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?
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. Turning from the people to the priests, Yahweh asks, whereas His love to the people was so great, where was their love toward Him? If the priests as they profess, regard Him as their Father (Isaiah 63:16; Isaiah 64:8) and Master, let them show the reality of their profession by love, honour, and reverential fear (Exodus 20:12). It is vain to call Yahweh "Lord" if we do not what He saith (Luke 6:46). He addresses the priests, because they ought to be leaders in piety to the rest of the people, whereas they are foremost in "despising His name." See how in Jeremiah 35:14 God contrasts the honour and obedience of the Rechabites toward their father, in his somewhat hard commands, with the irreverence and disobedience of the Jews in the case of the often-repeated commands of their heavenly Father.
And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? ... The same captious spirit of self-satisfied insensibility here betrays itself again as prompted their question (Malachi 1:2) "Wherein hast thou loved us? They are blind alike to God's love and their own guilt.