Malachi Commentary

Malachi had a multifaceted ministry. As a sensitive pastor, Malachi offered God’s love to a disheartened people. As a wise theologian, he instructed the people of Judah in basic doctrine that emphasized God’s nature. As a stern prophet, Malachi rebuked corrupt priests and warned of God’s judgment. As a spiritual mentor, he called his people to more sincere worship and challenged them to live by the ethical standards of God’s covenant. Malachi conveys God’s simple but vital word to Israel: “I have always loved you” (1:2).

Setting

Malachi wrote to Jews in the Persian province of Judea, probably during the reign of King Darius I of Persia (521–486 BC). Jewish exiles returning from Babylon had recently resettled in Judah, joining others who had not been deported.

At the time when Malachi preached, the Temple had been rebuilt, but it paled in comparison to Solomon’s Temple. The priests and the Levites were the power brokers of Judah, yet worship at the Temple was in a sorry state. The apathetic priests actually led people into sin, not out of it. Worshipers offered inferior animals as sacrifices and neglected God’s requirements for tithes and offerings. The hopes raised by Haggai and Zechariah for a revival of David’s dynasty through Zerubbabel seemed to have disappeared.

Malachi confronted a people given to religious cynicism, political skepticism, and spiritual disillusionment. They expected prosperity (Hag 2:7, 18-19), a king from David’s line (Ezek 34:13, 23-24), and the new covenant promised through Jeremiah (Jer 31:23, 31-34), but they saw none of these things. In the minds of many, God had failed his people.

Summary

Malachi presents a brief theology of God intended to correct the wrong thinking of the people of Judah about their covenant relationship with the Lord. Malachi introduces his thesis—that God loves Israel (1:2)—in his first message (1:2-5). The prophet then debates this thesis with his audience in the five messages that follow. The second message (1:6–2:9), aimed specifically at the priests and Levites serving in the second Temple, affirms that God is the Lord and Father of all Israel and deserves true worship. The third message (2:10-16) extends the implications of God’s love to human relationships, especially marriage. The fourth message (2:17–3:5) highlights God’s justice, appeals for honesty in speech and in business, and seeks genuine social concern. The fifth message (3:6-12) emphasizes God’s faithfulness to his word and calls Israel to a similar faithfulness in worship, especially in the giving of tithes and offerings. The final message (3:13–4:3) reiterates God’s desire for Israel to be honest and faithful in worship, in view of the coming day of the Lord.

Malachi’s pastoral heart is evident in his preaching: He begins and ends with a message of encouragement (1:2; 4:2).

Authorship

The book of Malachi is silent about its authorship, but it is assumed that the prophet Malachi wrote down his own sermons because of the statement in 1:1 (“the message that the Lord gave . . . through the prophet Malachithe message that the Lord gave . . . through the prophet Malachi”). We know nothing of Malachi outside of this book; even there, the only biographical information given is that he was a prophet (1:1).

Date

Unlike many other prophetic books, Malachi contains no date formula that links the prophet’s message to the reign of any particular king (e.g., Zeph 1:1; Hag 1:1; Zech 1:1). Malachi’s language is similar to that of Haggai and Zechariah, and it seems likely that Malachi was a slightly later contemporary of these two prophets. It is possible (though not certain) that the battle between the Persians and the Greeks at Marathon (about 490 BC) prompted Malachi’s message—the prophet may have interpreted the titanic struggle between East and West as a partial fulfillment of Haggai’s prediction that God was about “to shake the heavens and the earth” and “overthrow royal thrones” (Hag 2:21-22). It is also possible that Malachi wrote later in the 400s BC.

