Broken hearts

The previous two posts have discussed how we can despise our spiritual birthright by not valuing our relationship with God. This post takes a look at how the priests and men of Israel were dishonoring their birthrights by despising their relationships with their wives.

In Malachi 2:10-11 we see that the men of Israel were profaning their covenant with God by marrying foreign women and divorcing their Jewish wives to do so. 

The consequence of this was that the Lord refused to regard their offerings anymore and  declared that His altar was being covered with tears, weeping and crying. Who was doing the crying does differ between translations but I'm inclined to think it was the rejected wives who were crying out to the Lord for help (Mal 2.13-14). 

Stop breaking their hearts 
Weeping Woman

When Malachi declared this to the priests they responded with "for what reason?". God informs them that He had seen their treachery when they had divorced their Jewish wives for foreign women. Treachery is the willful betrayal of fidelity, confidence or trust and is a behavior that deceives or is not loyal to someone who trusts you.

These treacherous acts weren't just a case of "no more relationship"; it was "no more relationship, home, food, future and protection". There was nothing amicable about these divorces and what is really interesting is how God viewed the value of these women and the impact these divorces had on them:

  • He saw how they had been betrayed and He was bearing witness against the men on their behalf (Mal 2:14),
  • He saw that they had been married from their youth and had given the best years of their lives and this was being totally tossed aside and disregarded (Mal 2:14),
  • He saw that these women had been companions to their men and weren't to be seen as chattels that could be disposed of on a whim (Mal 2:14) and were equal to their husbands in His eyes,
  • He saw that they had been joined in covenant for life and this covenant was being broken (Mal 2:14),
  • He had made them one  in a relationship based on equality and the women had a right to come to God to seek restoration(Mal 2:15), and 
  • He saw they were left the task to raise godly offspring on their own without the support of their husbands (Mal 2:15).

Fix your own broken hearts

The men of Israel and priests had a lot to answer for and in verses 15-16 the Lord commands them to "take heed to their spirits" and not act treacherously. 

What "taking heed to your spirit" means is not explicitly defined but the commentary implicitly states  that from God's perspective the men had the means to fix their own hearts. This started with them giving up their treacherous attitudes towards their wives. Secondly, they then had to realize that they were responsible for managing the temptation offered by freedom from marital commitment, crying children and their covenant responsibilities. 

At the end of this section the Lord repeats the warning  for the men to take heed to their spirit and declares that the breaking of their marital covenants was an act of violence that would cover the men's lives ("their garment") forever (Mal 2:16).  In other words they would not get out of their covenant relationship unscathed. It is worth reading the Septuagint translations of these verses as they give an even clearer picture of the impact divorce would have on these (and all) men: 

  • Septuagint in American English: "But if you should hate your wife and put her away, says the Lord God of Israel, then ungodliness shall cover your thoughts, says the Lord Almighty: therefore take heed to your own spirit, and forsake them not."
  • Charles Thomson  Translation: "But if thou having hated shalt put away saith the Lord God of Israel."And will impiety, saith the Lord Almighty, put a cloak over thy lusts? Therefore keep this in your mind, "You must not forsake."

Notes: 

Illustration: Vincent van Gogh - Weeping Woman, 1883, Art Institute of Chicago - via Wikimedia.


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