Malachi: the Messenger of Jehovah
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Ringing across the centuries we yet hear the voices of God’s mighty men, the prophets of Israel. Though last in the book, not the least of them was Malachi, the messenger of Jehovah.
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Malachi’s ministry spanned the years of ca 460-425 B.C. Mighty Persia dominated the eastern world. Artaxerxes was monarch of the Fertile Crescent. In 536 B.C. a tiny remnant of Hebrews had returned from Babylonian captivity to rebuild their nation. Between 520 and 515 B.C. God’s temple had been rebuilt under the leadership of Zerubbabel the governor, and Joshua the high priest. The prophets Haggai and Zechariah had greatly encouraged that work. In 458 Ezra had come to help reorganize and reestablish the nation’s worship. Nehemiah came in 445 to lead the Hebrews in rebuilding the walls of their beloved Jerusalem. He returned to Persia and then made a second visit to Jerusalem in 432. Malachi’s messages seemed to have been delivered between Nehemiah’s two visits.
The situation in Jerusalem was pathetic. Religion had degenerated into a cold lifeless, formalism. Priests were corrupt and lax in their service. Unacceptable sacrifices were being offered to Jehovah. Skepticism pervaded society. Many Jews questioned if in fact they were God’s chosen people. They were disheartened, disillusioned and decaying spiritually. They blamed God for all their ills. Perhaps they had not found the temporal benefits they had anticipated in returning to the homeland. This left them embittered. They refused to bring their proper tithes to the Lord. The holy covenant was held in low esteem and trampled under foot. Having sunk into a careless and sordid life style, they showed resentment and contempt towards their divine duties. Many had intermarried with heathen neighbors and divorce was common.
ABOUT THE MAN
Nothing is known of Malachi save what is written in this book. His name is a shortened form of Malachiah. It means "messenger of Jehovah." From his special emphasis of the word "messenger," many have questioned if this was his given name or a description of his mission. He was a fearless reformer who spoke plainly to the sinners of his day. Fearing God as he did, he feared no man. His personality was strong and vigorous. He was keenly sensitive to the wickedness and negligence of his people. He was intensely patriot. He faced and denounced the cold formalistic, external type of religion that was masquerading in the name of Jehovah’s worship.
His style of preaching is unique among the prophets. There was little of the poetic in him. Rather he disputed with his audience as a debater. Seven times he charges his people with error. Their objection is given with the introductory phrase "yet ye say." He then answers their quibbles. He has been called "the Hebrew Socrates." He possesses a vigor and force in his writing which few prophets surpass.
HIS MESSAGE
At least five purposes are perceived in his short book.
1. He sought to encourage his disheartened people to be faithful to their holy calling. "Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith Jehovah of hosts" (3:7).
2. He wrote to show the abundant proof of God’s love. Only their sins hindered their full enjoyment thereof. "I have loved you, saith Jehovah" (1:2).
3. He reminded them of their ingratitude toward God. "A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master; if then I am a father, where is mine honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear saith Jehovah of hosts….." (1:6).
4. He wanted to prepare them for Messiah’s coming. "Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, when ye desire, behold he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts" (3:1).
5. He wished to correct their thinking about the coming day of the Lord and to prepare them for it. "For, behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts…..but unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings….in the day that I make, saith Jehovah of hosts" (4:1-3).
Malachi is a valuable source of information on the political and religious history of the Hebrews in the 5th century, Persian period.
KEYS TO PROPER INTERPRETATION
In every section of scripture certain keys will be found that are essential to a proper interpretation. The key verses of Malachi are; (3:7), "Return unto me, and I will return with you, saith Jehovah of hosts"; (4:4-6), "Remember ye the law of Moses…… Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Jehovah......" The key phrases are "saith Jehovah" and similar expressions which are used some 25 times in his 55 verses, and "yet ye say". This response of the people to his charges is seen 10 times. The key thoughts are remember, repent, and return. With these keys the doors open and the mystery vanishes.
As we study the text, we should imagine the preacher in the gate of the city, preaching in the open air. He points the accusing finger and charges them with sin. The crowd questions him, objects and seeks to excuse themselves. As a skilled debater, Malachi takes each objection, gives it a penetrating analysis and answer and then moves to yet another point.
