2:13
Malachi then turns his attention to another thing that the priests were doing. They covered the altar with tears. They knew that God was not accepting their offerings, not responding to them. Note the implication that they if God accepted their offerings they would have known about it. When we are in right relationship with God He responds in concrete ways towards us.
2:14
The priests wondered why this was the case, why God did not accept their gifts. Today many ministers maybe wonder why the church seems to be failing. God then points to a particular sin, namely divorce. Now, they must have known divorce was prevalent, but they were blind to the wrongness of this. We could very well say the same today! As noted in comments on v11, this may have been related to the practice of marrying foreign women. The key feature brought out here is that marriage is a covenant. The surrounding culture saw marriage as a legal contract. Again, we can observe that that is very much the way things are viewed today, as shown in moves to try and get “no fault” divorce. Marriage in God’s eyes is something much more than that.. Moreover, the Lord was a witness to the covenant. Even today in church marriages we speak of a couple getting married before God and before the people. The wife is a companion, there is meant to be a living together, going through life together. We know from Ephesians 5 that it is also a reflection of the relationship between Christ and the church. We need to better appreciate the wonder and the seriousness of marriage.
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