Matthew Henry on Malachi 2:1-9
What was said in the foregoing chapter was directed to the priests (Mal 1:6): Thus saith the Lord of hosts to you, O priests! that despise my name. But the crimes there charged upon them they were guilty of as sacrificers, and for those they might think it some excuse that they offered what the people brought, and therefore that, if they were not so good as they should be, it was not their fault, but the people's; and therefore here the corruptions there complained of are traced to the source and spring of them - the faults the priests were guilty of as teachers of the people, as expositors of the law and the lively oracles; and this is a part of their office which still remains in the hands…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Malachi 2:9
Because ye do not keep the condition of the covenant, I will not fulfil the promise.
partial in the law--having respect to persons rather than to truth in the interpretation and administration of the law (Lev 19:15).
John Gill on Malachi 2:9
Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base,.... When their city and temple were destroyed by the Romans, and they were carried captive by them, and became a taunt and a proverb in all places where they came:
before all the people; the nations of the world, among whom they were scattered:
according as ye have not kept my ways; neither those which the law directed to, either moral or ceremonial; nor what the Gospel directed to, the ordinances and institutions of Christ, particularly baptism, which the Jews rejected against themselves, Luke 7:30,
but have been partial in the law; in the observance of it, attending to the lesser, and taking no notice of the weightier matters of it,…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Malachi 2:9
Malachi 2:9
9. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.
9. Atqui etiam ego dedi vos probrosos et abjectos toti populo, secundum quod non servastis vias meas, et extulistis personas in lege.
The Prophet draws this conclusion -- that the priests in vain gloried in the honor of their office, for they had ceased to be the priests of God. We may now return to the main point.
We perceive what the subject is which the Prophet handles here: as the priests sought by a peculiar privilege to exempt themselves from all reproof, he assails them in particular; for teaching would have been useles…