THEIR DESTRUCTIVE DOUBT
In 1:2-5 the prophet tackles the problem that was fundamental and the underlying cause of all their ills. Their hearts had grown hard and they actually doubted that they enjoyed a special relationship with Jehovah. First he proclaimed God’s love for Israel. Immediately someone responded "wherein hast thou loved us?" Malachi retorts "was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith Jehovah; yet I loved Jacob; but Esau I hated and made his mountains a desolation….." He adds that Edom (the nation of Esau’s descendents) has been beaten down, never to rise to prominence again. His Hebrew audience had endured the Babylonian defeat and seventy year exile and were back in their homeland. What more proof was needed of God’s abiding love!
CORRUPT PRIESTS DENOUNCED
The second section of his message is a denunciation of the priests and Levites for their careless and corrupt leadership (I:6-2:9). They had dishonored God by offering polluted bread upon his altar (1:7). Defective and unacceptable animal sacrifices had been offered. "And when ye offer the blind for sacrifice, it is no evil, and when ye offer the lame and sick it is no evil!" (1:8). To these compromising priests, he hurls a biting challenge: "Present it now to thy governor; will he be pleased with thee?" The answer was obvious. Charge upon charge is heaped. "O priest, that despise my name" (1:6). "Ye say the table of Jehovah is contemptible" (1:7). The priests received a portion of the sacrifices for their food. Those sorry priests had grown weary of eating the sacrificial food that was offered to God. They complained and grumbled, God took it as a personal offense (1:12-13).
All the nation’s ills he lays at the feet of the spiritual leaders: "This hath been by your means" (1:19) i.e. the woes you are enduring are the consequence of your spiritual failures!
In one of the most poignant rebukes of the Scriptures, God shows just how repugnant their corrupted worship had become; "Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that ye might not kindle fire on mine altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand" (1:10). The thinking soul wonders how many other times has the holy God of heaven been thus repulsed by the hypocrisy of those who come before him. How many worship services have been offered in vain. Jesus told the Pharisees of his day, "In vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men" (Matt. 15:9).
Not comprehending that God’s choice of them was in order to bring Messiah into the world that all might be blest, the Jews vainly thought they were a superior people in God’s sight; that no others could be acceptable to him. Verse 11 of chapter one demolishes that false illusion. "From furthest east to furthest west my name is great among the nations. Everywhere fragrant sacrifices and pure gifts are offered in my name; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of Hosts" (New English Bible). Dr. Jack Lewis notes that the King James translators supplied the verb "be" three times in this verse, but the Hebrew does not express it. It more likely means that the Jews of the dispersion were showing more zeal for Jehovah’s worship than were those in Palestine. Even among the Gentiles many proselytes to Jehovah were being made. Their worship was pure and true in contrast to that confronted by Malachi!
Chapter one closes with the awesome words; "cursed be the deceiver, who hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a blemished thing…." (1:14). Frail and sinful man dares not trifle with the sacred things of the great I Am!
Chapter 2:1-9 expands upon his initial rebuke to the priests. There, penalties are promised for their malfeasance.
1. "I will send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings" (2:2). The very thought of God’s curse terrified every Jew (Deut. 28:15-68).
2. "I will rebuke your seed" or offspring (2:3).
3. I "will spread dung upon your faces" and thus humiliate you before the people (2:3).
God then contrasts Aaron and his fellow Levites with those sorry priests of Malachi’s day to emphasize how far short they had fallen. God originally chose the Levites to be his priestly tribe because;
1. They "feared him and stood in awe of (his) name" (2:5).
2. "The law of truth was in their mouths, and unrighteousness was not found in their lips."
3. They "walked with me in peace."
4. They "turned many away from iniquity" (2:6).
5. Since a priest is a messenger of Jehovah, the people "should seek the law at his mouth" and be properly taught God’s will (2:7).
Sadly, such was not the case in Malachi’s day. Rather than the above qualities, they had;
1. "Turned aside out of the way" of God themselves.
2. They had "caused many to stumble in the law" by their poor example and perverse teaching.
3. They had "corrupted the covenant of Levi," i.e., they had failed to meet their priestly duties and responsibilities (2:8).
4. They had shown "respect of persons in the law" and the administration thereof (2:9). Such was strictly forbidden (Lev. 19:15).
They were now reaping what they had sown in their irresponsible conduct (Gal. 6:7). How serious a matter it is to be a teacher of God’s people! No wonder James said "Be not many of you teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment" (James 3:1).
