Malachi 2:1-16

2:1 And now, O priests, this command is for you. 2 If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse on you and I will curse your blessings; indeed I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. 3 I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and I will put you out of my presence.

4 Know, then, that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may hold, says the LORD of hosts. 5 My covenant with him was a covenant of life and well-being, which I gave him; this called for reverence, and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in integrity and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. 8 But you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, 9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in your instruction.

The Covenant Profaned by Judah

10 Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors? 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 anyone who does this–any to witness or answer, or to bring an offering to the LORD of hosts.

13 And this you do as well: You cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor at your hand. 14 You ask, “Why does he not?” Because the LORD was a witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did not one God make her? Both flesh and spirit are his. And what does the one God desire? Godly offspring. So look to yourselves, and do not let anyone be faithless to the wife of his youth. 16 For I hate divorce, says the LORD, the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless. (Malachi 2:1-16, NRSV)

The following comments are repeated with revision and supplement here from November 18, 2004, two years ago (Thursday of the week of the Sunday closest to November 16, Year Two):

As noted yesterday, most of Malachi consists of six sections, oracles or disputations, introduced by brief dialogues. Yesterday’s reading began the second oracle (Mal. 1:6-14), which continues today (2:1-9). Through the prophet Malachi, the LORD rebukes the unworthy priests. “If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse on you and I will curse your blessings; indeed I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart” (Mal. 2:2). According to W. Sibley Towner, “It is the task of priest to pronounce blessings (Num. 6:22-27). Malachi’s curse against the priests turns their benedictions into anathemas” (HarperCollins Study Bible, on Mal. 2:2). “I will rebuke your offspring,” says the LORD, “and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and I will put you out of my presence” (v. 3). According to Towner, “the dung of offerings was supposed to have been burned outside the camp (see Ex. 29:14)” (on v. 3).

The LORD reminds the priests that his is commanding them “that my covenant with Levi may hold” (v. 4). The covenant with Levi “was a covenant of life and well-being,” says the LORD. It “called for reverence, and he revered me and stood in awe of my name” (v. 5). In leading up to the rebuking of the present priests, the LORD remembers that “true instruction” was in Levi’s mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips,” for “he walked with me in integrity and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity” (v. 6). A priest should be a source of knowledge and instruction (v. 7), but the present priests are rebuked because they “have turned aside from the way”; they “have caused many to stumble by [their] instruction”; and “have corrupted the covenant of Levi” (v. 8). As a consequence they will be “despised and abased before all the people,” because “they have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in [their] instruction” (v. 9).

The “third oracle” (Mal. 2:10-16) condemns the faithlessness of marrying “the daughter of a foreign god (v. 11) and divorcing one’s first wife (vv. 14-16). L. H. Brockington calls this passage a “charge of faithlessness to Yahweh by marrying foreign women who worship other gods and of neglecting their own wives whom they married in a covenant relationship ratified by Yahweh” (Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, sec. 575a, p. 657, on Mal. 2:10-16). But Gregory Mobley notes that the passage “has also been read figuratively, that Judah has been faithless in its covenant with the LORD” (on Mal. 2:10-16). It is Judah herself that “has been faithless,” not the people as such, which would favor the metaphorical sense. J. Rogerson notes that “most commentators take v. 11 to refer to marriages with foreign wives, but this is not obvious from the text nor from the continuation in vv. 13-16. The reference may be to a female consort for YHWH. Although the idolatry interpretation is not free of difficulties–it implies that Judah is a bridegroom and that therefore God is the rejected bride–it makes best sense of vv. 10-12” (The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001, p. 616, on Mal. 2:10-16).

But the continuation states that the LORD “no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor” (v. 13). The reason is given: “Because the LORD was a witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant” (v. 14). These verses (vv. 13-16) have been called “the strongest condemnation of divorce expressed anywhere in the Hebrew Bible” (Towner on vv. 13-16). But there are textual difficulties here. According to Brockington, verse 15 “is difficult almost beyond solution” (on v. 15). Rogerson takes note of “the second charge,” which says “that men have been too ready to divorce the wives that they first married (i.e. wives who are now old), that this violates the notion that man and wife are one flesh (v. 15, cf. Gen. 2:24) and undermines the loyal to the covenant expected by God from his people” (p. 616, on Mal. 2:10-16). He adds:

‘I hate divorce’ (v. 16 in NRSV and many modern trs.) is a correction of the Hebrew ‘he hates’ without any support from the ancient versions and cannot be correct. In fact, the ancient versions took the words to mean that God approved the divorcing of wives who were hated! The Babylonian Talmud (b. Gittin90b) rightly understands the logic of the passage (if not its Heb.) by arguing that it means that God hates the man who divorces his first wife. The Hebrew is best repointed and rendered ‘if one hated [his wife and] divorced [her] . . . he covers his garment with violence’ (cf. Redditt 1995).” (Ibid.)

