Malachi 2 Footnotes

Malachi admonished the men of Judah to honor the commitment they had made to the wife they married under the Lord’s covenant and not to “act treacherously” (v. 16) against her. To divorce her to marry a pagan woman would be to break faith with the Lord, as well as with her. The Lord finds such an action detestable. Malachi appealed not only to the covenant but also to the Lord’s creation of man and woman with “a portion of spirit” (v. 15) to become one flesh (Gn 2:7,21-23). As Creator, God is the Father of his people and desires covenantal loyalty within his family (Mal 2:10). (Apparently polygamy was not an option in Judah at this time, although earlier figures in OT history such as the Hebrew patriarchs, David, and Solomon had more than one wife. Either monogamous marriage had become the norm or, under the rigorous conditions of the earlier return from exile, men of ordinary means could not afford to practice polygamy.)