2:11
In Ezra 9:1,2 we find Ezra dealing very firmly with those Jews who had intermarried. To our modern western ears we find this a little offensive, so let’s look a little more deeply to understand the situation. Marrying a “daughter of a foreign god” was not just a matter of a Jew falling in love with someone who was not a Jew. First, it was often done for economic reasons. In order to join some of the trade guilds it was necessary to intermarry. This would also involve divorcing an existing Hebrew wife. So this was not a “nice” practice at all. Then it would also involve the Jew getting involved in the worship of the false idols that the new wife worshipped. So it was a wholly destructive practice, and Judah had indeed been faithless and did profane the sanctuary of the Lord. It was an “abomination”, this is one of the strongest terms used in the Bible for unacceptable practices.
2:12
Malachi then declares his desire that the Lord cuts off from the “tents of Jacob” any descendant of the man who does these things. Ie there is complete cutting off of this person and all he does from Israel. The man was still pretending to worship God, maybe even deluded into thinking he actually was worshipping God, when all he was doing was profaning the sanctuary. We are called to holiness. The warning is against mixture, and today in the church we should be equally wary of mixture. We too readily take on board the world’s ideas.
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