Albert Barnes Commentary Malachi 2:16

"For I hate putting away, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, and him that covereth his garment with violence, saith Jehovah of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously." — Malachi 2:16 (ASV)

He hateth putting away—He had allowed it for the hardness of their hearts, yet only in the one case of some extreme bodily foulness discovered upon marriage, and which the woman, knowing the law, concealed at her own peril. Not subsequent illness or any consequences of it, however loathsome (as leprosy), were a ground of divorce, but only this concealed foulness, which the husband “found” upon marriage. The capricious tyrannical divorce, God says, He hateth: a word Naturally used only concerning sin, and so stamping such divorce as sin.

One covereth violence with his garment—or, and violence covereth his garment, or, it might be, in the same sense, he covereth his garment with violence, so that it cannot be hidden, nor washed away, nor removed, but envelops him and his garment; and that, to his shame and punishment.

It was, as it were, an outer garment of violence, as Asaph says (Psalms 73:6), violence covereth them as a garment; or David (Psalms 109:18), he clothed himself with cursing as with a garment. It was like a garment with fretting leprosy, unclean and making unclean, to be burned with fire (Leviticus 13:47–58).

In contrast, the redeemed saints had (Revelation 7:14) washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb. Having declared God’s hatred of this their doing, he sums up in the same words, but more briefly: and this being so, ye shall take heed to your spirit, and not deal treacherously.