Why did divorce rates go up during Malachi’s times - late 6th century BCE or even a bit later? Did it have to do with economics, politics, religion - or a fusion of all of these?
As the prophet about whom we know nothing - including not if he was married or had a family - blames the men of Judah for leaving their wives -- it is unclear what transgression he is actually addressing:
What is it that causes the altar to become smothered by bitter tears?
There is at least one tradition that claims that Malachi is actually Ezra the Scribe, using a pen name. If that is so - it would explain the severe tone of criticism heard here towards the men who discard their wives in favor of foreign women. This is the official start of the growing trend in Jewish life in which the line between religions and ethnic origins becomes a border and a taboo. The tensions surrounding this issue are with us today, in greater numbers and growing division. It was Ezra and the leaders of this time period who were the first to raise this separation flag with such conviction.
One of the features of living in a foreign culture, as the Judeans have done for over a century at that time, since they were exiled from Jerusalem - is the exposure to other customs, flavors, lifestyles - and lovers. In growing numbers, the men who left for Babylon and those who stayed behind in Judah, preferred to marry women of other faiths and ethnic backgrounds.
Some of their reasons were about survival - easier to integrate with local people if you marry in. There many also not have been too many options in the wake of the exile and the mass killing of their people.
Other reasons may have had to with the ways some must have felt disillusionment with the Jewish religions and a god that didn’t seem to take care of them that much. Or perhaps, like every operas play out -- some may have just fallen in love.
Either way - the growing tendency to marry foreign women (In most recorded cases, per the customs of the time, women had far little choice in the matter of whom they marry) will become a major religious-political issue for Ezra and the Judean leadership and it shows up in today’s chapter of Malachi.
Malachi begins by blaming the priestly families for discarding their temple duties, enabling corruption to take over and driving people away. The crisis is on many levels - the religious institutions are not serving the people’s needs and the people turn away from their religious ways and from their ancestors. The prophet sees this decline and tries to appeal to their sense of shared history and kinship:
הֲל֨וֹא אָ֤ב אֶחָד֙ לְכֻלָּ֔נוּ הֲל֛וֹא אֵ֥ל אֶֽחָ֖ד בְּרָאָ֑נוּ מַדּ֗וּעַ נִבְגַּד֙ אִ֣ישׁ בְּאָחִ֔יו לְחַלֵּ֖ל בְּרִ֥ית אֲבֹתֵֽינוּ׃
“Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we break faith with one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors?”
Malachi 2:10
Despite nostalgic ties to the shared past - the profanity and betrayal that he’s referring to will now be explicitly named, even if shrouded in poetry:
בָּֽגְדָ֣ה יְהוּדָ֔ה וְתוֹעֵבָ֛ה נֶעֶשְׂתָ֥ה בְיִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל וּבִירוּשָׁלָ֑͏ִם כִּ֣י ׀ חִלֵּ֣ל יְהוּדָ֗ה קֹ֤דֶשׁ יְהֹוָה֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָהֵ֔ב וּבָעַ֖ל בַּת־אֵ֥ל נֵכָֽר׃
וְזֹאת֙ שֵׁנִ֣ית תַּעֲשׂ֔וּ כַּסּ֤וֹת דִּמְעָה֙ אֶת־מִזְבַּ֣ח יְהֹוָ֔ה בְּכִ֖י וַאֲנָקָ֑ה מֵאֵ֣ין ע֗וֹד פְּנוֹת֙ אֶל־הַמִּנְחָ֔ה וְלָקַ֥חַת רָצ֖וֹן מִיֶּדְכֶֽם׃ וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֖ם עַל־מָ֑ה עַ֡ל כִּֽי־יְהֹוָה֩ הֵעִ֨יד בֵּינְךָ֜ וּבֵ֣ין ׀ אֵ֣שֶׁת נְעוּרֶ֗יךָ אֲשֶׁ֤ר אַתָּה֙ בָּגַ֣דְתָּה בָּ֔הּ וְהִ֥יא חֲבֶרְתְּךָ֖ וְאֵ֥שֶׁת בְּרִיתֶֽךָ׃
Judah has broken faith; abhorrent things have been done in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned what is holy to, and desired by, YHWH —and espoused daughters of alien gods.
And this you do as well: You cover the altar of YHWH with tears, weeping, and moaning, so that God refuses to regard the oblation anymore and to accept what you offer.
But you ask, “Because of what?” Because YHWH is a witness between you and the wife of your youth with whom you have broken faith, though she is your partner and covenanted spouse.
Malachi 2:11-14
Commentaries suggest that the image of the altar filled with tears is is because of the women who were left behind while their Judean husbands left them for local wives. The altar covered with their tears of petition became the tragic image for the broken covenant between YHWH and Israel, as it is the symbol of what happens every time a marriage dissolves.
The historical reality of intermarriage has been at the center of Jewish life since it began - from biblical figures such as Moses and Joseph to King Solomon and his hundreds of foreign wives.
But what’s different at this time is the depth of the theological reason, creating the sociological reality that will determine law and lore for the future generations.
Prof. E. Assis has written about this chapter suggesting that:
“After the destruction of the Temple, the people felt that they were rejected as the chosen people. This feeling is reflected in the anti-Edomite oracle in the first chapter of Malachi. Because they felt that they were no longer the chosen nation, the people felt that the distinction between them and other nations was no longer relevant. The people of Yehud adopted a humanistic ideology of equality between peoples that enabled intermarriage with foreign women. Malachi refuted these ideologies and conduct by claiming that Israel was still the chosen people, and that the ideology justifying relationships with foreign women should be abandoned.”
So which is it? ‘Humanistic ideology of equality between people’ that that some of the people preferred? Or the ‘one god, one people’ formula that the prophets like Malachi are trying hard to keep in place - or build up as the building blocks of their renewed reality?
The altar, made of stone, slowly dissolved beneath the tears and tears of women. This image too is powerful enough to challenge the rock-bottom of conviction - this is how and who we were and this is how we’ll keep on winning.
Malachi has just one chapter left, the exit lines of the entire book of prophets. It won’t respond to all the questions and there’s no overture. But somewhere in his words we find the deeper and eternal contradictions that perhaps what listening to prophets, then, and now, is all about? Perhaps beneath the altar of tears is a deeper well where the tears go and the spring of salvation rises, ready to quench some future thirst, sweet and salty, as patient as water, and love, and the stones surrounding wells that become the altars of atonement.
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