1  The prophet reproves the Jews for their ingratitude to God, Mal 1:1-5.
For their neglect of his institutions, Mal 1:6-14.

1:14 The deceiver - The hypocrite that would seem to offer a sacrifice of the best, but puts God off with the worst. A male - A perfect male, such as God requireth.

2  The priests reproved for profaning the holy things of God, Mal 2:1-9.
The priests and people for various abuses with regard to marriage, Mal 2:10-17.

2:2 I have cursed them - I have already sent out the curse, and it is in part upon you.

2  The priests reproved for profaning the holy things of God, Mal 2:1-9.
The priests and people for various abuses with regard to marriage, Mal 2:10-17.

2:8 But ye - Priests. Stumble at the law - By your false expositions of it. Have corrupted - You have violated it, have contradicted the great intentions of it, and done what in you lay, to defeat them.

2:9 Have been partial - You have perverted the law to please great men, or to serve some unworthy design. When we inquire into "the reasons of the contempt of the clergy," ought we to forget this?

2:10 One father - Abraham, or Jacob, with whom God made the covenant by which their posterity were made a peculiar people.Created us - The prophet speaks of that great and gracious work of God, creating them to be a chosen people. And so we Christians are created in Christ Jesus.

2 

2:7 But we were gentle - Mild, tender. In the midst of you - Like a hen surrounded with her young. Even as a nurse cherisheth her own children - The offspring of her own womb.

2:8 To impart our own souls - To lay down our lives for your sake.

23 

23:1 Then - Leaving all converse with his adversaries, whom he now left to the hardness of their hearts.

23:2 The scribes sit in the chair of Moses - That is, read and expound the law of Moses, and are their appointed teachers.

23:3 All things therefore - Which they read out of the law, and enforce therefrom.

23:4  Luk 11:46.

23:5 Their phylacteries - The Jews, understanding those words literally, It shall he as a token upon thy hand, and as frontlets between thine eyes, Exo 13:16.And thou shalt bind these words for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, Deu 6:8;used to wear little scrolls of paper or parchment, bound on their wrist and foreheads, on which several texts of Scripture were writ. These they supposed, as a kind of charm, would preserve them from danger. And hence they seem to have been called phylacteries, or preservatives. The fringes of their garments - Which God had enjoined them towear, to remind them of doing all the commandments, Num 15:38.These, as well as their phylacteries, the Pharisees affected to wear broader and larger than other men. Mar 12:38.

23:8 The Jewish rabbis were also called father and master, by their several disciples, whom they required,

1. To believe implicitly what they affirmed, without asking any farther reason;
2. To obey implicitly what they enjoined, without seeking farther authority.

23:9 See note ... Mat 23:8.

23:10 See note ... Mat 23:8.

23:11  Mat 20:26.

23:12 Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled, and he that shall humble himself shall he exalted - It is observable that no one sentence of our Lord's is so often repeated as this: it occurs, with scarce any variation, at least ten times in the evangelists. Luk 14:11; Luk 18:14.