John Calvin Commentary Malachi 2

He confirms here again what he had said in the last verse — that they would perceive God’s curse in want and poverty. The curse of God is any kind of calamity; for as God declares especially his favor by abundant provision, so the unfruitfulness of the land and deficient produce most clearly evidence the curse of God.

The Prophet then shows, by mentioning one thing, what sort of curse was near the Jews — that God would destroy their seed. Some read, but improperly, “I will destroy you and the seed.” I wonder how learned men make such childish mistakes, when there is nothing ambiguous in the Prophet’s words. I will destroy then for you the seed; that is, “Sow as much as you please, I will yet destroy your seed, so that it will produce no fruit.” In short, he threatens the Jews with scarcity and famine, for the land would produce nothing when cursed by God.

But as the Jews flattered themselves on account of their descent, and constantly boasted of their fathers, and as that preeminence with which God had favored them became for them an occasion of arrogance and pride, the Prophet here ridicules this foolish confidence: I will scatter dung, he says, on your faces.

“You are a holy nation, you are the chosen seed of Abraham, you are a royal priesthood; these are your boastings. But the Lord will make your faces filthy with dung; this will be your nobility and preeminence! Therefore, there is no reason for you to think yourselves exempt from punishments because God has adopted you. For as you have abused his benefits and profaned his name, so you will also find in your turn that he will cover you with everything disgraceful and shameful, so as to make you completely filthy. You will then be covered all over with dung and will not be the holy seed of Abraham.”

But as they might have again raised an outcry and said, “Have we then served God so diligently in vain? Why has he commanded a temple to be built for him by us and promised to dwell there? God then has deceived us, or at least his promises are of no avail.” — The Prophet gives this answer: “God will overwhelm you with disgrace, and also your sacrifices.”

But he calls them the dung of solemnities, as if he had said, “I will cover you with reproach on account of your impiety, which is seen in your sacrifices.” If the Jews had any holiness, they derived it from their sacrifices, by which they atoned for their sins and reconciled themselves to God. But the Prophet says that it was their particular foul odor which offended God, and which he abhorred, because they corrupted their sacrifices.

Nor should we dismiss what some of the rabbis have said: that the Prophet alludes to the oxen, calves, and rams. For when the Jews from various places brought their sacrifices, there must have been much dung from such a vast number. There is, then, a striking allusion here to the victims themselves, as if he had said, “You think that I can be appeased by your sacrifices, as though loads of dung were pleasing to me? For when you bring such a vast number, even the place itself — the area before the temple — emits a foul odor on account of the dung that is there. You are then, supposedly, holy, and all your filth is cleansed away by this dung! Be gone then, together with the dung of your solemnities; for I will cast this very dung on your heads.”

We now understand what the Prophet means. The words Behold, I are emphatic, for by these words God cuts off all those pretenses by which the Jews deceived themselves and thought that their vices were concealed from God.

“I myself,” he says, “am present, to whom you think your sacrifices are acceptable. I then will destroy your seed, and I will also cast dung on your faces. All the dignity which you claim will be abolished, for you think that you are defended by a sort of privilege when you boast that you are the seed of Abraham. It is dung, it is dung,” he says.

He then shows what the dung and filth particularly were: for when they objected and said, “What! Have our sacrifices been of no avail?” he answers, “No, I will cast that dung upon you, because the chief pollution is in your sacrifices, for you corrupt and debase my service. And what else is your sacrifice but mere profanation? You are sacrilegious in all your empty ceremonies.”

“Since, then, all your victims have a foul odor and displease me, and as I am nauseated by them (as is also said in the first and last chapter of Isaiah), I will heap the dung on your own heads, because you think it to be your chief atonement.”

He adds finally, It shall take you to itself; that is, “You will be dung altogether; and thus all your boastings, that you are descended from the holy Patriarch Abraham, will be completely useless. Though I made a covenant and promised that you should be to me a royal priesthood, yet the dung shall take you to itself, and thus whatever dignity I have until now conferred on you will be taken away.” Let us proceed.

Here he addresses the priests in particular; for though the whole people resisted God with great haughtiness, yet the priests surpassed them. And we know how ready people are to turn to evil whatever benefits God may bestow on them. It has then been a common evil in humanity from the beginning of the world, to exalt themselves and to raise their crests against God when they found themselves adorned with His benefits. But we know that the more anyone is bound to God, the more thankful they ought to be, for our gifts are not our own, but the benefits by which God binds us to Himself.

