Malachi
Author: Malachi
Malachi disputes with the priests and the people of the restored community about honor, marriage, tithes, and the coming messenger.
Outline
The disputed love (1–2)
The Lord says he has loved Jacob, and he charges priests who offer blemished animals and men who deal treacherously with their wives.
The messenger (3:1–6)
A messenger prepares the way, and the Lord comes to his temple like a refiner’s fire.
Tithes, a book, and Elijah (3:7–4:6)
The people are told to return with the tithe, a book of remembrance is written, and Elijah is sent before the great day.
Key verses
Malachi 1:2
The dispute opens with the Lord’s claim, I have loved you, and the people’s question, wherein?
Malachi 3:1
The Lord says he will send his messenger to prepare the way before him.
Malachi 4:5–6
Elijah is promised before the great and dreadful day, to turn the hearts of fathers and children.
Malachi is the last book in the usual order of the prophets, and its form is a dispute. The Lord makes a claim. The people answer, wherein? The prophet repeats the claim and supplies the evidence. The opening claim is the one a discouraged restored community is least ready to grant. I have loved you, says the Lord. Wherein have you loved us? The answer reaches behind the exile to the twins. Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? Yet I loved Jacob and hated Esau, and I laid his mountains waste. If Edom says he will return and build, the Lord will throw down. Israel’s survival is offered as the proof of a love the people say they cannot see.
The dispute then turns to the priests. A son honors his father. If the Lord is a father, where is his honor? If he is a master, where is his fear? You offer polluted bread. You bring the blind, the lame, and the sick for sacrifice, animals a governor would not accept as a gift, and you say the table of the Lord is contemptible. The prophet tells them they might as well shut the doors. He has no pleasure in them. From the rising of the sun to its going down the Lord’s name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense and a pure offering will be offered to his name. The priests are charged with a covenant that was with Levi, a covenant of life and peace, because Levi feared the Lord and the law of truth was in his mouth. They have departed out of the way and caused many to stumble. Judah has profaned the holiness of the Lord by marrying the daughter of a strange god. He has also dealt treacherously against the wife of his youth. The Lord says he hates putting away. The altar is covered with weeping because he no longer regards the offering. The marriage charge and the blemished sacrifice are one argument about covenant kept in public and at home.
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. Who may abide the day of his coming? He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will purify the sons of Levi so that they offer an offering in righteousness. Then the book returns to the people’s question. Will a man rob God? You have robbed me in tithes and offerings. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse and prove me, whether I will not open the windows of heaven. Your words have been stout against me. You have said it is vain to serve God. Then those who feared the Lord spoke one to another, and a book of remembrance was written. They will be mine in the day when I make up my jewels. You will return and discern between the righteous and the wicked.
The day comes, burning as an oven, and the proud and those who do wickedly will be stubble. To you who fear my name the Sun of righteousness will arise with healing in his wings. You will go forth and grow up as calves of the stall. Remember the law of Moses which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. He will turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. Malachi leaves the canon of the prophets on that pair: a law already given at Horeb, and a messenger still to come before the day. The disputes about love, animals, wives, and tithes are the life the day will test.