PROMISCUOUS DIVORCE AND MARRIAGE TO HEATHEN REBUKED
The prophet then turned his attention to serious social evils of his people. They had "profaned the holiness of Jehovah….and hath married the daughter of a foreign god" (2:11). They had acted treacherously against the wives of their youth by putting them away through divorce (2:15-16). Some of them had been violent toward their mates. Such was inexcusable and demanded punishment. Marriage to the heathen was expressly forbidden by Moses’ law (Deut. 7:3). The sin was exacerbated when they divorced their faithful Hebrew wives probably because they were aging and then married younger, heathen women. Such was wrong on many counts:
1. It was treachery against the mate (2:10).
2. It profaned the covenant of the fathers (2:10).
3. It was an abomination before God (2:11).
4. It profaned the holiness of Jehovah (2:11).
5. It nullified and discredited their worship (2:13). The tears of their broken-hearted women covered the altar of God thus discrediting their sacrifices (2:13).
6. It threatened God’s plan to bring Messiah into the world through the Hebrew race (2:15).
"No higher word on marriage was ever spoken, except by Christ himself" (G. A. Smith). Their low views of marriage continued among some of the Jews even in Christ’s day. Rabbi Hillel taught that a man may divorce his wife "even if she spoiled a dish for him, for it is written, ‘Because he hath found in her indecency in anything.’" Rabbi Kaibab wrote, "Even if he found another fairer than she, for it is written, ‘and it shall be if she finds no favor in his eyes.’" Fortunately, many of the Hebrews followed the teaching of Rabbi Shammai who taught, "No one shall divorce his wife unless there shall have been found in her some thing unchaste." God’s declaration desperately needs to be heard in America today. "I hate putting away, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel" (2:16).
MORAL SKEPTICISM REBUKED
Some had grown so skeptical that they said "Everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of Jehovah, and he delighteth in them; or where is the God of justice?" (2:17). To which God responded, if it’s justice you want, then justice you shall get. God’s messenger of justice will come but it will not be what they expected. "For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap; and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and refine them as gold and silver" (3:2-3). And he "will come near to (them) to judgment: and …..be a swift witness against the sorcerers,…..the adulterers,…..the false swearers,….and…..those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the sojourner from his right, and fear not me, saith Jehovah" (3:5-6). They talked of a day of Jehovah when he would come with more prosperity and good things for them. The prophet clarifies their thinking; the day would be one of judgment on sinners like them. Only the righteous would see it as a day of gladness (3:3-4).
This grand passage is also Messianic for Christ himself applied the word of (3:1) to John the Baptist, his forerunner (Matt. 11:10-11). Thus Jesus was the Lord who came to his temple, the messenger of the covenant who came to purify his people and restore a proper worship among the people (3:1-4).
A REBUKE FOR WITHHOLDING TITHES
The prophet told them they needed to repent and return unto God (3:7). They asked "what have we done?" His pointed reply pricked their hard hearts. "You have robbed God." "Wherein?" they demanded! "In tithes and offerings" he charged (3:8).
From ancient times God had taught them "the tenth shall be holy unto Jehovah" (Lev. 7:32b). Because they had kept back part of God’s tithe, he had withheld his blessings. Now they were in a desperate condition but it was their own doing. How many modern day Christians are struggling financially because they have withheld God’s portion. When will men learn that if we give unto him, God will give unto us, "good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over…..For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again?" (Luke 6:38).
God’s messenger lays before them a challenge. "Bring ye the whole tithe into the store-house…..and prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (3:10).
DEMORALIZERS REBUKED
Some stout words had been spoken against Jehovah. When challenged for specifics, Malachi named them. Some said:
1. "It is vain (or useless) to serve God."
2. "What profit is it that we have kept his charge?"
3. What profit is it "that we have walked mournfully before Jehovah….? (i.e. denied themselves worldly pleasures or perhaps fasted.)
4. The wicked have prospered as well as we (3:13-15).
How soon their ungrateful souls had forgotten all of God’s blessings - chief of which was freedom from captivity and return to their homeland. As Jeremiah put it, how dare the clay to complain of the potter’s use of it? (Jer. 18:1-2).
