Translation:
Judah has
acted faithlessly,
An abomination has been performed
in Israel, in Jerusalem.
Judah has profaned the very holiness of Yahweh.
He loves Asherah;
he has married the daughter of a foreign god. (David L. Petersen, Zechariah
9-14 and Malachi [Old Testament Library; London: SCP Press, 1995], 194)
On the use of "Asherah" instead of אֲשֶׁר
("which"):
b. Revocalizing
the consonantal text to read ‘āšērāh ‘āhēb, restoring the h of ‘āšērāh,
which was lost y haplography. (Ibid.)
In the
second line of v. 11, the author provides a distinctive interpretation of the character
of the covenantal violation that was described earlier and is more generally known
as “acting faithlessly.” We are now told that “an abomination has been
performed.” This term is prominent in the Deuteronomistic corpus, so much that
Weinfeld includes it is in his list of phraseology characteristic of
Deuteronomic literature. In that context, the term regularly refers to veneration
of deities other than Yahweh (Deut. 7:25, 26; 13;14; 17:4; 18:9; 2018). To perform
an abomination is to perform some non-Yahwistic religious practice, as Deut.
17:3 makes especially clear.
The extent of
the abomination in question is made clear by the merismus “in Israel, in
Jerusalem.” Judah, who had been described earlier in the verse, is now linked
to territory as diverse as Israel, the vast empire of David, on one hand, and
Jerusalem, on city, on the other. Here the author is again attempting to unite
present with past and, simultaneously, to indicate the vast extent of covenant violation.
The fact that the author returns to Judah later in this verse indicates that
the present community, properly known as Yehud, is in fact the object of
prophetic scrutiny.
The specific
indictment, the particular abomination, is identified in Mal. 2:11b. The author
provides a very specific example of an abomination, namely, an act involving
non-Yahwistic worship: Judah has profaned Yahweh by venerating Asherah. The
first clause of this charge is straightforward, so long as one recognizes that
the ritual language, “holiness,” “profaned,” predominates. . . . To identify
the abomination as veneration of Asherah enables a much clearer understanding
of the final clause in Mal 2:11. To venerate Asherah probably involved
participation in sexual rituals, Judah, here personified as a male spouse, is
described as someone who has joined with the daughter of a foreign god. This
phrase vividly refers to Asherah, a foreign goddess. (Ibid., 198, 200)
