Malachi 2:11 - Exposition

Judah , the whole nation, is guilty of this crime, has broken her promised faith. The special sin, mixed marriages, is named at the end of the verse. In Israel and in Jerusalem. The mention of Israel, the sacred covenant name, is meant to make the contrast between profession and practice more marked. But some critics would hero cancel the word "Israel," as being a clerical error (see note, Zechariah 1:19 ). Jerusalem is named as the centre of the theocracy, which gave its tone to the-people. For Judah hath profaned the holiness ( sanctuary ) of the Lord, which he loved ( loveth ); Septuagint, ἐβεβήλωσεν ἰούδας τὰ ἅγια κυρίου ἐν οἷς ἠγάπησε , "Judah profaned the holy things of the Lord in which he delighted." Many consider that by the "sanctuary" is meant the temple, into which these heathen wives had penetrated, either led by curiosity or introduced by their profane husbands. But we have no knowledge that this was the case. It is better to take "the sanctuary," or that which is holy unto the Lord, to be the chosen nation itself, the community beloved by God, which was holy by election and profession, even as Christians are commonly called saints in the Epistles. (For the term as applied to the Israelites, see Exodus 19:6 ; Exodus 22:31 ; Le 11:44; Exodus 19:2 ; comp. Ezra 9:2 ; Nehemiah 13:29 .) The daughter of a strange god. A woman who is an idolatress, who adhered to a foreign deity ( Jeremiah 2:27 ), as the Israelites are called "sons of Jehovah," as joined to him in communion ( Deuteronomy 14:1 ; Proverbs 14:26 ). The LXX . omits the point of the charge, rendering, καὶ ἐπετήδευσεν εἰς θεοὺς ἀλλοτρίους , "and followed after strange gods."