Literary Genre

The literary form of Malachi’s prophecies is similar to legal procedures (or trial speeches) and disputations. A disputation pits the speaker against his audience in combative dialogue. In Malachi, the disputation typically features (1) a declared truth claim by the prophet, (2) a rebuttal by the audience phrased as a question, (3) the prophet’s answer to the audience’s rebuttal by restatement of his initial premise, and (4) the presentation of additional supporting evidence. The desired outcome in a covenant lawsuit and in disputation is to leave the opponent speechless by removing all grounds for argument. This rhetorical question-and-argument format gave rise to the dialogue method of exposition peculiar to the later rabbinic schools of Judaism (see also the teaching method of Jesus in Matt 5:21-22, 27-28: “You have heard. . . . But I say, . . .”).

Meaning and Message

Malachi seeks to motivate people to conform to God’s plan. Malachi’s preaching has an overarching concern with the covenant that established a relationship between God and Israel, with its attendant obligations and responsibilities.

Three of Malachi’s messages deal with right relationships. The prophet’s premise is that right knowledge is essential to maintaining right relationships. He addresses right relationships in marriage by decrying divorce and encouraging marital loyalty. He also addresses right relationships in the community at large by focusing on honesty and integrity in the light of God’s character.

Malachi calls God’s people back to a right understanding of God as Israel’s Father, Master, and covenant God. Malachi urges a return to right worship through participating in the Temple sacrifices with integrity. Malachi also encourages appropriate giving to God, who is gracious and generous in his response to those who are faithful.

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Prophecy of Malachi

God's prophets were his witnesses to his church, each in his day, for several ages, witnesses for him and his authority, witnesses against sin and sinners, attesting the true intents of God's providences in his dealings with his people then and the kind intentions of his grace concerning his church in the days of the Messiah, to whom all the prophets bore witness, for they all agreed in their testimony; and now we have only one witness more to call, and we have done with our evidence; and though he be the last, and in him prophecy ceased, yet the Spirit of prophecy shines as clearly, as strongly, as brightly in him as in any that went before, and his testimony challenges an equal regard. The Jews say, Prophecy continued forty years under the second temple, and this prophet they call the seal of prophecy, because in him the series or succession of prophets broke off and came to a period. God wisely ordered it so that divine inspiration should cease for some ages before the coming of the Messiah, that that great prophet might appear the more conspicuous and distinguishable and be the more welcome. Let us consider, I. The person of the prophet. We have only his name, Malachi, and no account of his country or parentage. Malachi signifies my angel, which has given occasion for a conjecture that this prophet was indeed an angel from heaven and not a man, as that Jdg 2:1. But there is no just ground for the conjecture. Prophets were messengers, God's messengers; this prophet was so; his name is the very same with that which we find in the original (Mal 3:1) for my messenger; and perhaps from that word he might (though, probably, he had another name) be called Malachi. The Chaldee paraphrase, and some of the Jews, suggest that Malachi was the same with Ezra; but that also is groundless. Ezra was a scribe, but we never read that he was a prophet. Others, yet further from probability, make him to be Mordecai. But we have reason to conclude he was a person whose proper name was that by which he is here called; the tradition of some of the ancients is that he was of the tribe of Zebulun, and that he died young. II. The scope of the prophecy. Haggai and Zechariah were sent to reprove the people for delaying to build the temple; Malachi was sent to reprove them for the neglect of it when it was built, and for their profanation of the temple-service (for from idolatry and superstition they ran into the other extreme of impiety and irreligion), and the sins he witnesses against are the same that we find complained of in Nehemiah's time, with whom, it is probable, he was contemporary. And now that prophecy was to cease he speaks more clearly of the Messiah, as nigh at hand, than any other of the prophets had done, and concludes with a direction to the people of God to keep in remembrance the law of Moses, while they were in expectation of the gospel of Christ.

