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Introduction
to Malachi
This summary of the book of Malachi provides information about the
title, author(s), date of writing, chronology, theme, theology, outline, a
brief overview, and the chapters of the Book of Malachi.
The book is ascribed to Malachi, whose name means "my
messenger." Since the term occurs in 3:1,
and since both prophets and priests were called messengers of the Lord (see 2:7;
Hag 1:13), some have thought "Malachi"
to be only a title that tradition has given the author. The view has been
supported by appeal to the pre-Christian Greek translation of the OT (the
Septuagint), which translates the term in 1:1
"his messenger" rather than as a proper noun. The matter, however,
remains uncertain, and it is still very likely that Malachi was in fact the
author's name.
Spurred on by the prophetic activity of Haggai and Zechariah, the
returned exiles under the leadership of their governor Zerubbabel finished the
temple in 516 b.c. In 458 the community was strengthened by the coming of the
priest Ezra and several thousand more Jews. Artaxerxes king of Persia encouraged
Ezra to reconstitute the temple worship (Ezr
7:17) and to make sure the law of Moses was being obeyed (Ezr 7:25-26).
Fourteen years later (444) the same Persian king permitted his
cupbearer Nehemiah to return to Jerusalem and rebuild its walls (Ne 6:15). As newly appointed governor, Nehemiah
also spearheaded reforms to help the poor (Ne 5:2-13), and he convinced the people to shun
mixed marriages (Ne 10:30), to keep the Sabbath (Ne 10: 31) and to bring their tithes and
offerings faithfully (Ne 10:37-39).
In 433 b.c. Nehemiah returned to the service of the Persian king,
and during his absence the Jews fell into sin once more. Later, however,
Nehemiah came back to Jerusalem to discover that the tithes were ignored, the
Sabbath was broken, the people had intermarried with foreigners, and the
priests had become corrupt (Ne 13:7-31). Several of these same sins are
condemned by Malachi (see 1:6-14; 2:14-16; 3:8-11).
The similarity between the sins denounced in Nehemiah and those
denounced in Malachi suggests that the two leaders were contemporaries. Malachi
may have been written after Nehemiah returned to Persia in 433 b.c. or during
his second period as governor. Since the governor mentioned in 1:8
(see note there) probably was not Nehemiah, the first alternative may be more
likely. Malachi was most likely the last prophet of the OT era (though some
place Joel later).
The theological message of the book can be summed up in one
sentence: The Great King (1:14) will come not only to judge his people (3:1-5; 4:1)
but also to bless and restore them (3:6-12; 4:2).
Although the Jews had been allowed to return from exile and
rebuild the temple, several discouraging factors brought about a general
religious malaise: (1) Their land remained but a small province in the
backwaters of the Persian empire, (2) the glorious future announced by the
prophets (including the other postexilic prophets, Haggai and Zechariah) had
not (yet) been realized, and (3) their God had not (yet) come to his temple (3:1)
with majesty and power (as celebrated in Ps
68) to exalt his kingdom in the sight of the nations. Doubting God's
covenant love (1:2) and no longer trusting his justice (2:17; 3:14-15), the Jews of the restored community
began to lose hope. So their worship degenerated into a listless perpetuation
of mere forms, and they no longer took the law seriously.
Malachi rebukes their doubt of God's love (1:2-5) and the faithlessness of both priests (1:6
-- 2:9) and people (2:10-16). To their charge that God is unjust (2:17) because he has failed to come in judgment to exalt his
people, Malachi answers with an announcement and a warning. The Lord they seek
will come -- but he will come "like a refiner's fire" (3:1-4). He will come to judge -- but he will
judge his people first (3:5).
Because the Lord does not change in his commitments and purpose,
Israel has not been completely destroyed for her persistent unfaithfulness (3:6).
But only through repentance and reformation will she again experience God's
blessing (3:6-12). Those who honor the Lord will be spared
when he comes to judge (3:16-18).
In conclusion, Malachi once more reassures and warns his readers
that "the day [�that great and dreadful
day of the Lord,' 4:5] is coming" and that "it will burn
like a furnace" (4:1). In that day the righteous will rejoice,
and "you will trample down the wicked" (4:2-3). So "remember the law of my servant
Moses" (4:4). To prepare his people for that day the
Lord will send "the prophet Elijah" to call them back to the godly
ways of their forefathers (4:5-6).
Malachi is called an "oracle" (1:1)
and is written in what might be called lofty prose. The text features a series
of questions asked by both God and the people. Frequently the Lord's statements
are followed by sarcastic questions introduced by "(But) you ask" (1:2,6-7; 2:14,17; 3:7-8,13; cf. 1:13). In each case the Lord's response is given.
