Malachi 2:5-7 My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear with which he feared me, and was afraid before my name.… "Ye have caused many to stumble at the law." There is the most malign influence which man can exert on man. No longer is the mere priest condemned, no longer is the laugh expended on the priest himself; the people have got beyond that, they say, If this is the priest, what must the law be? If the law were good, surely it would save the priest from such debasement as he embodies: if the priest can be so bad, so selfish, so worldly, so devil-loving, what must the law be? So we go from the personal to the moral, from the concrete individual instance to the written and eternal law: we begin by mocking the messenger, we end by trampling under foot the message. This has been woefully true in the history of Christianity. (Joseph Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. |
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