“Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it.
And you will know that I have sent you this warning so that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the Lord Almighty.
Malachi 2:3-4
Last time we saw the priests’ rebuke continue, with the warning if they did not appoint God’s glory to hover over their inner selves, Yahweh would curse them and their blessings. Today we continue to deep dive this curse. (Sounds like a good time, right?)
“Because of you I will rebuke your descendants…”
In the Hebrew, we actually start with hen again this week, our familiar lo! behold!
And what are we beholding? His rebuke not only on the priests to whom he’s been directing His correction, but also their descendants.
Rebuke is gaar and descendants is zera – sowing, seed, offspring.
This one is rough. If there’s anything that could make me weep, it’s passing on our junk to our children. To have my disobedience be the reason Yahweh would rebuke our boys is a strong motivator for doing whatever necessary to course correct. Perhaps that’s the reason He includes it. But, unfortunately, we are not done.
“I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it.”
Whoa. You realize this is the ultimate in dishonor. Smear here is zarah – scatter, strew, spread, toss about, fan, winnow, and dung is peresh – fecal matter.
Think the less-than-savory version of this word, and you have a more accurately shocking description of what the Most High is saying. Because this dung is not just from anywhere, it’s from the sacrificial animals of their festivals. The festivals that completely ignore God’s laws and profane His name.
The word for festival is chag – solemn feast day, sacrifice, solemnity; it comes from chagag meaning to make a pilgrimage, keep a feast. Somehow, I cannot imagine a solemn assembly, a sacred pilgrimage, is what is being observed by God.
“…and you will be carried off with it.” Carried off here is nasah – to lift, accept, advance, arise, able to, armor, up, bring forth. As the dung from the sacrifices will be carried outside the gates and thrown out, so, too, will the priests.
I am just finishing Amos in my personal time. Can’t help but compare verses from there to this:
“I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
Amos 5:21-24
Oh that He would never despise our gatherings or describe our songs as noise!
“And you will know that I have sent to you this warning…”
Know is yada – to know intimately, understand, very well aware; sent is shalach – send, let go, cast away, forsake; and warning is actually mitzvah – prescribed terms, commandment.
And you will be intimately aware that I am the One sending these prescribed terms.
Anything like this feel familiar in your life? Any situation in which you know intimately the warning is from Him?
We need to genuinely ask ourselves in the American evangelical church if there are warnings from Him which we are communally not heeding. Is our worship of the minority carpenter from Nazareth and the upside-down Kingdom our ultimate aim? If not, what idols need toppled? This matters for us now and our descendants to come.
“‘So that my covenant may continue with Levi,’ says Jehovah-sabaoth.”
Here, covenant is berith – ally, league, treaty, and continue is hayah – to fall out, be, become, altogether, accomplished, committed, like, break, cause, to exist, come to pass (always emphatic).
That my covenant with Levi may indeed come to pass.
What do we think of this one? He is currently saying those serving in Temple are to be humiliated. And why? So the covenant with them may be accomplished.
As we continue on with Malachi, we will see an increasing amount of ways the covenant is violated. But – and as the final book in our Old Testament – He fortunately doesn’t stop there. He promises One will come to perfectly fulfill this covenant.
I think that is why pointing out the disloyalty of the covenant by the priests (and all His people) is necessary. Showing how His name is being dishonored is in contrast to how He will beautifully and ultimately receive honor from His Son.
I am so grateful Jesus did what we could never do. May we take such grace, along with these warnings, to more fully seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with Him.