Malachi 2:12

The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts.

Ver. 12. The Lord will cut off the man that doth this] Though the magistrate be careless and corrupt; though he either cannot punish this evil, it being grown so universal, or will not (and so impunity in the magistrate maketh impenitence in the offenders), God will take the sword in hand, and cut off every mother's child that doth this, nisi currat poeniteatia; as a surgeon cutteth off a rotten member, so will God destroy such for ever, Metaphora est a Medicis ducta (Polan.): he will take them away, and pluck them out of their dwellingplaces, and root them out of the land of the living, Psalms 52:5. Neither shall this be done to himself only, but to his wretched posterity (such a legacy, like Joab's leprosy, leaves every graceless man to his children), for so the Chaldee here rendereth and interpreteth that proverbial expression in the text, both the master and the scholar, filium et filium filii, his son, and his son's son, though he teach never so well by wholesome instruction, and political advisement, to prevent the mischief. Agreeably hereunto for sense Piscator rendereth this text thus, The Lord will cut off his children that doth thus, the children that he begets of the daughter of a strange god. A heavy curse, surely, and frequently inflicted, as upon Ahab; though he, to avoid it, so followed the work of generation, that he left seventy sons behind him; which yet would not do.

And him that offereth an offering, &c.] That is, although he be a priest; or, although he seek to make peace with me by an offering; as hoping thereby to stop my mouth or stay my hand, to expiate his sin, or to purchase a dispensation, as those Micah 6:6,7 Isaiah 58:2,3. Thus Saul sacrificeth; Ahab trembleth and humbleth; Jeroboam's wife goeth to the prophet; Joab taketh hold of the horns of the altar; the King of Persia, having lost some of his children by untimely death, as Ctesias reporteth, sends earnestly to the Jews for prayers for him and his, Ezra 6:10. So did Maximinus in like case to the Christians. Cicero (de Nat. Deor.) tells us that they which prayed whole days together and offered sacrifice, ut sui liberi superstites sibi essent, that their children might outlive them, these were first called superstitious persons; afterwards the word was taken in a larger sense. But devotion without holy conversation avails nothing to avert God's judgments, Isaiah 1:12; Isaiah 1:15; Isaiah 66:3. He that killeth an ox, unless he also kills his corruptions, is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, unless by faith he lay hold upon the Lamb of God, is as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, &c. This men are hardly drawn to, viz. to part with their sins, to cast the traitor's head over the wall, to hang up the heads of the people before the sun. Sin, harboured in the soul, is like Achan in the army, or Jonah in the ship; much pains the mariners endured, and much loss too, to have saved Jonah from the sea; they ventured their own casting away ere they would cast him overboard; but there could be no calm till they had done it effectually. So it is here. Full fain men would keep their sins, and yet save their souls; but that is impossible. God will not be bribed, Psalms 50:16,23, nor brought to suffer sin unrepented to escape unpunished. Poor souls, when stung by the friars' sermons, they set them penances, pilgrimages, all sorts of good works, which stilled them a while; and for them they thought they should have pardon. So many run now among us to holy duties, but with the same opinion they did them as bribes for a pardon. These dig for pearls in their own dunghills, make the means their mediators, think to save themselves by riding on horses, &c., Hosea 14:3 .