John Calvin Commentary Malachi 1:9

"And now, I pray you, entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he accept any of your persons? saith Jehovah of hosts." — Malachi 1:9 (ASV)

He wounds the priests here more grievously—because they had so degenerated as to be wholly unworthy of their honorable office and title. “Go,” he says, “and entreat the face of God.” All this is ironical, for interpreters are much mistaken who think that the Prophet here exhorts the priests humbly to ask pardon from God, both for themselves and for the people.

On the contrary, he addresses them, as I have said, ironically, while telling them to be intercessors and mediators between God and the people; and yet they were profane men, who on their part polluted the whole worship of God and thus subverted the whole of religion: go you and entreat, he says, the face of God.

This duty, we know, was enjoined on the priests. They were to draw near to the sanctuary and present themselves before God as though they were advocates pleading the cause of the people, or at least intercessors to pacify God. Since they were in this respect the types of Christ, it was their duty to strive to be holy. Though the people abandoned themselves to all kinds of wickedness, it was still the duty of the priests to devote themselves with all reverence to the duties of their calling. As God had preferred them to their brethren, they ought especially to have consecrated themselves to Him with all fear, for the more excellent their condition was, the more eminent their piety and holiness ought to have been.

Justly then does the Prophet here inveigh so severely against them, because they did not consider that they were honored with the priesthood so that they might entreat God, and thus pacify His wrath and reconcile miserable men to Him. Go, he says, and entreat the face of God; Indeed! he will accept your face. We now understand the real meaning of the Prophet.

And now, he says, he will have mercy on us. Here also the Prophet derides them, because they boasted that they could prevail through their own high dignity to render God propitious. Indeed! he says, he will have mercy on us. But this is done by your hand, that is, by you. “Do you raise up your hands to God? And will he, on seeing you, be pacified towards you? Since then you are polluted, you are unworthy of the honor and office in which you so proudly glory.”

He does not, however, as we have already said, extenuate the fault of the people, and much less does he exempt from guilt those who were implicated in the same crimes. But he shows that the state of things was wholly desperate. For the common people disregarded God, and the priests, neglecting to make any distinctions, received every sort of victim, merely so that they might not be in want.

He shows them that the state of the people was extremely bad, as there was no one who could, according to what his office required, pacify God. Will he then receive your face? The Prophet seems to allude to the person of the Mediator. For as Christ had not yet appeared, when the priest presented himself before the altar, it was as though God looked on the face of one and thus became propitious to all. On this account, he says that the priests were not worthy that God should look on them, since they had polluted His sanctuary and corrupted His whole service. For the same purpose he adds—