John Calvin Commentary Malachi 2:3

"Behold, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and ye shall be taken away with it." — Malachi 2:3 (ASV)

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.