Maleakhi 2:11

2:11 Judah has become disloyal, and unspeakable sins have been committed in Israel and Jerusalem. ¹  For Judah has profaned ²  the holy things that the Lord loves and has turned to a foreign god! ³ 

Maleakhi 2:15

2:15 No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. ⁴  What did our ancestor ⁵  do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth. ⁶ 

Maleakhi 3:17

3:17 “They will belong to me,” says the Lord who rules over all, “in the day when I prepare my own special property. ⁷  I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

[2:11]  ¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[2:11]  ² tn Or perhaps “secularized”; cf. NIV “desecrated”; TEV, NLT “defiled”; CEV “disgraced.”

[2:11]  ³ tn Heb “has married the daughter of a foreign god.” Marriage is used here as a metaphor to describe Judah’s idolatry, that is, her unfaithfulness to the Lord and “remarriage” to pagan gods. But spiritual intermarriage found expression in literal, physical marriage as well, as vv. 14-16 indicate.

[2:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “and not one has done, and a remnant of the spirit to him.” The very elliptical nature of the statement suggests it is proverbial. The present translation represents an attempt to clarify the meaning of the statement (cf. NASB).

[2:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “the one.” This is an oblique reference to Abraham who sought to obtain God’s blessing by circumventing God’s own plan for him by taking Hagar as wife (Gen 16:1-6). The result of this kind of intermarriage was, of course, disastrous (Gen 16:11-12).

[2:15]  ⁶ sn The wife he took in his youth probably refers to the first wife one married (cf. NCV “the wife you married when you were young”).

[3:17]  ⁷ sn The Hebrew word סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah, “special property”) is a technical term referring to all the recipients of God’s redemptive grace, especially Israel (Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18). The Lord says here that he will not forget even one individual in the day of judgment and reward.