Repetition is a key element in the book. The name "Lord
Almighty" occurs 20 times (see note on 1Sa 1:3). The book begins with a description of the wasteland
of Edom (1:3-4) and ends with a warning of Israel's
destruction (4:6).
Several vivid figures are employed within the book of Malachi. The
priests sniff contemptuously at the altar of the Lord (1:13), and the Lord spreads on their faces the offal from
their sacrifices (see 2:3 and note). As Judge, "he will be like a
refiner's fire or a launderer's soap" (3:2),
but for the righteous "the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in
its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the
stall" (4:2).
I.
Title (1:1)
A.
The Unfaithfulness of the Priests (1:6;2:9)
B.
The Unfaithfulness of the People (2:10-16)
IV.
The Lord's Coming Announced (2:17;4:6)
──《New
International Version》
Introduction to Malachi
Malachi was the last of the prophets, and is
supposed to have prophesied B.C. 420. He reproves the priests and the people
for the evil practices into which they had fallen, and invites them to
repentance and reformation, with promises of the blessings to be bestowed at
the coming of the Messiah. And now that prophecy was to cease, he speaks
clearly of the Messiah, as nigh at hand, and directs the people of God to keep
in rememberance the law of Moses, while they were in expectation of the gospel
of Christ.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Malachi》
00 Overview
MALACHI
INTRODUCTION
I. First of all,
we are to look at the world in which this prophet’s lot was cast, the character
of his contemporaries, the souls with which he had to deal. Let us suppose that
more than ninety years, an entire century almost, have passed away since Haggai
and Zechariah began to preach in Jerusalem to the captives who had returned
from Babylon. Artaxerxes Longimanus sits now on the throne of Persia, and is
the sovereign lord to whom the Hebrews in Judea pay allegiance and tribute. It
is, we shall say, the year 425 b.c., for if that be not the exact date it
cannot be very far removed from it. The second Temple has been finished long
since. It was not in vain that Zechariah encouraged the restored exiles by
visions and predictions to be up and doing. Haggai’s declarations that there
was an intimate union between liberal giving to the Lord and external
prosperity were uttered to good purpose. At the call of God’s ambassadors the people
roused themselves from their unworthy and selfish lethargy. They built the
sacred walls and courts and pinnacles with zeal and enthusiasm; before long the
hill of Zion was crowned again with the sanctuary of Jehovah. There succeeded a
brief season of spiritual life and earnestness and joy. The priests offered
sacrifice anew, and made intercession for the citizens within the Holy House.
But this genial summer was short-lived. The generation to which Haggai and
Zechariah spoke with such effect, died out ere long; and their successors did
not manifest their zealous devotion. They were remiss and negligent. The city
which their fathers had begun to rebuild they left incomplete and half-ruinous;
they took little delight in the Temple which their fathers had raised. They
withheld from God those tithes and offerings which pertained to Him; and when
they did bring animals for sacrifice on His altar, they were often the very
poorest of the flock--sheep and lambs which they would have been utterly
ashamed to present to their Persian governor. Their priests were men like
themselves. They cared not how slovenly the Temple service might be. They came
far short of realising the responsibilities of their office. They inflicted
daily dishonour on the God whose servants they called themselves. Both priests
and people intermarried freely with aliens, with those who were strangers to
the commonwealth and the covenant, who were idolatrous in worship and sinful in
life. Both were rapidly growing sceptical alike in thought and m speech,
questioning many things which had hitherto been most surely believed, avowing
their incredulity boldly and defiantly. It was a lamentable change. During
these days of reaction and retrogression, two visitors came to Jerusalem from
the Court of Persia--first one and then the other. They were Jews, full of
patriotism, and anxious to see how it fared with their kinsfolk in the city of
their fathers. The first of them was Ezra, the priest and the scribe. It was
the midsummer of the year 459 when he arrived. He was prepared to find much
that was disappointing; he knew the difficulties with which the Hebrew
colonists had had to contend; and he did not expect to discover an ideal State
or a Church without spot and stain. But the actual condition of affairs
astonished and dismayed him--those unholy marriages with the heathen most of
all. When he learned the full extent of the evil, “he tore his outer cloak from
top to bottom; he tore his inner garment no less; he plucked off the long
tresses of his sacerdotal locks, the long flakes of his sacerdotal heard; and
thus, with dishevelled hair and half-clothed limbs, he sank on the ground,
crouched like one thunderstruck, through the whole of a day.” £ Then, eager to
usher in a better era, he devoted himself to the work of renovation; like the
Baptist, he commanded all--the ministers of religion and the citizens as
well--to repent of their sins; and his influence penetrated far and near.
