Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

And now, O priests, this command is for you. ²If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the L ord of hosts, then I will send the curse on you and I will curse your blessings; indeed I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. ³I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and I will put you out of my presence.

⁴ Know, then, that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may hold, says the L ord of hosts. ⁵My covenant with him was a covenant of life and well-being, which I gave him; this called for reverence, and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. ⁶True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in integrity and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. ⁷For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the L ord of hosts. ⁸But you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the L ord of hosts, ⁹and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in your instruction.

The Covenant Profaned by Judah

¹⁰ Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors? ¹¹Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the L ord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. ¹²May the L ord cut off from the tents of Jacob anyone who does this—any to witness or answer, or to bring an offering to the L ord of hosts.

¹³ And this you do as well: You cover the L ord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor at your hand. ¹⁴You ask, “Why does he not?” Because the L ord was a witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. ¹⁵Did not one God make her? Both flesh and spirit are his. And what does the one God desire? Godly offspring. So look to yourselves, and do not let anyone be faithless to the wife of his youth. ¹⁶For I hate divorce, says the L ord, the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the L ord of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless.

¹⁷ You have wearied the L ord with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the L ord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Prophet now proves more clearly how God violates not his covenant, when he freely rebukes the priests, and exposes also their false attempts in absurdly applying to themselves the covenant of God, like the Papal priests at this day, who say that they are the Church. How? because they have in a regular order succeeded the apostles; but this is a foolish and ridiculous definition; for he who occupies the place of another ought not on that account only to be deemed a successor. Were a thief to kill the master of a family, and to occupy his place, and to take possession of all his goods, is he to be accounted his legitimate successor? So these dishonest men, to show that they are to be regarded as apostles, only allege a continued course of succession; but the likeness between them ought rather to be the subject of inquiry. We must see first whether they have been called, and then whether they answer to their calling; neither of which can they prove. Then their definition is altogether frivolous.

So also our Prophet here shows, that the priests made pretences and deceived the common people, while they sought to prove themselves heirs of the covenant which God had made with Levi their father, that is, with the tribe itself. “I shall be faithful,” says God, “and my faithfulness will be evident from the compact itself; my compact with your father was that of life and peace: ²¹⁷²¹⁷ That we may understand these terms we must have recourse to the case evidently alluded to, that of Phinehas, in Numbers 25:12,13. God promised to him the covenant of peace and of perpetual priesthood—of peace, that is, of reconcilement, because God through the zeal displayed by Phinehas became reconciled to the children of Israel — and of perpetuity as to the priesthood, signified here by life or “lives,” as the word is plural. — Ed. but it was mutual: ye seem not to think that there are two parties in a compact, and that there is, according to what is commonly said, a reciprocal obligation: but I on my part promised to your father to be his father, and I also stipulated with him that he was to obey me, to obey my word, and whatever I might afterwards require. Now ye will have me to be bound to you, and yourselves to be free from every obligation. What equity is this — that I should owe everything to you and you nothing to me? My compact then with him was that of life and peace; but what is your compact? what is it that ye owe to me? Even what the mutual compact which I made with your father Levi and his tribe requires; perform this, and ye shall find that I am faithful and constant in all my promises.” I cannot go farther now.

²¹⁷ That we may understand these terms we must have recourse to the case evidently alluded to, that of Phinehas, in Numbers 25:12,13. God promised to him the covenant of peace and of perpetual priesthood—of peace, that is, of reconcilement, because God through the zeal displayed by Phinehas became reconciled to the children of Israel — and of perpetuity as to the priesthood, signified here by life or “lives,” as the word is plural. — Ed.