Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
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THE BOOK OF MALACHI
Lesson 8, Chapter 2 Continued 2

We ended our previous lesson at Malachai chapter 2 verse 11, when we were
dealing with the issue of forbidden intermarriage between the Jews and gentile
foreigners. While this was directed mostly towards the Levite Priests, it
included the common Jewish population who did the same. Whether it was the
laxity of the priests first having the intermarriages such that the people
followed by observing and doing the same, or the general population first
doing it and the priests observing and then adopting the practice themselves,
we don’t know.

What we do know is that this intermarriage issue had always loomed large in
Israel from its earliest inception as a set-apart nation, and right on into New
Testament times. That, as well as the matter of fornication of Hebrew men
with foreign women, many of them being prostitutes. It was a Torah law that
Israelites were not to intermarry with foreign women. Nonetheless it happened
with alarming regularity. Paul, post-Yeshua, approached the matter from a bit
different angle.

CJB
1 Corinthians 6:16-20
16
Don't you know that a man who joins
himself to a prostitute becomes physically one with her? For the
Tanakh says, "The two will become one flesh"; 1
7
but the person who
is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
18
Run from sexual immorality! Every
other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the fornicator sins
against his own body.
19
Or don't you know that your body is a temple
for the Ruach HaKodesh who lives inside you, whom you received from
God? The fact is, you don't belong to yourselves;
20
for you were
bought at a price. So, use your bodies to glorify God .

Compare this to Malachai 2:11.

CJB
Malachi 2:11 Y'hudah has broken faith; an abomination has been
committed in Isra'el and Yerushalayim. For Y'hudah has profaned the
sanctuary of Yehoveh, which he loves, by marrying the daughter of a
foreign god.

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
2 / 14

In Malachai 2:11, we read “For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of
Yehoveh…” and then explains how they profaned it “…by marrying the
daughter of a foreign god”. One of course asks: assuming that the phrase
“sanctuary of Yehoveh” means the Temple, then how does marriage affect the
Temple sanctuary one way or another? The answer is Malachai is equating the
God worshippers of Israel with the sanctuary of Yehoveh, in the same way
Paul is equating Believers as that same sanctuary (only he uses the term
Temple, instead). Both times the Temple is being used as simile with which to
compare people to a building. In neither case is God meaning “the people ARE
the Temple (or sanctuary)”. The common people and the Israelite religious
establishment understood that rather simple literary feature, but Constantinian
Christianity has ignored it and instead attempted to use it literally in order to
advance the Church’s foundational faith pillar that all things Israel have been
replaced by all things gentile.

The point is, as concerns Israel, God is a husband to Israel, so Israel is
committing adultery by Jewish men marrying foreign women. And, for
Believers in Yeshua, to have sex with or to marry a non-Believer is to join
together a “sanctuary” of God (our bodies), with a “sanctuary” of a false god
(the body of a non-Believer). So, Paul is but echoing Malachai, even using the
same simile, but in a slightly different way.

Let’s re-read a portion of Malachai chapter 2.

RE-READ MALACHAI 2:11 – end

Since it is a Torah law that prohibits a man from marrying a foreign woman,
then if he does so anyway, there is a corresponding punishment. Verse 12
explains that punishment.

CJB
Malachai 2:12
12
If a man does this and presents an offering to
Yehoveh-Tzva'ot, may Yehoveh cut him off from the tents of Ya'akov,
whether initiator or follower.

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
3 / 14
The CJB rearranges this verse in a way that perhaps makes it easier to
understand, but I think is a less than satisfactory way to do so… and in fact, is
unnecessary. Here is what it says more literally in the Young’s Literal
Translation:

YLT
Malachi 2:12 Cut off doth Jehovah the man who doth it, Tempter
and tempted -- from the tents of Jacob, Even he who is bringing nigh a
present to Jehovah of Hosts

Let’s approach it from the YLT version. Cut-off is karet in Hebrew. This is a
very severe term that in its most typical sense means to blot out the existence
and memory of the wicked person, along with the ending of his family blood
line. So, here is a definitive case of immediate family as well as future
descendants bearing a punishment for the sins of an ancestor. It can even be
a case where there will be no descendants as a result of the punishment, so
those who may have been born and lived will never be born in the first place.
The horror of such a thought to the ancient peoples was the stuff of
nightmares. But, English language Bibles tend to water it down by saying
“excommunicated” or “banished” or some such milder thing.

As we move further into the verse, most English Bibles will say something
similar to the CJB, like: “may Yehoveh cut him off…”. May, of course, sounds
like the hope of a human wishing that this bad person would be cut-off. Or in
other versions, it is that Yehoveh “may” cut-off that person, which to English
speakers means God might or might not decide to. The correct understanding
is that God WILL do this. “Doth” expresses the proper idea of inevitability with
no chance of a different outcome. And, that is exactly what is intended.

Notice that the threat is directed to “the man who does this”. The Hebrew
word is ish, and while it can mean male or husband, the point is that it is
gender oriented. It speaks not of mankind (male and female together) but
only biological males. So, it is highlighted that the intermarriage issue is
directed at Israelite men marrying foreign women, and less so Israelite
females marrying foreign males. There are societal reasons for this, starting
with divorce laws of the universally male-dominated societies in Bible times.

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
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But then we get this strange phrase regarding who, exactly, will get punished.
The older and more traditional English translations say “him that calleth and
him that answereth” or “any to witness or answer”. Another long-standing
translation is “everyone who awakens and answers”. Frankly, these
translations are so cryptic as to be gibberish. Modern day experts in biblical
Hebrew see this is an idiomatic expression, since otherwise it makes little
sense. Perhaps it is some well understood cultural phrase associated with
everyday life in a community. So, while we can’t be 100% certain of its
meaning, considering the context it most likely is intending to implicate those
who actually commit intermarriage, and those who were accepting or
facilitating of it. And in both cases, these would mean Israelite men… more
specifically in Malachai, Jews.

We next get a further clarification about those that will be cut-off for such a
violation. It says: “…from the tents of Jacob”. This not only confirms that this
concerns Israelite males, but that they will be disassociated from their Israelite
heritage. Recall that the terms Jacob and Israel are synonymous. The phrase
“tents of Jacob” isn’t meaning for the reader to recall Israel’s nomadic time in
the wilderness. Rather, it is a common expression that means your home,
your community. And, the verse culminates with the words “he who is bringing
an offering to Yehoveh Tzva’ot.” Some believe this is intended to then direct
us to thinking that this verse is speaking to the priesthood. However, this can
just as easily be speaking of the individual common folks bringing their
offerings and sacrifices to the Temple. I lean towards this intending to
implicate the priesthood, since the first part of the verse implicates all Israelite
males in general. In other words, the goal is to tie all Israelite males
together… common men and priests… as the group from which the
abomination of intermarriage is occurring. A most sad state of affairs.

I think it needs to be said that, of course, the underlying principle applies to
modern day Believers in Yeshua. Men, we should avoid marrying non -Believing
women, and especially if that non-Believer is an out-and-out atheist. It is my
opinion that the 1
st
case (marrying a non-Believer, but who may at least
acknowledge there is a God) is less a sin and more a matter of our turning a
deaf ear to the crying out of wisdom not to do so. But, in the 2
nd
case (of
marrying an atheist), it is indeed a sin. What is more, sadly the religious

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
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leadership of our day is every bit as complicit in this matter as the laypeople,
as well as in the commission of other sexual sins that almost always
accompany it. It has long been known that the divorce rate among the clergy,
and the moral failures for the religious leadership, pretty much mirror that of
their congregations. And that the congregations pretty much mirror that of
secular society. This is the same general condition of the Jews in Yehud in the
days of Malachai.

CJB
Malachi 2:13 Here is something else you do: you cover Yehoveh’s
altar with tears, with weeping and with sighing, because he no longer
looks at the offering or receives your gift with favor.

Once again, let’s turn to the Young’s Literal Translation to get a more accurate
sense of what is happening here.

YLT
Malachi 2:13 And this a second time ye do, Covering with tears the
altar of Jehovah, With weeping and groaning, Because there is no
more turning unto the present, Or receiving of a pleasing thing from
your hand.