Chapter (3:16-18) shows the blessed result of Malachi’s faithful preaching. Then they that feared Jehovah spoke one with another; and Jehovah hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared Jehovah….and they shall be mine saith Jehovah…..and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him….." (3:16-17). He reproved, rebuked and exhorted his stumbling brethren (2 Tim. 4:2) and some of them received with meekness the implanted word which was able to save their souls (Jas. 1:21).
"In the day" of judgment that God would send upon them, a separation would be made "between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not" (3:18). The wicked would be burned as stubble and the righteous would "go forth, and gambol(jumping for joy) as calves (freed from) the stall" (4:1-3). For the faithful, the sun of righteousness would arise with healing in its wings (4:2). Since the days of Miles Coverdale these words have been applied to Jesus. However, the Hebrew has the feminine pronoun, "her wings" to accompany the feminine "sun." The meaning is the day of judgment would be a day of fiery destruction for the wicked but a new day of blessed hope for the righteous. Before Messiah would come, the Hebrews had yet again to pass through the fiery furnace of affliction.
CLOSING EXHORTATION
In his final words God’s messenger exhorts his fellow Hebrews to "remember….. The law of Moses." The word of God was a lamp to their feet and a light to their pathway to guide the nation safely through the troublous times to come (Ps. 119-105). By laying His word up in their hearts, and following its sacred precepts, they would overcome sin (Ps. 119-11). So long as Israel honored the Holy Scripture, she prospered. Whenever she turned away from it, disaster swiftly came.
The last word is a divine promise to send Elijah the prophet to them "before the great and terrible day of Jehovah came" (4:5). Jesus tells us that John the Baptist fulfilled this prophecy (Matt. 17:10-13). The great and terrible day would then almost certainly be the awful judgment sent upon the Jews when God destroyed their nation, the holy city and even his temple by the ruthless Romans. Thus would end a stormy and rebellious relationship God had endured for 1500 long years till his Son hadcome to save a believing remnant.
It is interesting that in their synagogues, Jews will read verse 5 again after reading(4:6), lest they end the reading of God’s word with a curse. We can rejoice that our new covenant ends with a blessing (Rev. 22:21).
FINAL THOUGHTS
With these words, the curtain falls on inspired prophecy and 400 years of silence settles upon the covenant people to be finally lifted by the coming of John the Baptist.
Rather than the end of the Old Testament, we should think of Malachi as a bridge uniting God’s two covenants. G. Campbell Morgan well said, Malachi "is a picture of a people who imagine that they are all right when they are all wrong."
LESSONS TO REMEMBER
1. An inadequate view of God will result in unacceptable worship.
2. When worship is a wearisome thing to be snuffed at, spiritual paralysis will follow (1:13).
3. Insincerity in worship insults God (1:8-10). Empty worship is worse than no worship at all; better to close the house of worship!
4. Those who live in willful sin need not expect to please God with costly sacrifices and elaborate ritual.
5. When God’s ministers compromise the faith, it has a corrupting effect on the worshipers (2:8).
6. When teachers fail to study and faithfully teach God’s truth and morality, the people suffer accordingly.
7. God supplies our material blessings according to our standard of giving to him (3:10-11).
8. Our spiritual health can be assessed by the way we give to God.
9. Cheap religion avails nothing and sacrifices grudgingly given are rejected by heaven.
10. Each of us determines whether the day of the Lord will be a blessing or a curse for us (4:1-2).
11. God wants stable homes. He hates divorce (2:16).
12. Disregard for marriage vows is disastrous for the individual, society and the nation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chappell, Clovis, G., And the Prophets, (Grand Rapids, MI; Baker Book House, 1976).
Harrell, Costen J., The Prophets of Israel, (Nashville, TN.; Cokesbury Press, 1933).
Lewis, Jack P., The Minor Prophets, (Grand Rapids, MI.; Baker Book House, 1966).
Morgan, G. Campbell, The Minor Prophets, The Men and Their Messages, (Old Tappan, NJ; Fleming H. Revell Co. 1960)
Paterson, John, The Goodly Fellowship of the Prophets, (New York, NY; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948).
Robinson, George L., The Twelve Minor Prophets, (Grand Rapids, MI; Baker Book House, 1957).
Waddey, John, An Outlined Introduction to the Old Testament, Vol . 2. (n.p., n.d.)
Yates, Kyle M., Preaching From the Prophets (Nashville, TN; Broadman Press, 1942).
Article submitted Wednesday, March 25, 2009 & read 29 times.
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