Malachi 2 Commentary

In Malachi 2, the prophet challenges the priests for profaning God’s covenant with the Levitical priesthood. The Jewish priests have been spreading false teachings and treating others with partiality, which causes many of God’s people to stumble. Malachi rebukes the Jewish men for defiling God’s sanctuary through engaging in pagan practices, likely sexual immorality.

God, through Malachi, confronts the priests because they have divorced the wives of their youth while continuing to worship God and seek His favor. A theme of Chapter 2 is that the people are dealing with one another treacherously, which violates God’s covenant command to love their neighbors as themselves. They are exploiting rather than loving. That is why they are falling under judgment. In part, the judgement is that their society is becoming unjust, which is a consequence they brought on themselves. Chapter 2 sets up a scenario dealt with in Chapter 3 where God calls the people to repent and be cleansed by God.

The chapter’s outline is as follows:

1. The LORD rebukes the priests for failing to teach the people of Judah according to the standard He established with the Levitical priesthood. They have corrupted God’s covenant with them. Rather than having zeal for His word, God’s righteousness was not found coming from their lips (vv. 1–8).
2. God decries treating others with partiality because He is the creator and father of everyone. He judges the priests by making them despised in the eyes of the people. He chastises the people of Judah for engaging in the exploitative and immoral ways of paganism, thus breaking their covenant vow with Him (vv. 9–12).
3. Malachi confronts the men of Judah for divorcing the wives of their youth. Because they are worshipping while practicing intentional sin, God will not hear their petitions (vv. 13–16).
4. Malachi closes Chapter 2 with another complaint from the people. This complaint is related to their prior objection that God was not doing as they asked. They are expecting God to bring justice, and He is not living up to their expectations. In all this, Judah is causing the LORD to metaphorically feel tired because they practice evil and say it is good. They are not getting justice because they are themselves bringing injustice to Judah (v 17).