Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the LORD of hosts!
And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So, guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So, guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.” – Malachi 2:10–16 (ESV)
James Montgomery Boice writes:
The basis of all [Malachi] will say is that God has created marriage, that it was His idea. It was God, not man, who made the race male and female. It was God who looked at the man in his singleness and judged, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” It was God who brought the first woman to the first man and, as it were, performed the first marriage ceremony (Gen 2:22). It was God who said, “Be fruitful and increase in number.” It is to this original creation of man and woman and of God uniting them in one permanent marriage that Malachi refers: “Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? [That is, why did god not make more than one wife for Adam or more than one husband for Eve?] Because he was seeking a godly offspring. So guard yourself in spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.”
MEMORY WORK – Shorter Catechism Q/A 40
Q. 40. What did God at first reveal to man for the rule of his obedience?
A. The rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience was the moral law.