Faithfulness - Malachi 2:11-12

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Malachi 2:11-12 (ESV)

[11] Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. [12] May the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the LORD of hosts!

Marrying a non-Jew was forbidden by the Law. This was especially repugnant to God for two reasons. First, notice that the problem isn’t that they married a foreigner, but that they married the “daughter of a foreign god.” Ruth was a foreigner, yet it was not a problem when Boaz married her because she embraced the God of the Jews. The history of Israel, on the other hand, was that they were time and again carried away from God and into worship of idols by foreign women. In Malachi they are living in their own land again, but their recent history was generations living in exile because of this very sin. They were just rebuilding and they were already spiraling back into sin.

The second reason is indicated in the verses that follow in Malachi 2. It seems that they are not only marrying non-Jewish women, but that they are divorcing their Jewish wives in order to marry non-Jews. It was a double sin. They were experiencing God’s covenant blessing of return and restoration while breaking their own marital covenants. They appear to have learned nothing from their past failures.

Author Germany Kent wrote, “You will eventually recover from a defeat but you must never forget what it taught you.”[1] Unfortunately that is exactly what the Jews seem to have done. The question for us is whether we will learn from their mistake. There are two applications here. First, for a single person, if you are to marry, marry someone with a common faith so that you may serve the same God. Second, and perhaps more importantly, are we a people who keep our word? We rely on God to keep his, but do we keep ours? Are we trustworthy people or does our word mean nothing? As believers in Jesus Christ one of the fruits of the Spirit is faithfulness. When our word means nothing because something better came along, we not only prove our selves to be untrustworthy, but we tarnish the name and reputation of God whom we serve.

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