Albert Barnes Commentary Malachi 2:12

"Jehovah will cut off, to the man that doeth this, him that waketh and him that answereth, out of the tents of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto Jehovah of hosts." — Malachi 2:12 (ASV)

The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar - literally, “The Lord cut off from the man that does this, watcher and answerer.” This is apparently a proverbial saying in which the two corresponding classes comprise the whole.

Yet it is probable that one is the active agent and the other, the passive. The one, as a “watcher,” goes his rounds to see that nothing stirs against that which he is to guard; the other “answers” when roused.

Together, they express the two opposite classes: active and passive sin—those who originate the sin, and those who adopt or retain it at the instigation of the inventor or active propagator of it. It will not exempt from punishment that he was led into the sin.

From the tabernacles of Jacob - Perhaps “he chose the word to remind them of their unsettled condition,” out of which God had brought them.

And him that offereth an offering unto the Lord of hosts - that is, him who, doing these things, offers an offering to God, to bribe Him, as it were, to connivance at his sin.

In the same sense, Isaiah says that God hates “iniquity and the solemn meeting,” (Isaiah 1:13) and “I hate robbery with burnt-offering;” (Isaiah 61:8). Or Solomon says (Proverbs 15:8), “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord”; and (Proverbs 28:9), “he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, his prayer shall be an abomination.”

And God by Amos says, “I hate, I despise, your feast-days, and will not accept your solemn assemblies.”

In one sense, the sacrifice was an aggravation, because the worship of God made the offence either a sin against light or implied that God might be bribed into connivance in the breaking of His laws. The ancient discipline of removing from communion those guilty of grievous sin was founded on this principle.