Fourteen years later, the second visitor came. This was Nehemiah, a young Jew
of noble family, who had filled the high post of chamberlain to the Persian
king. A deep and brooding anguish possessed him when he thought of the city of
his ancestors in her desolation and shame. He bogged of his royal master
permission to return to his native country with power to rectify the disorders
which vexed him so keenly. The request was granted, and he started with escort
and authority to accomplish the desire that lay near his heart. Through twelve
summers and winters he remained in Judea and acted as its governor. One
much-needed reform after another was carried through. The fortifications of the
town were raised from their ruins. The nobles were rebuked for their iniquitous
exactions. The Levites and the singers were bidden resume their duties in the
sacred courts. The gates were closed against the merchants who came with their laden asses on
the Sabbath day. It seemed as if, through the efforts of these two--the aged
scribe, full of passionate love for the ancient law, and the young noble, who
was both soldier and statesman--a revival of a genuine and permanent kind had
indeed been brought about. But the morning which had opened so clear and fair
was destined to be overclouded soon. Nehemiah went back for a short time to the
court of Artaxerxes. He was not long absent; but during the brief interval,
when the strong hand of the ruler was withdrawn, the Jews reverted to their old
misdemeanours and sins; “all his fences and their whole array” were blown to
the ground. When he returned,
matters were even worse than they had been on his first arrival. Within the
family of the high priest himself an odious alliance with the heathen had been
contracted; one of the young men of his house had taken to wife the daughter of
Sanballat, the very ringleader of the enemies of Judah. The Temple service had
fallen again into dishonour and neglect; God’s tithes were once more being
denied Him; the Sabbath traffic which had been so sternly forbidden was
prosecuted as vigorously and as unblushingly as ever. It was a sad relapse.
This was the time in which Malachi was called to carry “the burden of the Word
of the Lord.” We may believe that his solemn threats and condemnations rang
through the streets of Jerusalem during that short absence of Nehemiah at the Persian Court. But
before we glance at what he had to say to his erring countrymen, there is a
question which confronts us of a fundamental sort: Was there any Malachi at
all--any person who actually bore this name, and who was known by it among his
fellow-citizens? The question has more than once been answered in the negative.
“No,” it has been said, “there was no prophet called Malachi. For the Word
simply means ‘the messenger of God’; and beyond doubt it was a kind of epithet, a kind of official
title, by which one of the servants of Jehovah in that time chose to designate
himself. Perhaps it was the venerable scribe Ezra; £ or perhaps it was
Nehemiah, the Tirshatha himself; or perhaps--who knows?--it was one of the
angels of light come down from the heavenly places in the form of a man, to do
God’s will and to proclaim His grave and heavy warnings. You may search as
carefully as you please the lists which are given in the historical books of
those who, for one reason or another, were notable in the Jerusalem of the day;
and you will find no Malachi among them. Evidently there was none. The name
indicates the work done by him who bore it; it is not a personal designation at
all.” That has been the opinion of not a few both in older and more recent
times. But we may at once set it aside. Malachi, like that greater preacher of
a future age to whom he pointed his contemporaries forward, may be only a
“voice” to us; of his career and history we know absolutely nothing; but he was
unquestionably a real person, and this was his proper name. It is not the habit
of the prophets to prefix descriptive titles to their books, or to speak of
themselves only by the office which they held, or to write under some nom de
plume. Each of them tells us plainly and frankly his ordinary name by which
he was greeted in the street and the market and the home. And Malachi, we may
be certain, is no exception to the rule. He was distinct from Ezra and
Nehemiah, less famous than they, but not a whir loss solicitous about the glory
of God and the reformation of Jerusalem. Unconsciously lie paints for us, I
think, a picture of himself in his book, when he speaks of the little companies
of God-fearing Jews who were in the habit of meeting together in that wicked
time to converse one with another about what was holy and spiritual, and so to
keep their own souls aglow when all around them was cold and frozen and dead;
if we could have entered the upper room where these few disciples assembled, we
should certainly have found Malachi among them. These were his surroundings,
then; this was the world to which he proclaimed the sorrow and indignation of
the Lord, which were his own sorrow and indignation too.
