Malachi 2:3 Commentary and Bible Study

The nature of the curse is then spelled out. It is a curse that will bring to an end the priesthood as it was known under the law of Moses. ‘Behold, I will corrupt your seed’, which means that God will bring to an end the hereditary priesthood, and he will do so, not in an arbitrary way, but because it has utterly failed. It has failed to teach the people to honour the Lord and it has failed to protect the purity of worship. Of course, this had been going on for many centuries, but now the situation has shown itself to be irreparable. The people have only just returned from the captivity in Babylon. Only a minority of them has come back – we could say the best of them – and yet they have already so quickly returned to their old ways again. God knew this would happen. He knew that without the work of the Spirit in the heart unregenerate man is incapable of obeying him properly. In his goodness, something better was going to come from this curse of the priesthood, but that was hidden from these Jewish priests. The New Testament church was to be a priesthood of all believers.To show them how severely that had sinned against him, God says that he, to whom they brought their offerings, was the one who would testify against them. What should have been ‘a sweet savour, a sacrifice made by fire unto the LORD’ (Numbers 28:6), was in fact like piling up dung before him. This was shocking language but should have been language which they would understand. Let them grasp the point: that in bringing these defective offerings, they were insulting the Lord and bringing judgment on themselves. The solemn feast are of the same character. It would be better if they abandoned them altogether. As a fitting punishment, God will bring on this priesthood the shame of what they have done to him. Thus we find that for the most part the priests as a class were opposed to the ministry of Christ, and saw it as a threat to their status and position. Verse 4 explains the intent of this commandment give to reform worship. It shows how reasonable was God’s demand that they repent and reform. It is to restore the terms of the covenant God made with the tribe of Levi so many centuries before in the time of the giving of the law. That covenant had terms attached to it on God’s side and on man’s side. God had not broken his side, but the Levitical priests had disdained the Lord by their practices. The commandment is given, but God knows they will not obey.