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Mal.2:1. And now this commandment is for you, priests. If you do not want to carefully listen to what I say, and prefer the honor given to Me to everything in the aggregate. Mal.2:2. I will cast an oath on you, and I will curse your blessing, and I will tarnish it: and I will destroy your blessing, and it will not be in you, except you did not put it in your hearts. He calls the priesthood itself, which has been received by God’s grace, a blessing; it is threatened to be ruined and destroyed for the abuse committed in it. Mal.2:3. Behold, I will excommunicate your ramo, and I will scatter the tripe on your faces, the tripe of your holidays, and I will accept you together. Aquila translated it as follows: “Behold, I will impose a ban on you and with a shoulder, and I will scatter the dung on your faces, the dung of your holidays.” since according to the law the priests were assigned the breast and right frame; then God threatens that he will reject both them and the frame separated by them. But instead of the word: “breast” there is the word: “offal” - a container for droppings. For in ancient times, when the priests were pious, God gave them the right frame, as a symbol of active virtue, and the breast, which, like a shell, covers the heart, protecting and covering it, as a symbol of the dogmas of piety. since they voluntarily retreated from piety and became deprived of virtue; then he tells them that he will scatter the offal, the receptacle of excrement, on their faces, thereby signifying their shame and dishonor. When I have fulfilled this, says God, you will know that I gave your ancestors the commandment about sacrifices. Then in the name of Levi it ​​resembles the first priest Aaron. For he said this: Mal.2:4. And you will understand that the Lord has sent you this commandment, that my covenant should be made to the Levites, says the Lord Almighty. Then he adds to this: Mal.2:5. My covenant was with him of life and peace, and I gave him fear to fear Me, and at the presence of My name he was to be afraid. Whoever does this, says God, I have promised him life and peace as a reward. That is why He called His covenant, as one who delivers all these things to the obedient, the covenant of peace and life. Mal.2:6. The law of truth was not in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his mouth: walk with me to correct the world, and convert many from unrighteousness. For sin produces enmity against God, but righteousness brings peace. Therefore, God says: Aaron, following the right path, keeping the truth and being horrified by unrighteousness, enjoyed My mercies, and enjoying My peace, became a guide to the Truth for many who were in error. For justice requires the priest primarily to be a doer of God’s laws; because he was appointed to be a teacher of others, and he was entrusted with interpreting the words of God, he Mal.2:7. Angel of the Lord Almighty, proclaiming God's will to others. Mal.2:8. But you have turned away from My path, and have made many weak in the law, and have corrupted the Levin covenant, says the Lord Almighty. Instead of: “the weariness of many,” Aquila and Symmachus translated: “they seduced.” God says this: having loved iniquity, you brought others to destruction. Then, he predicts the disasters that will befall them now. Mal.2:9. And I have given you that you have been humiliated and rejected throughout all the nations, because you have not kept My ways, but have become people of the law. Symmachus translated: “respected persons in law.” God accuses them of having become transgressors of the law, and to please others they judged illegally, or took money from those making sacrifices, and accepted from them sacrificial animals that had any damage to their members. Mal.2:10. Isn't there one Father for all of you? Isn’t God the only one who created you? because you have abandoned every one of your brothers, you have profaned the covenant of your fathers. Having been created by one God, who, like a Father, expresses His love for all of you, you have neglected so much about those who are of the same nature as you, you have not respected communication with them both in nature and in grace, but you have left your brothers without any care for them, you did not pay attention when they became violators of My laws, and, moreover, having before your eyes an example useful to you, Judah and Jerusalem. Mal.2:11. Judah was forsaken, and an abomination became in Israel and in Jerusalem: therefore Judah desecrated the holy one of the Lord, which he loved, and clearly showing that he loved, he adds: Judas is considered vile both in Israel and in Jerusalem; because he openly indulged in lawlessness, trampled on God’s laws, and instead of the Existing God, worshiped non-existent gods. Then God pronounces a general threat against everyone like Judas. Mal.2:12. The Lord will consume the man who does this until he humbles himself from the villages of Jacob, and from those who offer sacrifice to the Lord