Charles Ellicott 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)

For [I] hate divorce [of the first wife], says the God of Israel, and he [the divorcer of his first wife] covers his garment with injury, says the LORD of Hosts; therefore take heed to your spirit, and do not be faithless.

According to our interpretation, the whole of these two verses must be taken as the words of the prophet.

Any superiority. —We take Heb. sh’âr, “remnant” in the sense of yithrôn, “superabundance,” “superiority.”

Any superiority of spirit — i.e., any such essential superiority as to justify him in treating his wife as a mere slave, and divorcing her against her will.

This passage coincides more nearly with the spirit of Matthew 19:3 and following than with that of Deuteronomy 24:1-4.

To yourselves, or to your spirit. The expressions are equivalent. (Deuteronomy 4:15; Joshua 23:11.)

Let none be ...—Observe the change of person, so common in Hebrew. (Compare Isaiah 1:29.)

His garment. —Some take this to be an Oriental expression for “his wife.” (Compare Al Koran, 2:—“Wives are your attire, and you are theirs.”) Or garment may be taken as the external symbol of the inner state of the man. (Isaiah 64:5; Proverbs 30:9, and so on.)

Injury. —Heb., châmâs. This word is especially used of ill-treatment of a wife. (Compare Genesis 16:5.) Keil takes the first verse as follows: No man who had ever a remnant of reason [or a sense of right and wrong] has done [namely, what you are doing, namely, faithlessly putting away the wife of his youth. To this the people are supposed to object.]

But what did the one [Abraham] do? [To this the prophet answers] He was seeking a seed of God [namely, the child of promise: i.e., he dismissed Hagar, because God promised to give him the desired posterity, not in Ishmael through the maid Hagar, but through Sarah in Isaac, so that in doing this he was simply acting in obedience to the word of God (Genesis 21:12)].

Others vary the translation slightly, and render, And has no one done this who has a remnant of spirit in him? [This being supposed to be the objection on the part of the people. To this the prophet answers.] Why did he so act? He was seeking a godly seed.

Moore takes the verse quite differently, and refers it to the saying of Malachi 2:10. His words are, “The prophet at the outset had argued the return of the Jewish people ... therefore these marriages that violated their oneness were wrong ... He asks again ... Did not [God] make [us] one? Did He not separate us from other nations into an isolated unity? Yet this was not done because the blessing was too narrow to be spread over other nations ... for the residue of the spirit was with Him.

There remained an inexhaustible fullness of spiritual blessing that might be given to other nations. Why [then did He choose] but one? He was seeking a seed of God [a nation which He should train up to be the repository of His covenant, the stock of His Messiah].”

Many other interpretations have been proposed, but these are the only ones which are at all admissible.