II. But let us turn
now to consider the prophet’s message to the men of his day. Living when “the
world was very evil,” what had he to say to it? He sets out with the
declaration that the conduct of Judah was without excuse. If God had been a
hard taskmaster--if He had shown Himself strict to mark iniquity, and unmindful
of loyal service when it was given Him--there might have been some
justification for the ingratitude of Jerusalem. But it was not so. God had
dealt with the Jews in sovereign and marvellous love. No doubt they questioned
His compassion and grace. Where could be the Divine mercy towards them, they
asked, when they were a people scattered and peeled, few in number, and held in
contempt? The answer was a convincing one. Let them look across the borders of
Judah, east and south to the blue mountains that rose beyond the Dead Sea--to
Edom, a nation near of kin to themselves, sprung from Esau as they were sprung
from Jacob. They might be poor and despised; but the condition of Edom was
tenfold sadder and more hopeless. Its rock-hewn cities were desolate. Jackals
and scorpions made them their home. No proud and warlike people dwelt in them
any more. And what was the reason of the difference? Why should brother-races,
starting from the same mother’s knee, be separated by so wide a gulf, the one
utterly destroyed, the other spared and blessed? The sole cause was the love of
God. Jacob He had loved; Esau He had hated--and that was why Jerusalem
survived, whilst Petra was waste and lonely, its pride abased, its glory
departed. Freely and spontaneously--patiently and fervently--God had loved the
Jewish people, and therefore the sons of Jacob were not consumed as the sons of
Esau had been (Malachi 1:1-5). Having thus reminded the
children of Israel how unreasonable and thankless their conduct was in
rewarding God evil for His good, disobedience and neglect in return for His
loving-kindness and tender mercy, Malachi brings against his nation an
indictment which has three counts in it. First, he reproves the priests for
their scandalous negligence in the management of the Temple worship. The
sacrifices which they offered at the altar were despicable and worthless. They
seemed to imagine that any animal was good enough for God--the lame or the
blind that had become useless for work, the maimed or the torn, the beast that
was dying of disease and could not be presented for sale in the market, that
which had been stolen, and which they would have been afraid to sell. They
grudged the best of their possessions to Him who had given them all. They
dishonoured God openly in the sight of man. Would that there were someone to
shut the doors, he exclaimed, that this profane and fruitless worship might be
carried on no longer! He takes no pleasure in those who do not come with
alacrity to His house. He loveth a cheerful giver; but souls to whom His
service is a weary burden--souls that grudge Him their best and richest
treasures, and can spare Him only that which costs them nothing--what delight
can He take in them? The second accusation which Malachi pronounces against his
countrymen deals with a flagrant sin both of priests and people--the sin of
intermarriage with aliens. These alliances between the sons of Judah and
heathen women awakened in the prophet, as they had awakened in Ezra and
Nehemiah, the intensest repugnance and alarm. He recognised clearly the crime
of Jerusalem in contracting wedlock with “the daughter of a strange god.” He
felt that the offenders had profaned the covenant of Jehovah. His sentence went
forth against them sharp and strong, “The Lord will out off the man that doeth
this, the master and the scholar.” Do we wonder that His anger should be so hot
and fierce? Do we say that alien blood ran in the veins of David himself, the very darling of
Israel; and that Ruth the Moabitess, who became the ancestress of the king and
of One greater and diviner than he, is pictured to us in Scripture as fair and
sweet and holy, “a perfect woman nobly planned”? But therein lies the
difference. She gave up her heathenism when she entered a Jewish home; “thy
people shall be my people,” she told Naomi in those musical words of hers, “and
thy God shall be my God.” It was otherwise with the wives be my God.” It was
otherwise with the wives of the
men to whom Malachi spoke. They continued idolatresses, reverencing
Moloch and Chemosh and Baal rather than Jehovah. The prophet saw that those who
wedded them exposed themselves to subtle temptation and ran fearful risk. He
denounced their conduct as unpatriotic. They were bringing down to the common
earthly level the holy people whom God loved. They were endangering the
separate existence of the race which was meant to be a living witness against
polytheism and sin. They were destroying the barriers which divided it from the
ungodly world. God, he declared, was full of pity for the Hebrew wives, who had been driven from
hearth and home in order that outsiders might step into their prerogatives and
privileges. The poor, forsaken Jewish women had covered His altar “with tears,
with weeping, and with crying out.” Ah, surely sin is an evil thing and a
bitter. It had already led many a Jew to inflict this sore anguish on the wife
of his youth; and it must end in more trouble still. For, much as the God of
Israel hated putting away, the strange women must go. They might plead with
clinging entreaties, with wild reproaches, to be allowed to remain; it might
break the hearts of those who loved them only too well to part with them; but
in this way alone could the sin of Jerusalem be removed and cleansed. Men
cannot have the friendship both of God and of transgressors; they must choose
between the two. Unless we are putting away from us everything that is of the
earth earthy, as Malachi bade the Jews put away their heathen consorts, we may
well doubt whether we are true sons and daughters of the Lord (Malachi 2:9-16). The prophet’s third
charge against his countrymen, is that they had fallen into a scepticism which
questioned moral distinctions and scoffed at God’s threatenings. Living so long
in Babylon, meeting so habitually with men of other ways of thinking than their
own, they had learned to cavil and doubt where they ought to have believed.
