Malachi 2:9

9 Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.

Malachi 2:9 Meaning and Commentary

Malachi 2:9

Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base
When their city and temple were destroyed by the Romans, and they were carried captive by them, and became a taunt and a proverb in all places where they came: before all the people;
the nations of the world, among whom they were scattered: according as ye have not kept my ways;
neither those which the law directed to, either moral or ceremonial; nor what the Gospel directed to, the ordinances and institutions of Christ, particularly baptism, which the Jews rejected against themselves, ( Luke 7:30 ) : but have been partial in the law;
in the observance of it, attending to the lesser, and taking no notice of the weightier matters of it, as the Jews are charged by Christ, ( Matthew 23:23 ) and in the interpretation of it, restraining its sense only to outward actions, for which they are reproved, ( Matthew 5:1-48 ) or "received faces", or "accepted persons in the law" F24; in matters of the law they were concerned in, they had respect to the persons of men, by giving the sense of it, and pronouncing judgment, in favour of some, to the prejudice of others, wrongly.


FOOTNOTES:

F24 (hrwtb Mynp Myavwnw) "et accepistis faciem in lege", Pagninus; "assumentes facies", Montanus; "suscipitis faciem", Piscator; "accipitis faciem", Cocceius; "et ferentes faciem in lege", Burkius.

Malachi 2:9 In-Context

7 For the priest’s lips keep wisdom, and they seek the law at his mouth; for he is an angel of the LORD of the hosts.
8 But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble in the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, said the LORD of the hosts.
9 Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.
10 Have we not all one father? has not one God created us? why do we despise each man his brother by breaking the covenant of our fathers?
11 Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of the LORD by loving and marrying the daughter of a strange god.
The Jubilee Bible (from the Scriptures of the Reformation), edited by Russell M. Stendal, Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2010