John Calvin Commentary Malachi 2:11

"Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of Jehovah which he loveth, and hath married the daughter of a foreign god." — Malachi 2:11 (ASV)

The Prophet now explains how the Jews departed from the covenant of their fathers, and he exaggerates their sin, saying that an abomination was committed in Israel; as if he had said that this treachery was abominable. Some render the verb, בגד, begad, as "transgressed," and so it is often taken in Hebrew. But as in the last verse the Prophet had said, נבגד, nubegad, “Why do we deal treacherously, each one with his brother?” I have no doubt that it is repeated here in the same sense.

But as I have already stated, he shows the crime to be detestable, and says that it existed in Judah and in Jerusalem. God had indeed, as it is well known, preferred that tribe to others; and it was not a common favor that the Jews almost alone returned to their own country, while others nearly all remained in their dispersions. He adds Jerusalem, not for honor’s sake, but for greater reproach, as if he had said that not only some of the race of Abraham were subject to this condemnation, but that even the Jews were so, who had been allowed to return to their own country, and that even the holy city rendered itself subject to this reproof—the city in which the temple was, the sanctuary of God, which was then the only true one in the whole world. By these circumstances, then, the Prophet enhances their crime.

But he immediately comes to particulars: Polluted, he says, has Judah the holiness of Jehovah, which He loved; that is, because they individually indulged their lusts and procured for themselves wives from pagan nations.

Some interpret קדש, kodash, as the sanctuary or the temple; others as the keeping of the law. But I prefer to apply it to the covenant itself; and we might suitably take it in a collective sense, unless the simpler meaning is preferred—that Judah polluted his separation.

Regarding the Prophet’s object and the subject itself, he charges them here, I have no doubt, with profanation, because the Jews rendered themselves vile, though God had consecrated them to Himself. They had then polluted holiness, even when they had been separated from the world; for they had disregarded so great an honor, by which they might have been pre-eminent, had they continued in their integrity.

It may also be taken collectively, they have polluted holiness; that is, they have polluted that nation which has been separated from other nations. But as this exposition may seem difficult and somewhat strained, I am inclined to think that what is meant here is that separation by which the Jews were known from other nations. However, what I have stated may serve to remove whatever obscurity there may be. And that this holiness ought to be referred to that gratuitous election by which God had adopted the Jews as His peculiar people is evident from what the Prophet says: that they married foreign wives.

We then see the purpose of this passage, which is to show that the Jews were ungrateful to God because they mingled with pagan nations and knowingly and willfully cast aside that glory with which God had adorned them by choosing them, as Moses says, to be to Him a royal priesthood (Exodus 19:6).

Holiness, we know, was strongly recommended to the Jews, so that they might not abandon themselves to any of the pollutions of the pagans. Hence God had forbidden them under the law to take foreign wives, unless they were first purified, as we find in Deuteronomy 21:11-12. If anyone wished to marry a captive, she was to have her head shaved and her nails pared, by which it was intimated that such women were impure, and that their husbands would be contaminated, unless they were first purified.

And yet, it was not a wholly blameless thing when someone observed the law regarding a captive. But it was a lust abominable to God when they were not content with their own nation and burned with love for foreign women. However, as the Jews, like all mortals without exception, were inclined to corruptions, God purposed to keep them together as one people, lest the wife by her flatteries should draw the husband away from the pure and legitimate worship of God.

And Moses tells us that there was crafty counsel given by Balaam when he saw that the people could not be conquered in open war; he finally invented this artifice: that the pagans should offer them their wives and their daughters. Thus it happened that the people provoked God’s wrath, as we find it recorded in Numbers 25:4.

Since, then, the Jews after their return had again lapsed into this corruption, it is not without reason that the Prophet so severely reproves them. He says that by marrying foreign women they had polluted holiness, or that separation, which was their great honor, as God had adopted them alone as His people; and he calls it a holiness which God loved.

For by the word “love,” the Prophet means the mere kindness and bounty of God, with which He favored Abraham and his race, without regard to any worthiness or excellence. He therefore condemns them for this ingratitude, because they had not only departed from the covenant which the Lord had made with their fathers, but had also neglected and despised that gratuitous love, which ought to have softened even their iron hearts.

For if God had found anything in them as a reason why He preferred them to other nations, they might have been more excusable; at least they might have extenuated their fault. But since God had adopted them as His peculiar people, though they were unworthy and wholly undeserving, they must surely have been extremely brutish to have thus despised the gratuitous favor of God. Their baseness, then, is increased, as I have said, by this circumstance: that so great a kindness of God did not turn their hearts to obedience.

At the end of the verse, the Prophet makes known, as I have already stated, their profanation: they had married the daughters of another god. By way of reproach, he calls them the daughters of a strange god. He might have simply said foreign daughters; but he intended here to imply a comparison between the God of Israel and idols, as if he had said, “From where have these wives come to you? From idols. You ought then to have hated them as monsters. Had you any religion in your heart, what else but detestable to you must everything have been that came from idols? But your hearts have become attached to the daughters of false gods.”

And we find that this vice had been condemned by Moses and branded with reproach before the giving of the Law, when he said that the human race had been corrupted because the sons of God married the daughters of men (Genesis 6:2). This was because the posterity of Seth, who were born of the holy family, degraded themselves and polluted that small portion, which was holy and consecrated to God, by mixing with the world; for the whole world at that time had departed from God, except the descendants of Seth. The Lord then, before the Law, had marked this lust with perpetual disgrace. But when the Law itself, which ought to have been like a rampart, again condemned it, was it not a wholly inexcusable perverseness when the wantonness of the people broke through all restraints? He then adds—