“Where is the God of judgment?” they said. The very form into which the
sentences of the Book are thrown indicates the infidelity that was prevalent.
The preacher is continually repeating the questions which he heard among the
people. “Wherein has God loved us?” and “Wherein have we despised His name?”
and “To what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have
walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?” Where their fathers had been
content to exercise a childlike faith, the Jews of Malachi’s time were ready to
point to this stumbling block and to that contradiction. Intellectually they
were more active than their fathers; morally they were more distrustful and
more presumptuous; in their case, as in many others, the reason had been
developed at the expense of the heart. But the prophet assures them that the
God of judgment, about whose existence and power they were so dubious, would
manifest Himself soon in a way they could not mistake. His servant Nehemiah
would come suddenly to the Temple to cleanse it; he would be a swift witness
against the wrongdoers of the city; he would appear in the spirit of
Elijah--the stern spirit which made an end of idolaters and transgressors; he
would enforce the broken law of Moses. And, beyond Nehemiah, Malachi beholds a
greater still, the New Testament Elijah, John the Baptist; and, beyond John,
One nobler even than he--One who could fitly be named the Sun of Righteousness,
who should deal in integrity with His own true people, and should trample the
wicked under foot. Then, by the confession of all, it would be well with the
godly; then, when they could find no place for repentance, those who were so
faithless now would discover their error and foolishness. But these doubts,
which the men of the prophet’s age raised and cherished--do they not linger
among us to-day? Are not we inclined sometimes to question in our hearts
whether there can be a God, because He hides Himself, and leaves His people in
trouble, and allows their enemies and His to enjoy a time of prosperity and
success? We overlook the disciplinary value of adversity and pain and loss--how
they are often a hundredfold better for us than an easy and pleasant life.
There are bright touches in the prevailing dark of Malachi’s prophecy; in his
chapters gloom and glory meet together. Over against the hireling priests he
places the likeness of a true priest and servant of Jehovah (Malachi 2:5-7). A beautiful miniature it
is, and doubtless it was drawn from the life. Then, too, although in his time
the evil far outweighs the good, the prophet discovers here and there a spot of
heavenly brightness. He speaks of brotherhoods of congenial souls, bearing a
silent witness for God by lives of consecration, linked by bonds of prayer and
love, handing down to their successors the truth which heals and blesses and
saves. “They that feared the Lord spake often one to another,” etc. We should
be thankful that never, even in the worst days, has the King wanted such quiet
and brave and steadfast servants. They are the very salt of the earth; they are
the light of the world. (Original Secession Magazine.)
MALACHI
INTRODUCTION
I. First of all,
we are to look at the world in which this prophet’s lot was cast, the character
of his contemporaries, the souls with which he had to deal. Let us suppose that
more than ninety years, an entire century almost, have passed away since Haggai
and Zechariah began to preach in Jerusalem to the captives who had returned
from Babylon. Artaxerxes Longimanus sits now on the throne of Persia, and is
the sovereign lord to whom the Hebrews in Judea pay allegiance and tribute. It
is, we shall say, the year 425 b.c., for if that be not the exact date it
cannot be very far removed from it. The second Temple has been finished long since.
It was not in vain that Zechariah encouraged the restored exiles by visions and
predictions to be up and doing. Haggai’s declarations that there was an
intimate union between liberal giving to the Lord and external prosperity were
uttered to good purpose. At the call of God’s ambassadors the people roused
themselves from their unworthy and selfish lethargy. They built the sacred
walls and courts and pinnacles with zeal and enthusiasm; before long the hill
of Zion was crowned again with the sanctuary of Jehovah. There succeeded a
brief season of spiritual life and earnestness and joy. The priests offered
sacrifice anew, and made intercession for the citizens within the Holy House.
