Flesh and Spirit
When I was working on my doctoral dissertation, I focused on a tricky passage in Malachi 2:10–16. I found something in Malachi 2:15 that really surprised me. I translated the passage as
For did not One create? [Flesh of the spirit is his].1 What does the One require? The offspring of God. Therefore be on guard on penalty of your spirit lest it [your spirit] act treacherously against the wife of your youth.2
Weird passage, right? I explained this verse by first pointing out that “Did not one Create?” is basically the same idea found in 2:10. It says: “Did not One God create us?” So, God created his people - most of us are probably okay with that. Next, Malachi 2:16 says “Flesh of spirit is his.” What’s that supposed to mean? I found a clue in Leviticus 18:6 and 25:49, where “flesh of his flesh” denotes a family member,3 I proposed that Malachi 2:15 employs wordplay. God, as the father and creator, claims the people as his “flesh and spirit” rather than “flesh of his flesh.” This made a lot of sense in the Malachi context.
Still, I was puzzled. Was Malachi saying that the people were made up of flesh and spirit? I mean, I guess that’s not so confusing. Lots of people think of humans as made up of at least body and spirit - maybe even a third thing called “soul.” I think what confused me was that God was connecting the spirit to himself. Because they are part of his family, he was claiming to be the people’s father. I felt like that HAD to be important to understanding at least God’s people, if not all of humanity.4
I wanted to think about this more, and now we’re going to explore this together. In my next post, let’s check out the creation story.
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Oh! I found it so painful to look at my doctoral dissertation. So much I would change now!!! This translation was also suggested in HALOT: “Mal 215 prb. שְׁאָר רוּחַ לוֹ prop. 1) שְׁאֵר רוּחַ לוֹ flesh which is brought to life by breath, so TOB; cf. Sellin Zwölf. 2 (1930)2–3: 601, 604; see also Gesenius-Buhl Handw.” Note, these other authors are suggesting a conjectural reading of the Hebrew and changing the word by one vowel. Knowing the book of Malachi, I think it is just as possible that he was making wordplay here and we don’t need to emend the MT.<a href=“#fnref:1” title=“return to article” ↩︎
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Sheree Lear, Scribal Composition: Malachi as a Test Case (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: 2018, 27–28) ↩︎
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Both of these passages need more context for them to really be meaningful. Look them up and read what surrounds these verses! ↩︎