The emphasis clearly lies on faithfulness.

James 4:13-5:6

Boasting about Tomorrow

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” 14 Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.

Warning to Rich Oppressors

5:1 Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. 2 Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. 4 Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you. (James 4:13-5:6, NRSV)

The following comments are combined with revision and supplement here from November 18, 2004, two years ago (Thursday of the week of the Sunday closest to November 16, Year Two), and September 2, 2005 (Friday of the week of the Sunday closest to August 31, Year One):

James condemns the presumption of merchants who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money” (Jas. 4:13). This is not a warning against planning as such, but a rebuke for planning that does not take into account the uncertainties of life–“Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring.” Their life, says James, is “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes (v. 14). He has in mind merchants who travel “to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money” (v. 13), but, failing to appreciate the transience of their own lives (v. 14), their projection of future profitable business ventures amounts to arrogant boasting (v. 16). So they are rebuked for planning that disregards the Lord’s will in the matter. “Instead,” says James, “you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that” (v 15). James characterizes their attitude as boastful arrogance. “As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil” (v. 16). According to James B. Adamson, “These merchants were the materialist core of the contemporary bourgeois prosperity. In 4:11, 12 the sin of arrogance was in self-righteous smearing of others; here it is in the equally godless self-assurance in the usual trader’s mentality and prospectus” (New International Commentary on the New Testament, p. 178, on Jas. 4:13). In any line of work, the Christian believer should live as unto the Lord. The one “who knows the right thing to do”–knowing that he or she should plan with God’s perspective in mind–“and fails to do it, commits sin” (v. 17). Compare the traditional definition of sin within the Wesleyan tradition, “a willful transgression of a known law” (Richard S. Taylor, “The Question of “Sins of Ignorance” in Relation to Wesley’s Definition,” http://wesley.nnu.edu/wesleyan_theology/theojrnl/21-25/22-04.htm, accessed again November 22, 2006). According to Sophie Laws, “the message [here] is the same as that of Jesus’ parable of the rich fool (Lk. 12:16-21)” (HarperCollins Study Bible, on Jas. 4:13-17). One might add that it relates to the following passage on the rich farmers as well.

James’ message to the rich farmers (Jas. 5:1-6) “recalls prophetic denunciations” (Sophie Laws, on 5:1-6). These “rich people” are called upon to “weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you” (5:1). They have rotted riches, moth-eaten clothes (v. 2), and rusted gold and silver, from which the “rust will be evidence against you” (v. 3a, b). Pure gold does not rust, of course. James Burton Coffman says,

The precious metals themselves did not rust, of course, and James certainly knew that; but the base alloys evil men had mixed with them did rust. The gold and silver of the Sadducean enemies were in no sense "pure," but they had been mixed with fraud, deceit, oppression, falsehood and murder; and the metaphor of rusted gold and silver is eloquent. Even the most precious assets would be of no avail when the judgment fell. (Coffman Commentaries on the Old and New Testaments, on the Internet at http://www.searchgodsword.org/com/bcc/view.cgi?book=jas&chapter=005, accessed November 22, 2006)

Adamson agrees that James knew that real gold doesn’t rust, but says “the corruption of gold, etc., is supernatural in a supernatural calamity. Like Chaucer, James knows that gold does not rust: ‘If golde ruste, what shall iren do?’ (Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, line 504)” (Adamson, p. 185, on Jas. 5:2-3). These people have reversed Jesus’ command to lay up treasure in heaven, not “on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal” (Mt. 6:19-20). “You have laid up treasure for the last days,” says James (5:3c), “evidence against you [that] will eat your flesh like fire” (v. 3b). These people have defrauded their laborers of their wages (v. 4), while living “in luxury and in pleasure (v. 5). According to Sophie Laws, “to deprive laborers of their wages is a prime example of oppression in the OT; see, e.g., Lev. 19:13; Deut. 24:14-15" (on Jas. 5:4).

James says to these people, “You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you” (v. 6). The reference to murder of “the righteous one,” says Cain Hope Felder,

rather than a cryptic allusion to Jesus . . . may be the editor’s reference to James himself [who was put to death in about A.D. 62]. The account of the crucifixion of Jesus, the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:54-60), and the martyrdom of James (Josephus, Ant. 20.9.1; Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 2.23.21) resemble one another in presenting the martyrs as innocent, prophetic, highly regarded by their followers, and killed without resisting by a sinful mob. Alternately, the righteous one may be the innocent laborer (v. 4) whose mistreatment is compared to murder; cf. Sir. 34:24-26). (NOAB, 3^rd ed., on Jas. 5:6).