As Paul says, “What do you have that is your own? You then have no reason to glory” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

This evil, however, has always prevailed among people—that they have defrauded God of His glory and have turned the favors received from Him into an occasion for pride. But it is an evil very commonly seen in all governors. For those who are raised to a high dignity no longer think that they are human, but take great liberty for themselves when they find themselves so much exalted above others. Thus kings and those in authority seem to themselves to be above the common order of humanity and presumptuously disregard all laws; they think that everything is lawful for them, as no one opposes their willfulness.

The same thing is also to be seen in teachers. For when God favored the priests with the highest honor, they became blinded by that favor of God, as will be seen later, so that they thought themselves to be, as it were, demigods. And the same thing has taken place in the kingdom of Christ.

For how have such great impieties arisen under the Papacy, except because pastors exercised tyranny and not just government? For they have not regarded the purpose for which they were called to their office. But since the name of pastor is in itself honorable, they have dared to raise themselves above the clouds and to assume for themselves the authority of God Himself.

Hence, they have dared to bind consciences by their own laws, to change the whole truth, and to corrupt the whole worship of God; and from this also followed the scandalous sale of justice. How have these things happened? Because priests were regarded as angels come down from heaven; and this same danger is always to be feared by us.

This, then, is the vice to which the Prophet now refers. He shows that the priests had no reason to think they could shake off the yoke. “You shall know,” he says, “that this command belongs to you.” We indeed see what they objected to Jeremiah: “The law shall not depart from the priests, nor counsel and wisdom from the elders” (Jeremiah 18:18).

These are the weapons by which the Papists today defend themselves. When we present plain proofs against them from Scripture, they find themselves clearly reproved and convicted by God’s word. But here is their Ajax’s shield, under which they hide all their wickedness, repeating, as it were, from the ungodly and wicked priests what is related by Jeremiah: “‘The law shall not depart from the priests.’ We are the Church; can it err? Is not the Holy Spirit dwelling in our midst? ‘I am with you always, to the end of the world’ (Matthew 28:20). Did Christ intend to deceive His Church when He said this to His Apostles? And we are their successors.” The Prophet now gives the answer: “You shall know,” he says, “that this command belongs to you.”

And he adds, not without severity, “that my covenant may be with Levi”; as if he had said:

“Why are you so elated? For God cannot get a hearing for Himself, yet you say that the covenant with Levi is not to be void, as though God had put Levi in His own place and divested Himself of all authority when He appointed that tribe and made you ministers of the temple and teachers of the people. Is He nothing? What was God’s purpose when He honored you with that dignity? He certainly did not mean to reduce Himself to nothing; on the contrary, His will was that His own right should remain entire and complete.

When, therefore, I reprove your vices and show that you have become vile and, as it were, dung, that you are defiled by everything disgraceful—when I make these things openly known—I do not violate the covenant made with Levi. God then justly summons you before His tribunal and strips you of your honor, so that the covenant He made with Levi may be confirmed and ratified.”

This is, as I have said, a severe derision.

But we may learn a useful truth from this. The Prophet briefly teaches us that the priestly office takes away nothing from God’s authority, who requires a pure and holy worship, and that it in no way lessens the authority of the law, for sound doctrine ought always to prevail. So today, when we resist the Papal priests, we do not violate God’s covenant; that is, it is no departure from the order of the Church, which ought always to remain sacred and inviolable.

We do not then, on account of people’s vices, subvert the pastoral office and the preaching of the word; but we assail the people themselves, so that due order may be restored, that sound doctrine may obtain a hearing among humanity, that the worship of God may be pure, which these unprincipled men have violated.

We therefore boldly attempt to subvert the whole of the Papacy, with this full confidence, that we lessen nothing from the authority of teaching, nor in any way defraud the pastoral office. Rather, order in the Church, the preaching of the truth, and the very dignity of pastors cannot exist unless the Church is purged from its defilements, and its filth removed.

Thus we must also say of those unprincipled men who are too closely connected with us, or too near us—and I wish they were entirely extinct in the world! But how many pests conceal themselves under this covering, or under this mask: “What! Are we not the ministers of the word?” So say you who are without any principle. I wish you were in your dung or in your cells, where formerly you corrupted the world too much.

But now the devil has brought you forth into the Church of God, so that you may corrupt whatever had previously remained sound. Since, then, there are many today who boast of this honor—that they are ministers of the word, and pastors, and that they teach the gospel—they ought to be checked by this answer of the Prophet: that when all their corruptions are fully and truly cleansed away, then the compact which God wills to be valid with His Church and with the ministers of His word will be confirmed and ratified.

