Section IV Divorce and Foreign Marriages

Malachi 2:10-16

This passage has been called “the most difficult section in the Book of Malachi.”¹ The general meaning, however, seems clear enough. Although they were all children of one Heavenly Father, the Jews were dealing treacherously with one another and profaning the covenant of their fathers by divorcing their Jewish wives and contracting unholy marriages with heathen women. For this abomination God threatens to destroy both the offenders and their offspring. He declares that He hates divorce and warns the people to take heed to their spiritual lives.

A. MARRIAGE WITH HEATHEN WOMEN, 2:10-12

Abruptly Malachi opens his charge. He does so by laying down, in the form of a question, a general principle which he proceeds to apply: Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? (10) Although Calvin and others have suggested that the one father here mentioned is Abraham, the parallelism of the verse proves that He is the one God who created Israel. “He created them not only as He did all mankind,” Pusey declares, “but by the spiritual relationship with Himself, into which He brought them.”² So Isaiah says, “But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. … every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him. This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise” (Isa. 43:1, 7, 21). Malachi is making the point that God's creating them as His people gave them a new existence, a new relation to one another. Thus an offense of one against another was a violation of their relation to God, who, as their common Father, had given them this unity. This verse is often quoted as a sublime admonition to mankind regarding the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, but the context limits the full meaning of the concept to the fatherhood of those who are bound together by a common bond of redemption as the people of God. This is also true of the fatherhood of God in the New Testament.

Malachi's charge that the offenders were profaning the covenant of their fathers (10) proves that this verse is internally related to vv. 11-12, which by some interpreters³ are regarded as an interpolation. It was intermarriage with heathen, condemned in w. 11-12, which was “a menace to the distinctive faith which was the basis of God's covenant with Israel.”⁴ The law warned, “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them … For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods” (Deut. 7:3-4). Therefore Malachi continues: Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god (11). The tragedy was compounded by the fact that the priests were the leaders in this offense (Ezra 9:1-2). The prophet calls this an abomination. The term is prevailingly used of things or acts which are abhorrent to the Lord—e.g., idolatry, uncleanness, irregularities of ritual, and violations of the moral law.⁵ He also regards this as a profanation of the holiness of the Lord. The RSV translates this “the sanctuary of the Lord.” The Hebrew permits this rendering and it is supported by the prohibition against heathen entering the sacred precincts of the Temple. Most commentators, however, favor the KJV translation. Israel itself was “holiness unto the Lord” (Jer. 2:3). “The general sense is that the Jews have despised the position of privilege assigned to them—the position of being ‘holy’ or 'separate’ (Lev. xx. 24) to Jehovah—and have joined themselves to foreign women and (through them) to foreign gods “(cp. I Kings xi. 4).”⁶

The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar (12). The latter phrase has been a puzzle to exegetes; it means literally “the awakened and the awakener.” The Peshitta⁷ and the Targum paraphrase: “his son and his son's son.” Marcus Dods agrees with those who take the phrase to mean “every one who is alive.”⁸ The general sense is clear: The Lord will destroy the males of the household of the man who profanes the holiness of the Lord by marrying a foreign woman. His household will have no one to perform the duty of sacrifice (12b).

B. DIVORCE OF JEWISH WIVES, 2:13-16

And this ye have done again (13) means literally, “And this, a second thing, you do.” Rashi elaborates the prophet's rebuke: “The first crime for which I censure you, that you take to wife not one of your own people but a foreign woman, is bad enough; but that you already have a Jewish wife and bring into the house a foreign woman as chief wife is unpardonable.”⁹ The following verses, however, strongly imply that the Jews at this time were practicing monogamy. Their crime consisted in divorcing their Jewish wives in order to marry younger and more attractive heathen women. Their covering the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying out probably refers to all the practices which go to make up a day of fasting and humiliation. Such practices unaccompanied by an amendment of life were repugnant to the Lord. “Yahweh refuses to recognize their gifts because of their sins and so they redouble their efforts to propitiate him, but do not forsake their sins.”¹⁰ True mourning involves a forsaking of all wicked ways. Only this kind of weeping is acceptable to the Lord.

Yet ye say, Wherefore?; (14) That is, “Why does He not accept our offerings?” The prophet answers this objection plainly: Because the Lord hath been a witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. The special mention of the wife of thy youth shows that elderly Jewish wives were being put aside so that husbands might marry young and attractive girls from their neighboring nations.¹¹ The phrase wife of thy covenant and the reference to God's being a witness to the covenant, point to a high view of marriage as a sacred compact made in the presence of Jehovah God. Douglas Rawlinson Jones observes: “Malachi plainly regarded a marriage witnessed by Yahweh, no doubt in a formal troth before the priest, as a covenant not to be broken. Man and wife are 'those whom the Lord hath joined together.’” ¹² Whether or not Old Testament marriages were formalized in a troth before the priest, there are other references which point up the truth that marriage is a covenant relationship to which the Lord witnesses (cf. Gen. 31:50; Prov. 2:16-17). Malachi speaks beautifully here of the wife of thy youth as thy companion (cf. Gen. 2:18-24).

Verse 15 is one of the most difficult in the Bible. An examination of the standard commentaries reveals that there is practically no agreement as to its meaning. It is the opinion of this writer that the RSV probably gives the correct sense: “Has not the one God made and sustained for us the spirit of life? And what does he desire? Godly offspring. So take heed to yourselves, and let none be faithless to the wife of his youth.” Some such rendering fits into the argument of the prophet. The purpose of Hebrew marriage was to insure “godly offspring.” By divorcing their Jewish wives and marrying strangers the sinners of Judah were destroying the divine purpose of marriage, i.e., to rear children who hold fast the faith of Israel.

This situation led the prophet to announce a truth found nowhere else in the Old Testament. The RSV renders it: “I hate divorce, says the Lord the God of Israel” (16). This is a departure from the Hebrew text, which reads, “He hates.” “Divorce although permitted and regulated by the Torah (Deut. xxiv. 1 ff.) is hateful to God,” says Cashdan. He then quotes the Talmud: “Hateful is he that putteth away his first wife; even the altar sheddeth tears because of this.”¹³ The reference to covering violence with his garment is based in the ancient custom of claiming a woman as wife by casting one's garment over her (cf. Deut. 22:30; Ruth 3:9; Ezek. 16:8). J. M. Powis Smith gives another possible translation of this verse which preserves the central idea: “‘For one who hates and divorces,’ says the Lord God of Israel, ‘covers his clothing with violence.’ … So take heed of your spiritual life, and do not be faithless.”¹⁴ Such a man does injustice to her who is as near to him as his garment.