Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet [is] she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
Ver. 14. Yet ye say, Wherefore?] A senseless question; but there is nothing more stupid and stubborn than a hypocrite; he will not yield, though never so clearly convinced, but will have still somewhat to say though to small purpose, as had Saul to Samuel, 1 Samuel 15:19,23, and these questionists here to God, whom, as before often and again after, they put to his proofs. See Trapp on " Mal 1:2 " See Trapp on " Mal 1:6 " His answer is ready:
Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth] The heathen could say,
“ Maxima debetur pueris reverentia siquid
Turpe paras: ”
And again,
“ Turpe quid acturus tu, sine teste, time. ”
We should not do wickedly if but a child be by. And, when thou art about to do aught amiss, fear thine own conscience, which is a thousand witnesses. But if God be by as a witness, should not men fear to offend him? Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob. He that dares sin, though he know God be an eye witness, is more impudent in sinning than was Absalom, when he spread a tent upon the top of the house, and went in to his father's concubines, in the sight of all Israel, and of the sun. These treacherous husbands could not but know that they had entered into a covenant of God, Proverbs 2:17, when they married; that the bond was made to God, and that upon the violation of it he would be ready enough to take the forfeiture; for "whoremongers and adulterers God will judge," Hebrews 13:4. That God had been witness, or had protested (Protestatus est), so Montanus renders it, and withal had, by interposing of his own authority, confirmed the contract and compact, saying, verbis conceptis, as Hosea 3:3, Thou shalt not be for another man, so will I also be for thee, and not for another woman, till God shall separate us by death. Indeed, if the husband or the wife is dead, the surviving party is at liberty to marry again, Romans 7:2, whatsoever the Canonists say against bigamy. Jerome tells us of an old man in Rome that had buried twenty wives, which he had married one after the death of another; and that he had taken to wife the one-and-twentieth, who also had buried nineteen husbands. And that, burying that wife too, he followed the corpse to the church, so his neighbours would needs have it, with a garland of bays upon his head in manner of a triumpher. But against polygamy (which is, when a man or woman couples himself or herself in marriage to more than one) here are a heap of arguments in the text, which we shall take as they lie in order. Meanwhile it is worthy our observation, that the first author of polygamy was that Thrasonical Lamech, noted for a profane and wicked person; as was likewise Esau, another polygamist. Laban, though he had cheated Jacob into the having of his two daughters to wife, yet he could not but confess it to be a sin against the light of nature. Hence at parting he takes a solemn oath of Jacob, Genesis 31:50 "If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness between me and thee." Some of the fathers were herein faulty, as Abraham, David, &c., and some say it was their privilege; but that is not likely. Rather it was their ignorance or incogitancy (they considered not that it was a breach of the first institution of marriage), or, as some conceive, it was their mere mistake of that text, Leviticus 18:18 "Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her lifetime." Here they took the word (sister) for one so by blood, which was spoken of a sister by nation, Ezekiel 16:46, as those clauses to vex her, and during her life, do evince. One thing was, the commonness of the sin, and the long custom of it. So long had it continued, and was grown so fashionable, that it seemed to be no sin. But debt is debt, whether a man know of it or not; and sin, as a debt, may sleep a long time, and not be called out for many years, as Saul's sin in killing the Gibeonites slept forty years, and Joab's killing of Abner slept all David's days. Another thing that might cause desire of many wives, was want of love and chaste affection to the wife of their youth. Isaac is noted for a most loving husband to his Rebecca; and he never desired more wives than her. "Rejoice in the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe." This will keep thee from being ravished with a strange woman, or embracing the bosom of a stranger, Proverbs 5:18,20. The hind and the roe are most loving to their mates, and, therefore, most faithful to them. So, among birds, are the turtle dove and the stork. The former, they say, as he keeps close to his mate while she lives; so when she dies, he groans and moans continually, and never sits upon a green bough. The latter are chaste and severe in punishing those of the kind that are not. It is credibly reported by some that have seen it, that whole flocks of storks, meeting in a meadow, they have set in the midst of them two of their company that have been found disloyal, and, running upon them with main force, have killed them with their beaks. So that the company breaking up, and all the rest flying away, the two offending storks only have been found dead in the place.
Against whom thou hast dealt treacherously] viz. By superinducing another wife contrary to thy covenant. This is not a simple injury against thy lawful wife; but such as is joined with contumely, which the Greeks call υβρις; and the children that come of such copulation they call υβριδας, because they are subject to contumelies. The Hebrews call them brambles; Abimelech was such a one, Judges 9:14, a right bramble indeed, who grew in the base hedge row of a concubine; and scratched and drew blood to purpose. Lo, this is the prophet's first argument against polygamy; it is treachery against both God, who is deeply interested in the marriage covenant, and against the true wife, who is hereby extremely defrauded and defeated, Follows now the second:
Yet she is thy companion] Thy companion, and co-partner, thy consort, and fellow friend, such another as thyself, so the woman is called, Genesis 2:18, a second self, a mate suitable for thee, a piece so just cut out for thee, as answereth thee rightly in every point, in every joint. A wife is not a slave, saith one, but a companion; a yoke fellow, standing on even ground with thee, though drawing on the left side. From the left side, say some, she was taken, where the heart is, to teach that hearty love should be between married couples. Made she was of a rib, a bone of the side; not of the head (the wife must not usurp authority over her husband), nor yet of the foot, she may not be trampled upon or disregarded as an underling. A bone, not of any anterior part, she is not praelata, preferred before the man; neither yet of any hinder part; she is not postposita, set behind the man; but a bone of the side, of the middle of the indifferent part, to show that she is thy companion and the wife of thy covenant. A bone she is from under the arm; to put man in mind of protection and defence to the woman: a bone, not far from his heart; to put him in mind of dilection and love to the woman. Neither can the rib challenge any more of her than the earth can do of him. And as he was ignorant when himself was made, so he knew as little when his second self was made out of him; both that the comfort might be greater than was expected, as also that he might not upbraid his wife with any great dependance or obligation; he neither willing the work, nor suffering any pain to have it done. Shine she must with the beams of her husbaid; share she must with him in his masterly government of the family, as Sarah did with Abraham, by God's allowance, Genesis 16:1,6, and as the Roman ladies were wont to say to their husbands, Ubi tu Caius, ibi ego Caia, where you are lord I am lady. That over lordly behavior of husbands towards their wives, and that usage of them as drudges, is condemned by the heathen philosophers, in the very Barbarians themselves, as a great αταξια, and disorder in the family.
And the wife of thy covenant] And is it nothing to be a covenant breaker with a wife; especially where God also is engaged, as above said? Foedus παρα το πεποιθεναι πιστις, ab eadem radice, perform your trust, make good the troth you have plighted. Otherwise, if the fruits of the flesh grow out of the trees of your hearts, surely, surely, saith master Bradford, martyr, the devil is at in with you; you are his birds, whom, when he hath well fed, he will broach you and eat you, chaw you and champ you, world without end, in eternal woe and misery.