He then adds an explanation—

The Prophet now proves more clearly how God does not violate His covenant when He freely rebukes the priests and also exposes their false attempts to absurdly apply God's covenant to themselves, like the Papal priests today who say that they are the Church.

How so? Because they claim to have succeeded the apostles in a regular order. But this is a foolish and ridiculous definition, for someone who occupies another's place should not, for that reason alone, be considered a successor.

If a thief were to kill the master of a family, occupy his place, and take possession of all his goods, is he to be considered his legitimate successor?

So these dishonest men, to show that they are to be regarded as apostles, only allege a continuous line of succession. However, the likeness between them is what should rather be examined.

We must first see whether they have been called, and then whether they live up to their calling; they can prove neither of these.

Therefore, their definition is altogether frivolous.

So also our Prophet here shows that the priests made pretenses and deceived the common people, as they sought to prove themselves heirs of the covenant which God had made with Levi their father, that is, with the tribe itself.

God says, “I will be faithful, and My faithfulness will be evident from the compact itself: my compact with your father was that of life and peace. But it was mutual. You do not seem to think that there are two parties in a compact, and that there is, as is commonly said, a reciprocal obligation.

But I on My part promised your father to be his father, and I also stipulated with him that he was to obey Me, to obey My word, and whatever I might afterwards require. Now you want Me to be bound to you, and yourselves to be free from every obligation.

What kind of fairness is this—that I should owe everything to you and you nothing to Me? My compact then with him was that of life and peace. But what is your compact? What is it that you owe to Me?

It is what the mutual compact I made with your father Levi and his tribe requires. Perform this, and you will find that I am faithful and constant in all My promises.” I cannot go further now.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that as You have been pleased to choose us today Your priests, and have consecrated us to Yourself by the blood of Your only-begotten Son and through the grace of Your Spirit, O grant, that we may rightly and sincerely perform our duties to You, and be so devoted to You that Your name may be really glorified in us. May we thus be more and more confirmed in the hope of those promises by which You not only guide us through the course of this earthly life, but also invite us to Your celestial inheritance. And may Christ Your Son so rule in us, that we may ever cling to our Head, and be gathered as His members into a participation of that eternal glory into which He has gone before us. Amen.

[Exposition continues from previous day's lecture]

We began in the last lecture to explain what the Prophet says here about the priesthood. We have said that the sum of the whole is that wicked priests vainly lay claim to the title of honor if they do not faithfully perform their office.

For the compact between God and them is mutual, since God did not institute priests under the law to allow them unbridled liberty or to deprive Himself of all power. On the contrary, He set them over the Church to retain the people in true religion.

Since, then, the obligation is, as they say, reciprocal, there is no reason for the priests to arrogate supreme power and deprive God of it.

The Prophet then had said that God’s compact with Levi was that of life and peace, because God, who is faithful in His promises, had promised to be propitious to the Levites. Our Prophet therefore calls it the compact of life and peace because the Levites had found that God was in every respect kind and bountiful whenever they performed their parts.

He now adds, I gave to him fear, and he feared me. The interpreters who consider the preposition for, or on account of (propter), to be understood here pervert the whole sense.

For “fear” here is to be taken as the rule of worshipping God, as if He had said, “I have prescribed how he is to perform his office rightly.”

He means then that God gave the Levites knowledge of the way in which He was to be served, because He would not have them wander according to their own notions, but He prescribed to them the duties of their office.

It is as if He had said, “You are indeed endowed with no common honor, for you are the teachers of the Church. Yet I have laid a restraint upon you; just as I have commanded the people to obey you, so I have commanded you what to do.

Since then I have given My fear to Levi, since I have prescribed how he is to worship Me, is it not now most shameless and most impious to boast of the honorable name of priesthood and at the same time to be no priests?

For what is it to be God’s priest, except to govern the Church as God has commanded? I have then given him my fear.”

And he feared me; that is, he observed the law laid down for him.

And he was contrite before my name; that is, “he conducted himself in a humble manner. He did not exalt himself out of vain pride, so that he might oppress My Church, rule tyrannically, and subvert all due order.

Instead, he was an example of humility, for he acknowledged himself all the more bound to Me, because I honored him with such dignity as to make him the ruler of My Church.”

