Malachi 2:9

9 "So I in turn have made you despised and humiliated before all the people because you are not keeping My ways but are showing partiality in [your] instruction."[a]

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 lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts.
8 "You, on the other hand, have turned from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have violated the covenant of Levi," says the Lord of Hosts.
9 "So I in turn have made you despised and humiliated before all the people because you are not keeping My ways but are showing partiality in [your] instruction."
10 Don't all of us have one Father? Didn't one God create us? Why then do we act treacherously against one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
11 Judah has acted treacherously, and a detestable thing has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the Lord's sanctuary, which He loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Lv 19:15; Ps 82:2; Mt 22:16
Holman Christian Standard Bible ® Copyright © 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999 by Holman Bible Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.