But this genial summer was short-lived. The generation to which Haggai and
Zechariah spoke with such effect, died out ere long; and their successors did
not manifest their zealous devotion. They were remiss and negligent. The city
which their fathers had begun to rebuild they left incomplete and half-ruinous;
they took little delight in the Temple which their fathers had raised. They
withheld from God those tithes and offerings which pertained to Him; and when
they did bring animals for sacrifice on His altar, they were often the very
poorest of the flock--sheep and lambs which they would have been utterly
ashamed to present to their Persian governor. Their priests were men like
themselves. They cared not how slovenly the Temple service might be. They came
far short of realising the responsibilities of their office. They inflicted
daily dishonour on the God whose servants they called themselves. Both priests
and people intermarried freely with aliens, with those who were strangers to
the commonwealth and the covenant, who were idolatrous in worship and sinful in
life. Both were rapidly growing sceptical alike in thought and m speech,
questioning many things which had hitherto been most surely believed, avowing
their incredulity boldly and defiantly. It was a lamentable change. During
these days of reaction and retrogression, two visitors came to Jerusalem from
the Court of Persia--first one and then the other. They were Jews, full of
patriotism, and anxious to see how it fared with their kinsfolk in the city of
their fathers. The first of them was Ezra, the priest and the scribe. It was
the midsummer of the year 459 when he arrived. He was prepared to find much
that was disappointing; he knew the difficulties with which the Hebrew
colonists had had to contend; and he did not expect to discover an ideal State
or a Church without spot and stain. But the actual condition of affairs
astonished and dismayed him--those unholy marriages with the heathen most of
all. When he learned the full extent of the evil, “he tore his outer cloak from
top to bottom; he tore his inner garment no less; he plucked off the long
tresses of his sacerdotal locks, the long flakes of his sacerdotal heard; and
thus, with dishevelled hair and half-clothed limbs, he sank on the ground,
crouched like one thunderstruck, through the whole of a day.” £ Then, eager to usher
in a better era, he devoted himself to the work of renovation; like the
Baptist, he commanded all--the ministers of religion and the citizens as
well--to repent of their sins; and his influence penetrated far and near.
Fourteen years later, the second visitor came. This was Nehemiah, a young Jew
of noble family, who had filled the high post of chamberlain to the Persian
king. A deep and brooding anguish possessed him when he thought of the city of
his ancestors in her desolation and shame. He bogged of his royal master
permission to return to his native country with power to rectify the disorders
which vexed him so keenly. The request was granted, and he started with escort
and authority to accomplish the desire that lay near his heart. Through twelve summers
and winters he remained in Judea and acted as its governor. One much-needed
reform after another was carried through. The fortifications of the town were
raised from their ruins. The nobles were rebuked for their iniquitous
exactions. The Levites and the singers were bidden resume their duties in the
sacred courts. The gates were closed against the merchants who came with their laden asses on
the Sabbath day. It seemed as if, through the efforts of these two--the aged
scribe, full of passionate love for the ancient law, and the young noble, who
was both soldier and statesman--a revival of a genuine and permanent kind had
indeed been brought about. But the morning which had opened so clear and fair
was destined to be overclouded soon. Nehemiah went back for a short time to the
court of Artaxerxes. He was not long absent; but during the brief interval,
when the strong hand of the ruler was withdrawn, the Jews reverted to their old
misdemeanours and sins; “all his fences and their whole array” were blown to
the ground. When he returned,
matters were even worse than they had been on his first arrival. Within the
family of the high priest himself an odious alliance with the heathen had been
contracted; one of the young men of his house had taken to wife the daughter of
Sanballat, the very ringleader of the enemies of Judah. The Temple service had
fallen again into dishonour and neglect; God’s tithes were once more being
denied Him; the Sabbath traffic which had been so sternly forbidden was
prosecuted as vigorously and as unblushingly as ever. It was a sad relapse.
This was the time in which Malachi was called to carry “the burden of the Word
of the Lord.” We may believe that his solemn threats and condemnations rang
through the streets of Jerusalem during that short absence of Nehemiah at the Persian Court. But
before we glance at what he had to say to his erring countrymen, there is a
question which confronts us of a fundamental sort: Was there any Malachi at
all--any person who actually bore this name, and who was known by it among his
fellow-citizens? The question has more than once been answered in the negative.
“No,” it has been said, “there was no prophet called Malachi. For the Word
simply means ‘the messenger of God’; and beyond doubt it was a kind of epithet, a kind of official
title, by which one of the servants of Jehovah in that time chose to designate
himself. Perhaps it was the venerable scribe Ezra; £ or perhaps it was
Nehemiah, the Tirshatha himself; or perhaps--who knows?--it was one of the angels
of light come down from the heavenly places in the form of a man, to do God’s
will and to proclaim His grave and heavy warnings. You may search as carefully
as you please the lists which are given in the historical books of those who,
for one reason or another, were notable in the Jerusalem of the day; and you
will find no Malachi among them. Evidently there was none. The name indicates
the work done by him who bore it; it is not a personal designation at all.”