Sophie Laws says this “could be Jesus, so described [‘the righteous one’] in Acts 3:14; 7:52; see also 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 Jn. 2:1. More probably,” she says, “James echoes the familiar OT theme that God’s righteous ones are the poor and oppressed; see, e.g., Ps. 140:12, 13; Wis. 2:12-20” (on v. 6). James himself was known as “the just,” that is, “the righteous,” “but it is hardly likely,” says Adamson, “that James would have referred to his own martyrdom before it happened” (p. 189 on v. 6). Adamson adds a summary thought: “The thought here is not of specific cases but of a general social evil of the time among the Jews, viz., oppression of the poor and weak, by judicial process and otherwise (see again Wisd. 2:10f.). It is an evil from which our modern world can scarcely claim to be free” (Ibid.).

Luke 17:20-37

The Coming of the Kingdom (Gen 6.5-8.22; 19.12-14)

20 Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

22 Then he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 They will say to you, ‘Look there!’ or ‘Look here!’ Do not go, do not set off in pursuit. 24 For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. 25 But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation. 26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them. 28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, 29 but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed all of them 30 -it will be like that on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day, anyone on the housetop who has belongings in the house must not come down to take them away; and likewise anyone in the field must not turn back. 32 Remember Lot’s wife. 33 Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it. 34 I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 There will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left.” 37 Then they asked him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” (Luke 17:20-37, NRSV)

The following comments are combined with revision and supplement here from November 18, 2004, two years ago (Thursday of the week of the Sunday closest to November 16, Year Two), and from June 1, 2005 (Wednesday of the week of the Sunday closest to June 1, Year One):

Luke’s material parallel to the eschatological speech of Mark 13 and Matthew 24 appears, for the most part in Luke, chapter 21. But some with parallels in Matthew appears in Luke 17: a warning not to go out looking for the Son of Man (Lk. 17:23-24; Mt. 24:26-27); comparison with the days of Noah (Lk. 17:26-27; Mt. 24:37-41); “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it” (Lk. 17:33; Mt. 10:39; Mk. 8:35; Mt.16:25; Lk. 9:24). Through most of chapter 24, Matthew is closely parallel to Mark 13.Luke has much of the same material in chapter 21, which is placed, as are Matthew 24-25 and Mark 13, in Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem before the crucifixion. So it is a little surprising to find several passages elsewhere in Luke that have their parallels in Matthew 24-25 and Mark 13: (1) Matthew 24:23-28; Mark 13:21-23; Luke 17:23-24, 37b; (2) Matthew 24:11; Luke 17:20-21; (3) Matthew 25:13-15; 24:42; Mark 13:33-37; Luke 21:36; 19:12-13; 12:40; 12:38; (4) Matthew 24:37-44; Mark 13:33,35; Luke 17:26-36; 12:39-40; (5) Matthew 24:45-51; Luke 12:41-45; (6) Matthew 25:1-13; Mark 13:33-37; Luke 12:35-38; and (7) Matthew 25:14-30; Mark 13:34; Luke 19:11-27. The popular view of nineteenth century historical critics that eschatology and apocalyptic material were foreign to the teaching of Jesus, but added later by Christians, has long since been demolished for New Testament scholars of the more critical persuasion by Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer.

One saying of Jesus from today’s lesson seems to be unique: “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you” (Lk. 17:21). Some scholars, aware of debates about what Jesus meant by his eschatological teaching, have labeled the concept presented by this verse “realized eschatology.” It seems to me that, whatever else Jesus may have meant by that statement, he is saying that he himself will be with the sincere believer who seeks him out--with him or her as Lord, Savior and Friend.

At the beginning (Luke 17:20-21) Jesus “shifted the emphasis from future expectation to the observable presence of the kingdom in his ministry (see 11:20)” (Marion Lloyd Soards, NOAB, 3^rd ed.). This text is crucial for some who describe Jesus’ message in terms of “realized eschatology”: the Kingdom of God is already present in Jesus’ ministry. Many, remembering an earlier debate between advocates of realized eschatology (C. H. Dodd and others) and the advocates of future eschatology as the main characteristic of Jesus’ teaching have focused more recently on a mediating position: in some sense the kingdom was already present during Jesus’ ministry, “the kingdom of God is among you” (Lk. 17:21), but future aspects, including the Second Coming of Christ are also central to his teaching.

Eric Franklin notes that “the passage in [Luke] 12:32-51 had warned the disciples to be alert for the return of Christ” (The Oxford Bible Commentary, 949). He adds:

This section [17:20-18:8] takes up this theme and expands upon it, this time, however, climaxing not so much in the warning as in a pointing to the event as an object of hope. (Ibid.)

The present passage emphasizes the unexpectedness of Jesus’ coming “as it was in the days of Noah” (Lk. 17:25) and “as it was in the days of Lot” (v. 28). In answer to the disciples’ question “Where?” Jesus concludes this passage with what was probably a common secular proverb about inevitability, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” “As surely as vultures find the carcass, so surely will divine judgment come; therefore always be ready!” (Marion Lloyd Soards, NOAB, 3^rd ed.).

Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D.

rdworden@hgst.edu

rworden@houston.rr.com