelitish wife, it was an offence against God, a "profaning the covenant of the fathers," and a violation of the fraternal relation. Moreover, "one God created" them for His glory (Isaiah 43:7), for the special purpose of being a witness to His unity. The admission of idolatresses into their families would be fatal to this object. . . .