For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Malachi 2:1-9

1 ‘And now, you priests, this warning is for you. 2 If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honour my name,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honour me.

3 ‘Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. 4 And you will know that I have sent you this warning so that my covenant with Levi may continue,’ says the Lord Almighty. 5 ‘My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.

7 ‘For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth. 8 But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi,’ says the Lord Almighty. 9 ‘So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.’

A. Find Out:

1. Who is being warned in what way, for what? v.1,2
2. What will happen to them and why? v.3,4
3. What had been the two sides of the covenant with Levi? v.5
4. What had been Levi’s role? v.6,7
5. But what had they done? v.8,9b
6. So what was the Lord doing with them? v.9a

B. Think:

1. What history had Levi with the Lord?
2. What should the priests have been doing?
3. What had they been doing?

C. Comment:

  From complaining about the quality of the sacrifices and the lip service being paid in the Temple, the Lord now focuses on the priests themselves. The fact was that they should have been properly instructing the people so that right sacrifices would be offered, but they hadn’t!

  The Lord starts out with a simple warning to honour Him or be cursed (v.1,2), yet already the curse was in operation because the covenant with Levi would stand. Levi had been the first priest and from him came the tribe from which the priests came (Num 3:11,12, 25:10-13) and it was with them that the Lord made a covenant. However, a covenant is a two-sided agreement and on the priest’s side the requirement was to remain faithful and true to the Lord, and that included in the way they taught and guided the people in their relationship with the Lord. The Lord’s side of the agreement was to provide peace and blessing when the priests honoured their side of it.

  However, the sad truth was that now the priests were being casual and were not honouring the Lord (v.1,2), they were not revering the Lord (v.5), and they have wrongly taught so that people turn from God (v.8), and they have shown favouritism (v.9). For all these reasons the Lord will deal with them for that too is part of the covenant – discipline when failure.

D. Application:

1. We are a holy priesthood (1 Pet 2:5,9) with a duty of care.
2. Our call is to be faithful as we represent God.

Passage: Malachi 2:10-16

10 Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?

11 Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by marrying women who worship a foreign god. 12 As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord remove him from the tents of Jacob – even though he brings an offering to the Lord Almighty.

13 Another thing you do: you flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favour on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. 14 You ask, ‘Why?’ It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.

15 Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.

16 ‘The man who hates and divorces his wife,’ says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘does violence to the one he should protect,’ says the Lord Almighty.

So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.

A. Find Out:

1. What 3 questions does Malachi ask? v.10
2. What has Judah done, and how? v.11
3. What does such a person deserve, despite what? v.12
4. Why were they weeping? v.13
5. What’s the reason for that? v.14,15
6. What 2 things does the Lord hate & so what is the challenge? v.16

B. Think:

1. What seems to be happening which is condemned?
2. Why was their past so important?
3. How were they pretending to carry on normally?

C. Comment:

  God’s love questioned, lip-service worship, and negligent priests, those have been the matters raised so far by Malachi. Now he focuses on their spiritual unfaithfulness. Although a number of commentators see this as family unfaithfulness, we suggest ‘spiritual’ because of the language used. Observe.

  The nation (Judah) have ‘broken faith’ and ‘desecrated the sanctuary’ (the Temple). This is not about taking foreign wives (although that had been a problem), this is more about the consequences of that, spiritual adultery taking on worship of ‘a foreign god’ (v.11). This is a worship issue. Such people deserve to be cut off from the covenant people, even though they bring offerings (v.12) which God ignores (v.13).

  The expression ‘wife of your youth’, we suggest, refers to the faithful Israel that God brought into being after the Exodus. This original covenant people in close relationship with God, is one with the present people, even though the exile has come between, because the Lord has always wanted godly offspring (v.15), faithful people. God hates divorce (v.16), breaking the covenant, which is why there are still a people of God. He hates people turning away from God to idols and He hates the violence that so often ensues. This is a call to faithfulness (v.10,16).

D. Application:

1. A poor relationship with God always brings social upset.
2. The primary call to us is always to remain faithful to the Lord.