MALACHI forms the transition link between the two dispensations, the Old and the New, "the skirt and boundary of Christianity" [TERTULLIAN], to which perhaps is due the abrupt earnestness which characterizes his prophecies. His very name is somewhat uncertain. Malachi is the name of an office, rather than a person, "My messenger," and as such is found in Mal 3:1. The Septuagint favors this view in Mal 1:1; translate, not "by Malachi," but "by the hand of His messenger" (compare Hag 1:13). Malachi is the last inspired messenger of the Old Testament, announcing the advent of the Great Messenger of the New Testament. The Chaldee paraphrase identifies him with Ezra wrongly, as Ezra is never called a prophet but a scribe, and Malachi never a scribe but a prophet. Still it hence appears that Malachi was by some old authorities not regarded as a proper name. The analogy of the headings of other prophets, however, favors the common view that Malachi is a proper name. As Haggai and Zechariah, the contemporary prophets, supported Joshua and Zerubbabel in the building of the temple, so he at a subsequent period supported the priest Ezra and the governor Nehemiah. Like that ruler, he presupposes the temple to have been already built (Mal 1:10; Mal 3:1-10). Both alike censure the abuses still unreformed (Neh 13:5, Neh. 13:15-30, the profane and mercenary character of the priests, the people's marriages contracted with foreigners, the non-payment of the tithes, and want of sympathy towards the poor on the part of the rich (Neh 6:7) implies that Nehemiah was supported by prophets in his work of reformation. The date thus will be about 420 B.C., or later. Both the periods after the captivity (that of Haggai and Zechariah, and that of Malachi) were marked by royal, priestly, and prophetic men at the head of God's people. The former period was that of the building of the temple; the latter, that of the restoration of the people and rebuilding of the city. It is characteristic of the people of God that the first period after the restoration was exclusively devoted to the rebuilding of the temple; the political restoration came secondarily. Only a colony of fifty thousand settled with Joshua and Zerubbabel in Palestine (Ezr 2:64). Even these became intermingled with the heathen around during the sixty years passed over by Ezra in silence (Ezr 9:6-15; Neh 1:3). Hence a second restoration was needed which should mould the national life into a Jewish form, re-establishing the holy law and the holy city—a work effected by Ezra and Nehemiah, with the aid of Malachi, in a period of about half a century, ending with the deaths of Malachi and Nehemiah in the last ten years of the fifth century B.C.; that is, the "seven weeks" (Dan 9:25) put in the beginning of the "seventy" by themselves, to mark the fundamental difference between them, the last period of Old Testament revelation, and the period which followed without any revelation (the sixty-two weeks), preceding the final week standing out in unrivalled dignity by itself as the time of Messiah's appearing. The seventy weeks thus begin with the seventh year of Artaxerxes who allowed Ezra to go to Jerusalem, 457 B.C., in accordance with the commandment which then went forth from God. Ezra the priest performed the inner work of purifying the nation from heathenish elements and reintroducing the law; while Nehemiah did the outer work of rebuilding the city and restoring the national polity [AUBERLEN]. VITRINGA makes the date of Malachi's prophecies to be about the second return of Nehemiah from Persia, not later than 424 B.C., the date of Artaxerxes' death (Neh 13:6). About this time Socrates was teaching the only approach to a pure morality which corrupt Athens ever knew. MOORE distinguishes six portions: (1) Charge against Israel for insensibility to God's love, which so distinguished Israel above Edom (Mal 1:1-5). (2) The priests are reproved for neglect and profanation (Mal. 1:6-2:9). (3) Mixed marriages, and the wrongs done to Jewish wives, are reproved (Mal 2:10-16). (4) Coming of Messiah and His forerunners (Mal. 2:17-3:6). (5) Reproof for tithes withheld (Mal 3:7-12). (6) Contrast between the godly and the ungodly at the present time, and in the future judgment; exhortation, therefore, to return to the law (Mal. 3:13-4:6).

The style is animated, but less grand, and the rhythm less marked, than in some of the older prophets.

The canonicity of the book is established by the references to it in the New Testament (Mat 11:10; Mat 17:12; Mar 1:2; Mar 9:11-12; Luk 1:17; Rom 9:13).

Next: Malachi Chapter 1