Section 2:10–16
Malachi rebuked the people of Israel because they had been unfaithful to the LORD
This section contains the central message of the book. It highlights its main theme: that is, that both the priests and the people had been unfaithful to the LORD. The LORD here called them to repent and to follow him again.
This section lists three specific ways in which the people of Israel as a nation had broken their covenant with the LORD:
(a) They had married wives who worshipped foreign gods.
(b) They had been unfaithful to their wives.
(c) They had even divorced their wives.
Also the people had been hypocritical. They asked the LORD to help them in order to show that they trusted him. Yet, at the same time, they continued to be unfaithful to him and to disobey him.
The Hebrew word bagad which means “faithless, treacherous” occurs five times in these verses. The repeated use of the word highlights both the unfaithfulness of the people to the LORD and their unfaithfulness to their wives.
This section contains one of the few places in the book in which it was the prophet himself who addressed the people. The prophet rebuked the people of Israel because they had been unfaithful to the LORD. He began his rebuke with a series of rhetorical questions. The first two questions in this section form a doublet, which makes an emphatic beginning, and all the questions indicate strong feeling.
Paragraph 2:10–12
2:10
As stated in the introduction to this section, in this verse and those following, it is the prophet himself who was speaking. The content of 2:10 makes this clear.
However there is no marker in Hebrew to indicate that it is no longer the LORD who was speaking (1:2–2:9) but Malachi. In some languages it may be necessary to make this explicit in some way. There are at least three possibilities:
• Indicate it in the section heading, as the section heading in these Notes has done:
Malachi rebuked the people of Israel because they had been unfaithful to the LORD.
• Use a footnote to explain that 2:10–15 are the words of Malachi.
• Make it explicit in the text. For example, you could begin 2:10 with a phrase like:
These are the words of Malachi:
I, Malachi, ask you:
Malachi said:
Use the option which is most appropriate in your language.
2:10a
Do we not all have one Father?: Here we refers to the people of Israel, not to human beings in general. Malachi identified himself with the rest of the people of Israel when he used the pronoun we here.
This is the first rhetorical question which Malachi himself used. He wanted to emphasize what he was saying by asserting something that his hearers all knew to be true. The question expects the answer “yes.” If you do not use rhetorical questions like this in your language, you can reword it as a strong positive statement. Here is one example:
⌊ You know⌋ that we all have one Father.
one Father: This refers to God. The Contemporary English Version makes this explicit:
Don’t you know that we all have God as our Father? (Contemporary English Version)
2:10b
Did not one God create us?: This is Malachi’s second rhetorical question and again it expects the answer “yes.” One way to express this as a positive statement would be:
⌊ You know⌋ that the same God created us.
General Comment on 2:10a–b
Notice that 2:10a and 2:10b say almost the same thing. The ideas are also arranged in a special pattern called a “chiasm.”
Do we not all have one Father ?
Did not one God create us ?
The parallelism and the chiasm indicate that these verse parts express an important idea in the text.
2:10c–d
Scholars interpret the connection between 2:10c and 2:10d in at least three ways:
(1) The statement in 2:10d explains the result of the people’s unfaithfulness to each other in 2:10c. They were unfaithful to each other, and, as a result, they profaned the covenant. For example:
Why do we deal treacherously each against his brother so as to profane the covenant of our fathers? (New American Standard Bible)
(2) The statements in 2:10c and 2:10d are two different ways that the people were displeasing God. For example:
Then why do we break our promises to one another, and why do we despise the covenant that God made with our ancestors? (Good News Translation)
(3) The statement in 2:10d indicates the way that the people had been unfaithful. They had been unfaithful by profaning the covenant. For example:
Then why do you cheat each other by breaking the agreement God made with your ancestors? (Contemporary English Version)
Some English versions are ambiguous about the connection. It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1).
See also the general comment on 2:10c–d for a reordering suggestion.
2:10c
Why then do we break faith with one another…?: That is, why do we (the people of Israel) not keep our commitments and promises to one another? This rhetorical question introduces the following verses, which describe ways that the people of Israel had been unfaithful to God’s commands. They had also been unfaithful to each other, especially in breaking their marriage vows.
then: The Berean Standard Bible has included the word then to show the relationship between 2:10c and the preceding questions in 2:10a–b. Those questions imply that the people should have been united because God was the father and creator of all of them. However 2:10c states that instead they were unfaithful to each other. Malachi did not expect them to act that way.
In some languages it may be necessary to make the expectation explicit. Languages have different ways to show that something was different from what the speaker expected. Here are some possibilities for translation:
• Use a connector which implies this. For example:
So why do people break their promises to each other…? (New Century Version)
• Refer to the preceding question to show the connection. For example:
Since that is true, why are we unfaithful to each other?
• Make Malachi’s expectation explicit. For example:
⌊ Because of this, you should have been faithful to each other.⌋ Why have you been unfaithful ⌊instead⌋…?
Use the option which is most appropriate in your language.
break faith: The Hebrew word bagad which the Berean Standard Bible translates as break faith is the key word in this section. See the discussion at the beginning of Section 2:10–16. This word describes the way the people of Israel behaved in all their relationships:
(a) they broke their promises to each other (2:10),
(b) they broke their promises to their wives (2:14–15) and
(c) they broke their covenant with God himself (2:11).
2:10d
so as to profane the covenant of our fathers: This statement explains the result of 2:10c. When the people were unfaithful to each other, they profaned the covenant.
profane: That is, disregard/disobey/violate.
the covenant of our fathers: This refers to the covenant which God made with the ancestors of the people of Israel. It may be necessary to make this explicit in some translations. This has been done in 2:10d in the Display.
General Comment on 2:10c–d
In some languages it may be more natural to change the order of these verse parts. Notice that it may be necessary then to use a different connector between 2:10c and 2:10d. For example:
10d Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers 10c by breaking faith with one another? (New International Version)
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