The order of a Hebrew sentence is much like the order of an English sentence
in that what comes first in a sentence carries greater weight than what comes
second, or later. The first words are in Hebrew wezo shenit ta asu. The “we”
or “ve” is a conjunction that connects two organically intertwined
circumstances. Thus, this verse is a continuation of, and connects the
indictment of, the previous couple of verses with, a new one. The previous
indictment was intermarriage (we could extend this, to a degree, to include
marriage in general), which is now connected to the issue of divorce. The
Hebrew zot (which essentially means “this”), is given in a form that indicates
a weighty matter. The next word shenit means second (with the issue of
marriage to pagans in the previous couple of verses being the first thing). So,
the idea being expressed is that the second trespass against God (divorce) is
the nearly inevitable consequence of the first thing (intermarriage with
pagans). And the second thing that is not yet precisely named (divorce) is
alluded to with the covering of Yehoveh’s altar with tears, weeping and
groaning.

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
6 / 14

The thing to understand is that the divorcing being spoken about, is of Hebrew
women married to Hebrew husbands. So, Hebrew men are divorcing their
Hebrew wives in order to marry pagan women. Israelite men didn’t need
anyone’s permission, nor was there some long process, to divorce. Mostly it
was only a matter of the man unilaterally announcing it and sending his wife
away. It happened fast and it happened frivolously, and for the worst possible
reasons. The results were often catastrophic for the women. Divorced women
were usually viewed as shamed and damaged. That made it difficult for them
to get accepted back into their father’s household to be cared for. The usual
result was poverty.

The grammar used in this verse expresses the intensity of the tears and
groaning of these abandoned Hebrew wives , which are at least as much about
the poor futures for them that lay ahead, as much as the agony of losing the
love of their husbands. And, how zealously they sought God (thus their tears
fell on God’s altar). Let me mention, as well, that the exact phrase used here
is mizbah Yehoveh , which translates best to Yehoveh’s altar or the altar of
Yehoveh. The point is, this is an expression not normally found outside of
Leviticus and Deuteronomy. That is, it is outside the Torah, meaning outside of
speech about the covenant. I mention this, because it is further evidence that
Malachai was likely a former priest whom God had called out of the Priesthood
to be His Prophet. His knowledge and easy speaking in covenant terminology
just keeps leading me to think that he had to have, at one time, been a Levite
Priest.

The last half of verse 13 explains the cause of all this pain. It is because
Yehoveh will not receive their offerings and sacrifices that relieves His anger
towards their husbands, and also gives the family favor and blessing. What,
then, do these divorced women want? They want God to return to them and to
return to showing them favor, probably by getting their husbands to reverse
course. But, just under the words, lies the sense that Israel must return to
sincere worship first, otherwise God will not react by returning to the type of
comforting behavior that these Jews hope will happen, just because it used to
happen.

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
7 / 14
CJB
Malachi 2:14 Nevertheless, you ask, "Why is this?" Because
Yehoveh is witness between you and the wife of your youth that you
have broken faith with her, though she is your companion, your wife
by covenant.

Verse 14 continues with this conversational style of dialogue, and has the
people responding as though they remain puzzled at why Yehoveh has
removed His blessing and presence from them. Why don’t you pay attention to
us or accept our sacrifices any longer, they ask? That is, it is not unlike the
way a teen responds after they have done something ridiculously
irresponsible, have been assigned their punishment, but then in a tone that is
more a demand, and a questioning of your sanity asks: “Why are you doing
this to me? What could I have possibly done wrong?” While it may sound like
genuine shock and disbelief, it is anything but. From Israel’s standpoint, they
are saying, “but I brought you all these wonderful gifts and sacrifices, so what
difference does it make what I’ve done apart from that?”. It is sort of the
ancient version of falling back on the belief of once-saved-always-saved.

“But God, why am I suffering these things? Why won’t you hear my prayers
and pleas? After all I did go forward and pray the sinner’s prayer. I tell people
I believe in Jesus. So, what difference does it make what I’ve done apart from
that? The deal is I live my life as I see fit, and you forgive me for whatever I
do wrong.” The Jews of Malachai’s day thought their lack of sincerity, and lack
of obedience, didn’t matter so long as they mechanically brought gifts and
sacrifices to the altar. Goodness, that was the really great thing about being a
Jew in the first place! And, so, many Believers think exactly the same way.
Where do you suppose those ancient Jews, and these modern Christians got
such an idea? They saw it by example, and heard it from their religious
leadership. But, then, when the consequences of their evil behavior and their
bankrupt beliefs finally happened, and God pulled back from them, they were
in disbelief, certain that whatever the cause was, it sure couldn’t have been
anything they did. After all, they had a Get-out-of-Jail Free card! So, why was
it being rejected?

