A son honoureth [his] father, and a servant his master: if then I [be] a father, where [is] mine honour? and if I [be] a master, where [is] my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?
Ver. 6. A son honoureth his father] Heb. Will honour his father. Nature teacheth him this lesson, to reverence his father. Pater est, si pater non esset, said the young man in Terence; It is my father, I must not cross him. Our parents are our household gods, said another heathen, Yεοι εφεστιοι (Hierocl.), and to have all possible respect from us. To God and our parents, saith Aristotle, we can never make recompense. There is no nation so barbarous that acknowledgeth not this natural axiom, A son must honour his father, and a servant his master; as Eliezar did Abraham; the centurion's servants him, by being at his beck and call in all things. Servus est nomen officii, A servant is not one who moveth absolutely of himself; but he is the master's instrument, and wholly his, saith Aristotle, και ολος αυτου, and therefore oweth him all love, reverence, and obedience, as if he were many masters in one: the word here used for master is plural. Now from this principle in nature thus laid down, the Lord tacitly accuseth them:
First, Of ingratitude for his great love to them, evinced and evidenced in the former verses.
Secondly, Of contempt cast upon him and his service; as appeareth, first by the application of that natural law confirmed by the custom of all countries.
If then I be a father, &c.] As you commonly call me, and claim me, Jer 3:4 John 8:41 "We have one Father, even God." And you have been long since taught so to do by Moses, and told by what right I come to be your Father, though with an exprobration of your detestable undutifulness, Deuteronomy 32:6 "Do ye thus requite the Lord?" Is not he thy father (and is not he by the same right and reason thy master too?) that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established or preserved thee? Hath he not (more than all that) adopted and accepted thee so for his child; begetting thee again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3, unless thou be still in thy sins, than the which thou canst not choose unto thyself a worse condition? All which considered, what more equal than that I should have both love from thee as a father and fear as a master? A mixture of both is required of all God's children and servants, that they yield unto him an amicable fear and a reverent love, that they look at once upon his bounty and severity, Romans 11:11, and so call God Father, that they spend the whole time of their sojourning here in fear, 1 Peter 1:17; that they fear God and his goodness, and Jacob-like, when they see nothing but visions of love and mercy, as he did at Bethel, yet then to cry out, "How dreadful is this place! There is mercy with thee, that then mayest be feared," Psalms 130:4 .
Unto you, O priests] Whom I look upon as the chief of my children, given me in lieu of Israel's firstborn, the lot of mine own inheritance, that stand ever before me, and should by soundness of doctrine and holiness of life vindicate my name from contempt, and get me honour before the people. Singular holiness is required of ministers above others; a double spirit they had need to wish for, as Elisha. Things in the sanctuary were double to those that were common; as the shekel, cubit, &c. Ministers are called angels, and they must walk as angels, ne sit nomen inane crimen immane, lest God renew his old complaint, "The leaders of his people have caused them to err," Isaiah 9:16. It was the complaint of Pope Pius II that there was no notorious wickedness committed in the Catholic Church, cuius prima origo a sacerdotibus non dependent, the first beginning whereof arose not from churchmen. John Huss cries out of the priests of his time, Multa quae illi ordinem dicunt, &c. Many of these things that they call by the name of order have brought all things in Christendom out of order. Cornelius a Lapide, upon this text, in his Popish way, bewaileth it, that the ignorance and profaneness of many of their priests had given occasion to Luther's heresy to spread the further. We also have no less cause to complain that the insufficiency and impiety of some of our ministry hath opened the black mouth of Campian and his Popish accomplices, to bark out, Ministris eorum nihil villus, their ministers are very base. For prevention, let the souls of ministers be purer than the sunbeams, as Chrysostom saith they should be; and let their lives be so unblameable that no man may speak the least evil of them without a manifest lie, &c.
That despise my name] This is the crime they are directly and expressly charged with. They had not honoured God as a father, feared him as a master; therefore they had despised and slighted him. Not to do God right is to do him wrong; not to reverence him is to rob him; not to bless him is to blaspheme him, Job 1:5. That is an excellent saying of Fulgentius, Deum si quis parum metuit, valde contemnit; huius, qui non memorat beneficentiam, auger iniuriam; i.e. whoso feareth God but a little slights him overmuch; and he that maketh not honourable mention of his bounty doth him a great deal of injury. The very not serving of God, the not sacrificing to him, is a crime, Mal 3:18 Ecclesiastes 9:2. How much more, then, a slubbered service, a corrupt sacrifice! There is a contempt in this latter which is worse than a bare neglect; and displeasing service is double dishonour. Hence the present contest with those greasy priests that despised God's name: the Septuagint hath it, Ye that esteem my name at a low rate, οι φαυλιζοντις το ονομα μου, that misprise it (as the French translateth it), that have base and bald conceits of me and of my nomen maiestativum, majestic name (as Tertullian termeth it), that take me not into your hearts under the name and notion of an infinite highness, the great and mighty Maker and Monarch of the whole world. Our safest eloquence concerning God is our silence, saith Hooker. But if we take in hand to say anything of him, Nullis vocibus tam plene Deum significamus (saith learned Scaliger), quam iis quae ignorantiam nostrum praetendunt, we can set forth God so fully by no words as by those that set forth our ignorance of his excellence. The very heathens, when they would swear by their Jupiter, out of the mere dread and reverence of his name, forbare to mention him. The Jews would not pronounce the name Jehovah, here used in the text. The first among the Christians that pronounced Jehovah was Petrus Galatinus, following the pronunciation of the Syriacs and Greeks. If at any time we take God's holy and reverend name into our thoughts, Psalms 111:9 (and truly we should think of him almost at every breath we draw, according to that "Let every breath praise the Lord," Psa 150:6), remember to think of God as of one at all to be thought of; as one whose wisdom is his justice, whose justice is his power, whose power is his mercy, and all himself, good without quality, great without quantity, everlasting without time, omnipresent without place, containing all things without extent, &c. This is to magnify God, to make room for him in our hearts, and the contrary is to despise his name.
And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?] Lo, the impudence of these frontless hypocrites. They traverse their accusation, stand upon their justification, and put God to his proofs. How ordinary is it with people still to palliate their sins and plead their innocence! Hosea 12:8 "In all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin," that were a foul businness. But men have learned to draw a fair gloss upon a foul hand, to cast a colour, as the calf fish doth, to deceive the fisherman; to hide their sins, as Adam, Job 31:33, by downright denial, as did Cain, Gehazi, Ananias, and Sapphira, Genesis 4:9 2Ki 5:25 Acts 5:8; or else by excusing and extenuating, as Saul, 1 Samuel 15:20,21; or at least by a senseless silence, not acknowledging their sins, or being affected with them; but rather outfacing, as Judas, Joh 13:21 cf. Matthew 26:23. Sin and shifting came into the world together, and so they continue. Satan knows there is no way to purge the sick soul but upwards; therefore he holds the lips close, that the heart may not disburden itself, and have ease, Proverbs 28:13 .