That has been the opinion of not a few both in older and more recent times. But
we may at once set it aside. Malachi, like that greater preacher of a future
age to whom he pointed his contemporaries forward, may be only a “voice” to us;
of his career and history we know absolutely nothing; but he was unquestionably
a real person, and this was his proper name. It is not the habit of the
prophets to prefix descriptive titles to their books, or to speak of themselves
only by the office which they held, or to write under some nom de plume.
Each of them tells us plainly and frankly his ordinary name by which he was
greeted in the street and the market and the home. And Malachi, we may be
certain, is no exception to the rule. He was distinct from Ezra and Nehemiah,
less famous than they, but not a whir loss solicitous about the glory of God
and the reformation of Jerusalem. Unconsciously lie paints for us, I think, a
picture of himself in his book, when he speaks of the little companies of
God-fearing Jews who were in the habit of meeting together in that wicked time
to converse one with another about what was holy and spiritual, and so to keep
their own souls aglow when all around them was cold and frozen and dead; if we
could have entered the upper room where these few disciples assembled, we
should certainly have found Malachi among them. These were his surroundings,
then; this was the world to which he proclaimed the sorrow and indignation of
the Lord, which were his own sorrow and indignation too.
II. But let us turn
now to consider the prophet’s message to the men of his day. Living when “the
world was very evil,” what had he to say to it? He sets out with the
declaration that the conduct of Judah was without excuse. If God had been a
hard taskmaster--if He had shown Himself strict to mark iniquity, and unmindful
of loyal service when it was given Him--there might have been some
justification for the ingratitude of Jerusalem. But it was not so. God had
dealt with the Jews in sovereign and marvellous love. No doubt they questioned
His compassion and grace. Where could be the Divine mercy towards them, they
asked, when they were a people scattered and peeled, few in number, and held in
contempt? The answer was a convincing one. Let them look across the borders of
Judah, east and south to the blue mountains that rose beyond the Dead Sea--to
Edom, a nation near of kin to themselves, sprung from Esau as they were sprung
from Jacob. They might be poor and despised; but the condition of Edom was
tenfold sadder and more hopeless. Its rock-hewn cities were desolate. Jackals
and scorpions made them their home. No proud and warlike people dwelt in them
any more. And what was the reason of the difference? Why should brother-races,
starting from the same mother’s knee, be separated by so wide a gulf, the one
utterly destroyed, the other spared and blessed? The sole cause was the love of
God. Jacob He had loved; Esau He had hated--and that was why Jerusalem
survived, whilst Petra was waste and lonely, its pride abased, its glory
departed. Freely and spontaneously--patiently and fervently--God had loved the
Jewish people, and therefore the sons of Jacob were not consumed as the sons of
Esau had been (Malachi 1:1-5). Having thus reminded the
children of Israel how unreasonable and thankless their conduct was in
rewarding God evil for His good, disobedience and neglect in return for His
loving-kindness and tender mercy, Malachi brings against his nation an
indictment which has three counts in it. First, he reproves the priests for
their scandalous negligence in the management of the Temple worship. The
sacrifices which they offered at the altar were despicable and worthless. They
seemed to imagine that any animal was good enough for God--the lame or the blind
that had become useless for work, the maimed or the torn, the beast that was
dying of disease and could not be presented for sale in the market, that which
had been stolen, and which they would have been afraid to sell. They grudged
the best of their possessions to Him who had given them all. They dishonoured
God openly in the sight of man. Would that there were someone to shut the
doors, he exclaimed, that this profane and fruitless worship might be carried
on no longer! He takes no pleasure in those who do not come with alacrity to
His house. He loveth a cheerful giver; but souls to whom His service is a weary
burden--souls that grudge Him their best and richest treasures, and can spare
Him only that which costs them nothing--what delight can He take in them? The
second accusation which Malachi pronounces against his countrymen deals with a
flagrant sin both of priests and people--the sin of intermarriage with aliens.