In the case of verse 14, the response to “why is this?” asked by the shocked
Israelites, the answer given is: because God was the guarantor of the

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
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covenant made between the Hebrew wife you married when you were young,
and it is you that broke the covenant with her by divorcing her to marry a
woman who worships a foreign god. Covenant. Covenant. Covenant. It is
always about the covenant. Marriage is not only part of Torah law; it is of itself
its own covenant. And covenant is not a contract; a covenant has a spiritual
element to it that a contract does not. There is a depth to a covenant that is
so much more than an agreement among humans. I think of all the places in
the Bible that sums up best exactly what is being said here, and looks at this
issue from both the earthly and the heavenly perspectives, it has to be
Proverbs 2. I want us to read it all, so valuable is what it teaches us. All of
Proverbs is called Wisdom Literature, but little has so much wisdom condensed
into so few words as this Proverb.

CJB
Proverbs 2:1-22 My son, if you will receive my words and store my
commands inside you,
2
paying attention to wisdom inclining your mind toward
understanding-
3
yes, if you will call for insight and raise your voice for
discernment,
4
if you seek it as you would silver and search for it as
for hidden treasure-
5
then you will understand the fear of Yehoveh
and find knowledge of God.
6
For Yehoveh gives wisdom; from his
mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
7
He stores up common
sense for the upright, is a shield to those whose conduct is blameless,
8
in order to guard the courses of justice and preserve the way of
those faithful to him.
9
Then you will understand righteousness,
justice, fairness and every good path.
10
For wisdom will enter your
heart, knowledge will be enjoyable for you,
11
discretion will watch
over you, and discernment will guard you.
12
They will save you from
the way of evil and from those who speak deceitfully,
13
who leave the
paths of honesty to walk the ways of darkness,
14
who delight in doing
evil and take joy in being stubbornly deceitful,
15
from those whose
tracks are twisted and whose paths are perverse.
16
They will save you
from a woman who is a stranger, from a loose woman with smooth
talk,
17
who abandons the ruler she had in her youth and forgets the
covenant of her God.
18
Her house is sinking toward death, her paths
lead to the dead.
19
None who go to her return; they never regain the
path to life.
20
Thus you will walk on the way of good people and keep

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
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to the paths of the righteous.
21
For the upright will live in the land,
the pure-hearted will remain there;
22
but the wicked will be cut off
from the land, the unfaithful rooted out of it.

Malachai says of the wrongly divorced woman: she is the wife of your youth,
your companion, and the wife of your covenant. Solomon spoke in similar
terms of her in Proverbs.

CJB
Proverbs 5:15-23
15
Drink the water from your own cistern, fresh
water from your own well.
16
Let what your springs produce be
dispersed outside, streams of water flowing in the streets;
17
but let
them be for you alone and not for strangers with you.
18
Let your
fountain, the wife of your youth, be blessed; find joy in her -
19
a lovely
deer, a graceful fawn; let her breasts satisfy you at all times, always
be infatuated with her love.
20
My son, why be infatuated with an
unknown woman? Why embrace the body of a loose woman?
21
For
Yehoveh is watching a man's ways; he surveys all his paths.
22
A
wicked person's own crimes will trap him, he will be held fast by the
ropes of his sin.
23
He will die from lack of discipline; the magnitude of
his folly will make him totter and fall.

God hates divorce. There is no way around it. Yet, because He knows humans
so well, He has made laws and rulings to govern both marriage and divorce.
What is interesting, if one thinks about it, is that Malachai and Solomon
approach the issue as much from a wisdom standpoint as a legal standpoint. It
is unwise for a man to put away a good wife for no good reason other than he
wants a new and different one. In Bible times, in that region of the world,
divorce was purely in the hands of the husband. But, wisdom says it is far
better to feel greatly blessed by a good wife despite being seduced by an
unknown female. Why go that route? It is almost certain to result in disaster
and heartache for everyone involved. But even more, God sees. It is a wicked
man that does this, regardless of what that man might think.

