Need a Hebrew scholars opinion on Malachi 2:11

**Southern Presbyterian** · #1 (**permalink**) 02-07-2009, 01:59 PM

Any Hebrew scholars out there today? I have a question about Malachi 2:11.

In the second part of the verse there is a phrase translated "which He loves" in the NASB and "which he loved" in the AV/KJV.

My questions:

1) Is it God or Judah doing the loving?

2) If it's God then it is obviously Him loving His own holiness. Right?

3) If it's Judah doing the loving, does/did he love God's holiness or the daughter of a foreign god mentioned in the last phrase?

4) How would you translate the verse?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Blessings!

***greenbaggins*** · #2 (**permalink**) 02-07-2009, 02:48 PM

It seems fairly certain to me that the subject of the verb "loves" is the Lord. The noun "holiness" can be translated as "sanctuary," as many translations do. However, Andrew Hill argues that "holiness" is still the best translation. The Jews would then have defiled the holiness of the Lord by marrying foreign wives/worshiping foreign gods. The idea of the last part of the verse is almost certainly that a mixed marriage leads to idolatry. The words seem to encompass that whole idea. Verse 12 certainly particularizes this for individual people.

Here is my translation: "Judah has betrayed (the Lord) and has committed an abomination in Israel and in Jerusalem, for Judah has defiled the holiness of the Lord which He loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god."

Rev. Todd Ruddell · #3 (**permalink**) 02-07-2009, 03:02 PM

The Hebrew is pretty straightforward. The word for "loved" is the typical one used [ahav] although the pointing is different from what we would expect for a Hebrew 'perfect', given that it is a "pe-aleph" kind of verb. I believe it ought to be translated as an active participle, which would then be "loves" rather than "loved". (I do not believe either of these changes the force or interpretation of the verse).

As to who it is that "loves the holiness of the Lord" I believe that unquestionably it is the Lord loving His own holiness, in contrast to Judah, who has profaned it by intermarriage, thereby polluting the holy seed.

kevin.carroll · #4 (**permalink**) 02-07-2009, 04:07 PM

I don't know if I'm a scholar....but...

1. The closest antecedent of "he" is the LORD, so that is probably the referent. Although Malachi could be referring to a former love that Judah had. Either way the sense works with the verse: Judah has forsaken the LORD.

2. Not necessarily. Qodesh could refer to the sanctuary as a place of worship as opposed to an attribute of God. Most modern translations see it that way.

3. It's probably not Judah doing the loving. The emphasis on the passage is on Judah's faithlessness to the LORD, not theirn love of him.

4. Judah has acted faithlessly and an abomination has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem, because Judah has polluted the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loved, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.

***fredtgreco*** · #5 (**permalink**) 02-07-2009, 05:54 PM

As always, I find Calvin's comments very interesting and insightful:

Quote:

Some take, קדש, kodash, for the sanctuary or the temple; others for the keeping of the law; but I prefer to apply it to the covenant itself; and we might suitably take it in a collective sense, except the simpler meaning be more approved — that Judah polluted his separation. As to the Prophet’s object and the subject itself, he charges them here, I have no doubt, with profanation, because the Jews rendered themselves vile, though God had consecrated them to himself. They had then polluted holiness, even when they had been separated from the world; for they had disregarded so great an honor, by which they might have been pre-eminent, had they continued in their integrity. It may be also taken collectively, they have polluted holiness, that is, they have polluted that nation which has been separated from other nations: but as this exposition may seem hard and somewhat strained, I am inclined to think that what is here meant is that separation by which the Jews were known from other nations. But yet what I have stated may serve to remove whatever obscurity there may be. And that this holiness ought to be referred to that gratuitous election by which God had adopted the Jews as his peculiar people, is evident from what the Prophet says, that they married foreign wives. f29

We then see the purpose of this passage, which is to show, — that the Jews were ungrateful to God, because they mingled with heathen nations, and knowingly and wilfully cast aside that glory by which God had adorned them by choosing them, as Moses says, to be to him a royal priesthood. (Exodus 19:6.) Holiness, we know, was much recommended to the Jews, in order that they might not abandon themselves to any of the pollutions of the heathens. Hence God had forbidden them under the law to take foreign wives, except they were first purified, as we find in Deuteronomy 21:11,12; if any one wished to marry a captive, she was to have her head shaven and her nails pared; by which it was intimated, that such women were impure, and that their husbands would be contaminated, except they were first purified. And, yet it was not wholly a blameless thing, when one observed the law as to a captive: but it was a lust abominable to God, when they were not content with their own nation, and burnt in love with strange women. As however the Jews, like all mortals without exception, were inclined to corruptions, God purposed to keep them together as one people, lest the wife by her flatteries should draw the husband away from the pure and legitimate
worship of God. And Moses tells us, that there was a crafty counsel given by Balsam when he saw that the people could not be conquered in open war; he at length invented this artifice, that the heathens should offer to them their wives and their daughters. It hence happened that the people provoked God’s wrath, as we find it recorded in Numbers 25:4.

Ft29 “The holiness of Jehovah,” i.e., the holiness required and enjoined by
Jehovah. Most agree that what is meant is the separation from any
alliance with heathens. See Deuteronomy 7:3. Ezra mentions
Israel as “the holy seed,” Ezra 9:2. See also Jeremiah 2:3.
Marckius, after Jerome and Cyril, takes this view, and so do Henry,
Scott, Newcome, and Henderson.—Ed.

**Southern Presbyterian** · #6 (**permalink**) 02-07-2009, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fredtgreco

As always, I find Calvin's comments very interesting and insightful:

Pastor Greco, it was Calvin that got me to wondering about the passage in the first place. I kept reading and re-reading the section you quote and just couldn't quite put "two and two together" in the same manner he does. Though given the latitude that seems to be available in the translating of the word(s) for either 'holiness' or 'sanctuary' I believe I now see his point.

So now I ask, would it be accurate to say that the "set apart" (i.e. holy) things that God's love is in reference to here are the women of the covenant (Jewish women)? Jamieson Fausset Brown seems to indicate this understanding, which would be similar to Calvin only naming the women as the holy ones.

And thanks to everyone who has responded thus far!!

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