These alliances between the sons of Judah and heathen women awakened in the
prophet, as they had awakened in Ezra and Nehemiah, the intensest repugnance
and alarm. He recognised clearly the crime of Jerusalem in contracting wedlock
with “the daughter of a strange god.” He felt that the offenders had profaned
the covenant of Jehovah. His sentence went forth against them sharp and strong,
“The Lord will out off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar.” Do
we wonder that His anger should be so hot and fierce? Do we say that alien
blood ran in the veins of David himself, the very darling of Israel; and that Ruth the
Moabitess, who became the ancestress of the king and of One greater and diviner
than he, is pictured to us in Scripture as fair and sweet and holy, “a perfect
woman nobly planned”? But therein lies the difference. She gave up her
heathenism when she entered a Jewish home; “thy people shall be my people,” she
told Naomi in those musical words of hers, “and thy God shall be my God.” It
was otherwise with the wives be my God.” It was otherwise with the wives of the men to whom Malachi
spoke. They continued idolatresses, reverencing Moloch and Chemosh and Baal
rather than Jehovah. The prophet saw that those who wedded them exposed
themselves to subtle temptation and ran fearful risk. He denounced their
conduct as unpatriotic. They were bringing down to the common earthly level the
holy people whom God loved. They were endangering the separate existence of the
race which was meant to be a living witness against polytheism and sin. They
were destroying the barriers which divided it from the ungodly world. God, he
declared, was full of pity for the Hebrew wives, who had been driven from hearth and home in
order that outsiders might step into their prerogatives and privileges. The
poor, forsaken Jewish women had covered His altar “with tears, with weeping,
and with crying out.” Ah, surely sin is an evil thing and a bitter. It had
already led many a Jew to inflict this sore anguish on the wife of his youth;
and it must end in more trouble still. For, much as the God of Israel hated putting
away, the strange women must go. They might plead with clinging entreaties,
with wild reproaches, to be allowed to remain; it might break the hearts of
those who loved them only too well to part with them; but in this way alone
could the sin of Jerusalem be removed and cleansed. Men cannot have the
friendship both of God and of transgressors; they must choose between the two.
Unless we are putting away from us everything that is of the earth earthy, as
Malachi bade the Jews put away their heathen consorts, we may well doubt
whether we are true sons and daughters of the Lord (Malachi 2:9-16). The prophet’s third
charge against his countrymen, is that they had fallen into a scepticism which
questioned moral distinctions and scoffed at God’s threatenings. Living so long
in Babylon, meeting so habitually with men of other ways of thinking than their
own, they had learned to cavil and doubt where they ought to have believed.
“Where is the God of judgment?” they said. The very form into which the
sentences of the Book are thrown indicates the infidelity that was prevalent.
The preacher is continually repeating the questions which he heard among the
people. “Wherein has God loved us?” and “Wherein have we despised His name?”
and “To what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have
walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?” Where their fathers had been
content to exercise a childlike faith, the Jews of Malachi’s time were ready to
point to this stumbling block and to that contradiction. Intellectually they
were more active than their fathers; morally they were more distrustful and
more presumptuous; in their case, as in many others, the reason had been
developed at the expense of the heart. But the prophet assures them that the
God of judgment, about whose existence and power they were so dubious, would
manifest Himself soon in a way they could not mistake. His servant Nehemiah
would come suddenly to the Temple to cleanse it; he would be a swift witness
against the wrongdoers of the city; he would appear in the spirit of
Elijah--the stern spirit which made an end of idolaters and transgressors; he
would enforce the broken law of Moses. And, beyond Nehemiah, Malachi beholds a
greater still, the New Testament Elijah, John the Baptist; and, beyond John,
One nobler even than he--One who could fitly be named the Sun of Righteousness,
who should deal in integrity with His own true people, and should trample the
wicked under foot. Then, by the confession of all, it would be well with the
godly; then, when they could find no place for repentance, those who were so
faithless now would discover their error and foolishness. But these doubts,
which the men of the prophet’s age raised and cherished--do they not linger
among us to-day? Are not we inclined sometimes to question in our hearts
whether there can be a God, because He hides Himself, and leaves His people in
trouble, and allows their enemies and His to enjoy a time of prosperity and
success? We overlook the disciplinary value of adversity and pain and loss--how
they are often a hundredfold better for us than an easy and pleasant life.
There are bright touches in the prevailing dark of Malachi’s prophecy; in his
chapters gloom and glory meet together. Over against the hireling priests he
places the likeness of a true priest and servant of Jehovah (Malachi 2:5-7). A beautiful miniature it
is, and doubtless it was drawn from the life. Then, too, although in his time
the evil far outweighs the good, the prophet discovers here and there a spot of
heavenly brightness. He speaks of brotherhoods of congenial souls, bearing a silent
witness for God by lives of consecration, linked by bonds of prayer and love,
handing down to their successors the truth which heals and blesses and saves.
“They that feared the Lord spake often one to another,” etc. We should be
thankful that never, even in the worst days, has the King wanted such quiet and
brave and steadfast servants. They are the very salt of the earth; they are the
light of the world. (Original Secession Magazine.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》