It is not my intention to turn this into a lesson about divorce. Neither can I
leave it without saying that because the Western World has put women on a
much more equal path with men, then we rightfully can add the wife as one

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
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who might leave the marriage covenant wrongly, as much as the husband. The
Apostle Paul also addresses the matter mostly reiterating previously written
biblical thoughts about divorce by saying that if either party breaks faith with
the other, then yes, that is grounds for divorce that is not viewed as sin for
the aggrieved and otherwise faithful party. Neither can I sugarcoat it. The
modern view of no-fault divorce, and claiming irreconcilable differences
(meaning I just don’t wish to be married any longer) might be fine in a secular
environment if a covenant of marriage before God isn’t involved, but it doesn’t
fly with God if you took your vows in His name. Then it moves from unwise to
breaking His laws and commands. Sin. Let’s move on to verse 15.

CJB
Malachai (2:15)
15
And hasn't he made [them] one [flesh] in order
to have spiritual blood-relatives? For what the one [flesh] seeks is a
seed from God. Therefore, take heed to your spirit, and don't break
faith with the wife of your youth.

As difficult to interpret as Malachai chapter 2, overall, verse 15 (at least the
first half of it) is the most enigmatic of it all. Nearly every Bible translation has
a different take on it. And, sometimes the words given are so senseless that
it’s like somebody dropped a Scrabble game and the letters landed and
assembled themselves however they randomly did! As J.M.P. Smith once said:
This verse is hopelessly obscure”. How, then, shall we approach this?

My thinking is that provided this verse 15 (and really the remainder of
Malachai chapter 2) is legitimate and were actually there from the beginning
(even if they may have become somewhat corrupted in their copying), then it
is most legitimate to say that to whatever lengths we go to interpret it, it must
align with the context and spirit of all that has come before it, and will appear
after it, in Malachai’s small book.

The first words in Hebrew are welo echad asa. These words are presented
(according to the biblical Hebrew scholars) in a most rare grammatical form.
We can mean “and” or “but”. Lo is a negative that means no, non, or not.
Echad is most generally used to mean the number 1. The way it is used in a
sentence can mean literally the numerical 1, or one in a sense of something
organically joined together, or meaning a union. The word asa is usually

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
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interpreted as either “make” or “do”. Sometimes even “create”. The placement
of echad makes the meaning ambiguous. In a nutshell, either it was intended
that the “lo” (no or not) is meant to modify echad, or echad is meant to
modify asa (make or do). The result? The JPS Bible translation says:

JPS
Malachi 2:15 And not one hath done so…

But choosing the other word association produces:

RSV
Malachi 2:15 Has not the one God made…

Two very different meanings, and yet, both quite legitimate. We won’t go
through the remainder of the verse in this technical fashion. I just wanted to
show you what it is about this verse that makes it nearly beyond any confident
way to interpret it that I can stand up for. In the end, I agree with Andrew E.
Hill when he says: “Whatever the exact meaning of verse 15, the treachery
and faithlessness of divorce as practiced in post-exilic Yehud stands
diametrically opposite to the legacy of the covenantal oneness and faithfulness
that Israel received from Yehoveh.”

To paraphrase Hill, the point of this verse is that God in His unity with Israel,
and His unyielding faithfulness to the covenant that binds them together, was
supposed to be how Israel not only responded in reciprocal love to God, but
also how Israel responded together, human to human, within their Believing
community. Further, it should be exemplified even beyond a general
community oneness, to a virtual one-flesh type of oneness in the covenant of
marriage. Thus, divorce is terrible even for legitimate reasons. But, for a
Hebrew man to divorce his faithful Hebrew wife in order to join himself to a
pagan woman who worships a foreign (a false) god, is off the charts in
magnitude (it is called an abomination).

One of the most important takes that we must accept in this passage is that
while God may remove Himself for periods of time from Israel, in the sense
that He won’t protect and bless them, never will He renounce His faithful
covenant relationship with them. How quickly His presence and blessing
returns depends solely on how quickly Israel learns its lesson, repents, and

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
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returns to Him in obedience and sincere faithfulness. I say this with utmost
passion and determination because the Constantinian Church has turned this
completely on its head. The Church says that God has divorced Israel, that
Israel means nothing to Him now or forever, and that the gentile Church is
God’s new wife. This a lie straight from Satan himself, that overturns the
Bible, Old and New Testaments. If you have been following along with Torah
Class as we study the Minor Prophets in depth, this fact repeats again and
again and again.

Verse 16 says:

CJB
Malachi 2:16 "For I hate divorce," says Yehoveh the God of Isra'el,
"and him who covers his clothing with violence," says Yehoveh -
Tzva'ot. Therefore, take heed to your spirit, and don't break faith.

The first word of this verse is ki in Hebrew. It is used in what is called the
“causal” form, meaning that what has come just before this word (that is,
verse 15) happened because of what is said following the word ki. Thus, God
said what He said in verse 15, due to the cause that “I hate divorce”. So, yes,
God can hate (as we’ve seen before in the Prophets). And, yet, we read this in
Deuteronomy:

CJB
Deuteronomy 24:1 "Suppose a man marries a woman and
consummates the marriage but later finds her displeasing, because he
has found her offensive in some respect. He writes her a divorce
document, gives it to her and sends her away from his house.

The next several verses of Deuteronomy 24 spell out a number of terms about
what is to occur in a divorce. This isn’t about God saying that divorce is to be
expected and that He accepts it. Rather as omniscient God, He knows that it
WILL happen in Israel, and so for the protection of the women and the
children, He erects some guardrails without strictly forbidding divorce itself.

In fact, what seems to be happening in Malachai is that we have Hebrew
husbands divorcing in a technically legal way as opposed to just throwing their
wives out of the house without a get (a writ of divorce). Yehud was like a

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
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cancer patient at this time; and the cancer was rampant divorce. Next we get
to this statement about violence and garments. The Hebrew word used is
hamas, and it is usually translated as violence. And, yes, there is a direct
association between this Hebrew word and the Arabic word hamas, for which
the terror group Hamas has adopted for its name. While the Hebrew hamas
leans towards meaning violence and evil-doing, the Arabic hamas leans
towards meaning zeal or enthusiasm. However, the Arabic hamas means zeal
or enthusiasm in the sense of zeal to punish non-Muslims and enthusiasm to
make war on non-Muslim nations.

So, what has violence to do with one’s garment? A garment (clothing) is
designed to cover a person’s nakedness. But it is also an expression that is
sometimes used to describe covering a person with their inner self and
condition and attributes. Thus, a garment could, euphemistically, be a garment
of righteousness, or wickedness, or in this case of violence as indicating that
inner condition. We read a much earlier story in the Bible where the term
garment (lebusho in Hebrew), is employed where Boaz is urged to spread his
garment over the Moabite woman, Ruth. So, here in Malachai, the husband
who covers with his garment of violence, is referring to the divorcing husband.
He is acting in a terrible, unjust way towards his wife. Instead of covering her
with a wedded garment of protection and trust, he is covering her in a
garment of hostility.

Please also note that in the notice of God hating divorce, He says that He also
hates the husband who does this. Do not confuse this with the human notion
of hate, as meaning a severe psychological dislike. As concerns God, it is to be
looked at more in a political sense. That is, one of allegiance and acceptance.
So, for God to hate a person means to reject that person. To exclude them.

I want to sum up today’s lesson in this way. While God condemned divorce, He
didn’t outright prohibit it. From the human-to-human interaction standpoint,
God created some rules to control divorce from the sense of a proper and fair
process. From the divine standpoint, divorce was a breakdown in covenant
obligation between both God and man, and man and man. But from the
historical aspect as concerned the condition of Yehud at the time of Malachai,
it was an attempt to stop the chaos and build some stability in the Jewish

Lesson 8 – Malachi Chapter 2 Continued 2
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community of Yehud that the rampant divorce of Hebrew women was causing,
and equally as serious, the importation of idolatry caused by those same
Hebrew men marrying foreign women. The only remedy is to restore the
proper approach of the Jews to the long-standing covenant relationship Israel
has had with Yehoveh.

We’ll end it here and not finish with vs. 17 since vs. 17 really ought to be the
first verse of chapter 3, as it is the beginning of the 4
th
oracle of Judgment and
not the final verse of the 3
rd
oracle of Judgment.