Almighty. For he who lives in wickedness is a stranger to the congregation of the pious. After this, God turns his speech to another accusation, and accuses them of leaving their spouses and having unlawful relations with other wives. Mal.2:13. And this, even if you hate, create. But pitiful is he who loves what God hates. What this is is explained further: We cover the altar of the Lord with tears, and we cry and sigh from our labors. The wives, offended by their husbands, finding no protection for themselves, indulging in lamentation and tears, cried out to the righteous Judge; They were forced to do this by the grief that oppressed them. This is expressed by the Prophet with the words: “from labor.” And when you do this: Is it still worthy to look upon your sacrifice? Mal.2:14. And rest: what for? Your iniquity testifies that what you offer is vile; and you remain insensitive and pretend that you don’t know the reason for this. Therefore, following the usual patience, I will reveal this reason to you. For the Lord has testified between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have forsaken, both your companion and the wife of your covenant. Mal.2:15. And do not create another, and the remnant of your spirit. Remember the first law given to Adam and Eve. For, as soon as God created the wife, like a certain bridegroom, he brings her to her husband and gives the laws of marriage, saying: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and the two shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). And so the God of all things Himself created both, and combined them, and decreed this law; How do you dare to openly violate what was decreed from the beginning, and do not remember God’s blessing announced to your fathers: “Grow and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen. 9:1)? For this is what God says here: “and the remnant of your spirit.” Having a mortal nature, preserve the memory of yourself for a long time in those you give birth to. But God legalized this, and you contradict, saying: God cares not about chaste marriages, but about having many children. And rest: God seeks what else but seeds! But I command you, leaving these speeches behind, to keep God’s laws, and not to separate the married woman from the marriage yoke. Then God reminds us of the leniency made in the law. Mal.2:16. But if you hate, let him go, says the Lord of Israel. For in the law God commands that a husband, if he is ill-disposed toward his wife, should give her a vacation book. The Lord, interpreting this law to the Pharisees, says: “Moses, out of the hardness of your hearts,” legitimized this; from the beginning it was not like this: “I created them, male and female” (Matthew 19:4, 8), that is, I created one and one, and not one man and two wives, so that, having hated one, they would unite with the other. Therefore, such a creation was the law of chastity. But since the God of all knew the violent disposition of the Jews, he knew that they, wanting to get rid of their hated wife, and not being able to do this according to the law, would dare to kill her; then he allows lesser evil in order to prevent greater evil, and says: “If you hate, let go”; because it is combined with another, and will not live in sorrow. In the Holy Gospel, teaching virtue, the Lord clearly cries out: “Whoever lets his wife go, except in the words of an adulterer, commits adultery, and whoever understands the prostitute commits adultery” (Matthew 5:32). But here, too, the same thing is meant. Your hidden thoughts will be laid bare, says the Lord Almighty. If you do not divorce the marriage for some plausible and fair reason; then the Lord of all will be your judge. Therefore keep your spirit and do not forsake covenant. Curb your evil desires, and do not dissolve the marriage conditions. Thus, having accused them of this lawlessness, and having given a cure appropriate to the ailment, the Prophet begins to denounce the blasphemy they dared to commit, and says: Mal.2:17. Your words anger God, and ask: Why have you angered Him? You will not restrain yourself: everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and is well pleased with them: and where is the God of righteousness? For others, seeing those living viciously and enjoying prosperity, out of extreme foolishness, dared to say that God usually favored the vicious; Otherwise I would not have given them such happiness. This blasphemy, says God, especially moved Me to punish you. But you do not consider this great wickedness even a small sin. For, denouncing this insensitivity of them, the Prophet said: “And why did he anger Him?” You should have known that the God of all is the source of truth. And as a source of truth, he abhors those who love vice. But the law of His economy is ineffable. However, I declare to you that the time of righteous retribution will come. And wanting to make this clear, God first foretells the first coming of the Lord Christ, and indicates the great John the Baptist, the Forerunner of this coming. For he says: