Malachi 2:8

Ye have caused many to stumble] i.e. by giving unjust decisions the priests have brought many to ruin. With the charge of partiality in Malachi 2:9 contrast the ideal of Deuteronomy 33:9, where it is represented as a priest's duty to give his decisions without regard to his nearest relatives: cp. Matthew 10:37.

9. Cp. the whole section, 1 Samuel 2:28, which was probably written about this period.

10. Malachi seems to have in view mainly such evils as are described in Nehemiah 5. His argument here seems somewhat inconsistent with his argument in Malachi 1:2., since one God had created both Esau and Jacob; but it is an inconsistency natural enough in the as yet undeveloped teaching. A man must learn to love his brother before he can love his enemy.

11. The mention of Israel is quite out of place in this v. The word has probably arisen by a scribe's blunder from Jerusalem, which it somewhat resembles in Hebrew. The daughter of a strange god must mean either a foreign nation with which Judah has entered into some compact, whether political or religious (by which some alliance or understanding with the Samaritans might be intended); or the text must be corrected by the insertion of one letter, so that for 'daughter' we should read 'daughters.' In either case Malachi denounces the tendency of his people to fuse with the neighbouring nations.