He explains more fully how Levi responded to God’s command, — that he had the law of truth in his mouth. The chief duty of a priest is to show the right way of living to the people; for however upright and holy one may be throughout his whole life, he is not on that account to be considered a priest.

Therefore, our Prophet dwells especially on this point — that Levi taught the people. He does not speak of Levi himself, for we know that Levi was dead when Aaron was made a priest. For God does not speak here of individuals, but of the tribe, as though He had said, “Aaron and Eleazar, and those who followed them, knew for what purpose they were honored with the priesthood, and they faithfully performed their duties.” The Prophet now explains what God mainly requires from priests — to show the people, as I have already said, the way of living a pious and holy life. However, he uses different words, which still mean the same thing.

The law of truth, he says, was in his mouth. Why does he not commend the integrity of his heart rather than his words? If he had spoken of an individual, the Prophet might have justly said that he who sought to be an approved servant of God had conducted himself harmlessly towards men. But he speaks of a public office when he says that the law of truth was in his mouth, for he who is mute is not worthy of that honor. Indeed, nothing is more preposterous, or even more ridiculous, than that those should be considered priests who are not teachers. These two things are, as they say, inseparable — the office of the priesthood and teaching.

And so that he might more clearly show that he is not speaking of an ordinary matter, he repeats the same thing in other words: Iniquity was not found in his lips. We therefore see that all this belongs distinctively to the priestly office. He afterward adds, In peace and rectitude he walked before me.

The Prophet here also commends the sincere concern for religion that the first priests manifested, for they walked with God in peace and uprightness. They not only carried signs in their lips and mouth, by which they might have been justly considered the ministers of God and the pastors of His Church, but they also faithfully carried out their office.

And he alludes to the peace of which he had spoken. As God then had promised peace to the Levites, so also he says that the Levites themselves had lived peaceably before God, for they did not break the covenant which He had made with them. Since they had responded to God's stipulation, he says that they had walked in peace. But he also mentions how this was so: it was because they had walked in uprightness.

And the phrase, אתי, ati, 'with me,' ought to be observed, for it confirms what I have stated, — that the honor of the priesthood in no way lessens God’s authority, because He keeps the priests devoted to Himself. He intimates then that they were not elevated to such a height that their dignity took anything away from God’s authority. For the obligation that has been mentioned ought to be mutual: God is faithful, and the priests also must be faithful in their office and show themselves to be the legitimate ministers of God.

He also mentions the fruit of their doctrine, for Levi turned many from iniquity; that is, he led many to repentance. It afterward follows (for this verse ought to be joined)—

What the Prophet has said of the first priests he now extends to the whole Levitical tribe, and shows that it was a perpetual and unchangeable law regarding the priesthood. He had said that Levi had been appointed over the Church, not to claim for himself the honor due to God, but to stand in his own place as the minister of God and the teacher of the chosen people.

He now confirms the same thing, declaring it as a general truth that the lips of the priest ought to retain knowledge. This is as if he had said that they were to be the storehouse from which the food of the Church was to be drawn.

God then appointed the priests over his chosen people so that the people might seek their food from them as from a storeroom, just as is the case with the head of a household, who has his storeroom for wine and provisions.

Just as the food for an entire family is usually taken from places where provisions are stored, so the Prophet uses this analogy: God has deposited knowledge with the priests, so that the mouth of every priest might be a kind of storehouse, so to speak, from which the people are to seek knowledge and the rule of a religious life: Keep knowledge then shall the lips of the priest, and the law shall they seek from his mouth.

He shows how this knowledge is to be kept: the priests are not to withhold it, but the whole Church is to enjoy the knowledge of which they are the keepers. The people, therefore, shall seek or demand the law from his mouth.

The term “law” may be understood simply as truth; but the Prophet undoubtedly alludes here to the doctrine of Moses, the only true fountain of all knowledge. Indeed, we know that God included in his law whatever was necessary for the welfare of his Church, nor was anything added by the Prophets. Our Prophet then includes every truth in the word תורה (ture), or law, in such a way that he might at the same time show that it was contained in what Moses taught.

Finally, he says that the priest is the messenger of Jehovah. He briefly defines here what the priesthood is: namely, an embassy that God entrusts to men, so that they may be his interpreters in teaching and ruling the Church.

What then is a priest? A messenger of God and his interpreter. It therefore follows that the office of teaching cannot be separated from the priesthood, for it is a monstrous thing when anyone boasts of being a priest but is not a teacher.

The Prophet then draws an argument from the definition itself when he says that a priest is a messenger of God. Then follows the contrast when he says