Malachi 2:5, commentary and pictures

God's covenant with Levi and the priesthood was a covenant of life and peace. He gave it to Levi because he revered and feared Him, honored Him, and stood in awe before His name, and He gives it to all who fear Him and stand in awe of His name. That reverence is the ground of faithful service in truthful speech, freedom from iniquity, integrity, and a walk with God in peace and fairness that turns many away from sin. Those under the covenant are to guard knowledge, learn and teach God's law, and serve as messengers of the Lord of hosts, but they corrupt the covenant when they cause others to stumble, fail to keep and teach the law, and apply it with partiality. Received today, the covenant makes consistent Christians who bear Christ's character at home in love, purity of thought, and sound speech to God's praise.

Covenant of Life and Peace

Malachi 2:5 describes God's covenant with Levi, with the sons of Levi, and with the priesthood as a covenant of life and peace. That covenant was given to Levi because he revered God, feared Him, honored Him, and stood in awe before His name. It is given to all who fear Him and stand in awe of His name.

The covenant transformed the curse of division and scattering pronounced on Levi for cruelty and vindictiveness in the murder of the Shechemites. Through repentance, reformation, and faithful loyalty to God while other tribes apostatized, the curse became highest honor. Under that honor the tribe was separated to bear the ark of the covenant, to stand before the Lord to minister to Him and to bless His name.

As appointed sanctuary ministers they received no landed inheritance but lived together in appointed cities, supported by tithes and gifts and offerings. They served as teachers of the people and were everywhere honored as God's servants and representatives whom the nation must never forsake as long as they lived, with the Lord Himself as their inheritance. The promise of peace is illustrated by God's covenant with Phinehas and his descendants, for because Phinehas acted zealously for God and made atonement for Israel, God promised him an everlasting priesthood and a covenant of peace. Keeping the covenant would have brought great blessing, and God offered to renew it with spiritual leaders who had broken it through transgression.

Faithful Service and Application

Reverence for God is the basis of faithful priestly service under the covenant of life and peace, given because Levi feared God, honored Him, and stood in awe before His name. That reverence was shown by truth in speech, with the law of truth in the mouth, by freedom from iniquity, by integrity, and by a life walked with God in peace, uprightness, fairness and equity. This faithful walk turned many people away from sin and iniquity.

Priests under the covenant are to preserve knowledge, to keep it upon the lips, to seek instruction from God's law, to teach that law, and to serve as messengers of the Lord of hosts. Priests who departed from this way corrupted the covenant by leading people to stumble at the law. They did so by failing to keep knowledge and to teach God's law, and by applying the law with partiality, especially when its demands touched their personal interests.

The covenant calls God's people to stay distinct from political strife and to represent Christ in holy life, heavenly citizenship, joy, love, and sound speech. Received today, it makes consistent Christians who wear Christ's heavenly character in the home life as loving and lovable people. Their hearts are daily filled with holy oil as they look to Jesus and think on what is true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report. Then their tongues speak the praise of God in sound words, with deformity, sullenness and evil speech removed, and their lips keep knowledge and turn others away from iniquity as messengers of the Lord of hosts.