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Introduction
It might be helpful to have an idea of the historical
background against which the prophet exercised
his ministry. Without it, it would be impossible to
appreciate the significance of his message.
Malachi, Haggai and Zechariah, belonged to the
post-exilic period period of Jewish history. Judah,
the southern kingdom, was brought into captivity
in Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, in 586 BC, and
remained there until about 538 BC, when Cyrus
of Persia, who had crushed the power of the
Babylonian empire, released the captives and
allowed them to return to their own land,
under Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel.
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Introduction
Dates for the Persian period of the post-exilic prophetic activity are:
Cyrus the Great
539-52 9
Carrtyses
529-522
Pseudo-Smerdis
522
Darius I (Hystaspis)
521 -485
Xerxes I (Ahasuerus)
485-464
Artaxerxes I (Longimanus) 464-424
Xerxes II
424-423
Sogdianus
423
Darius II
423-404
Artaxerxes II (Mnemon)
404-358
Artaxerxes Ill (Ochus)
358-338
Arxes
338-335
Darius III (Codomannus)
335-331
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Introduction
The kings that we are particularly concerned with in this list are Cyrus,
Darius I, Xerxes I (Ahasuerus) and Artaxerxes I. The prophets Haggai and
Zechariah exercised their ministries during the reign of Darius I and the
temple was rebuilt between the second and sixth years of his reign [520516]. Attempts were made to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem under Xerxes
[485-464], but especially under Artaxerxes I [464-424], under whom Ezra
in 451, and Nehemiah in 445, arrived in Jerusalem.
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The Commentator, George Adam Smith suggests
the following helpful division :
1. From the taking of Babylon by Cyrus to the
completion of the Temple in the sixth year of
Darius I, 538-516 BC. Haggai and Zechariah
were prophesying .
2. From the completion of the Temple to the
arrival of Ezra in the seventh year of
Artaxerxes I, 516-458 BC.; sometimes called
the period of silence, but probably the time
when the book of Malachi was written.
3. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were written
under Artaxerxes I, 458-425 BC.
4 The rest. Xerxes II to Darius III, 425-331BC.
The book of Joel was written.
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Introduction
Others, think Malachi was a contemporary of Nehemiah, who
ministered during his second reform between 432 and 424 BC.
The sins denounced by Malachi were those corrected by Nehemiah.
Whatever date may be correct both belong to a period
in which the high hopes associated with the return
from exile had turned into disillusionment.
The dedication and heart-warming consecration
of the first group to return from exile had been
transformed into a frozen, despairing
mediocrity.
This was accompanied by a loss of vision and a
general lowering of both spiritual and moral
standards. Into this situation God sent his
servant Malachi.
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Introduction
Malachi speaks to us today, as well as to his own age.
We must try to interpret his message in a way that is
relevant to us. Two applications are immediately
apparent. First, it is a message to those who have lost
their initial enthusiasm for and consecration to God.
Many young people, early on in their Christian
experience reveal a deep and genuine dedication to
Christ. But within a few years, they lose their first-love
and lapse into the spiritual mediocrity of which Malachi
speaks.
And so his prophecy is a mirror, revealing the dangers
that await us and the temptations that seek to drag us
down to a place of diminished commitment. To be
forewarned is to be forearmed.
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Introduction
Secondly, Malachi provides a stirring message
to the evangelicals today. Immediately after
WWII there were great expectations of revival
in the U.K. when, to be an evangelical was to
be a member of a despised minority, in a way
that is not so true today.
To give an example of the spirit of those days,
one young man politely declined an invitation
to a social gathering in the home of an
evangelical couple who were charming
worldlings because he felt that such a
gathering was incompatible with the burden
on his soul for spiritual awakening. And one
asks does this earnestness of spirit exist in
evangelical life today?
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The following general analysis of the
prophecy may be usefully followed:
1v2-5
1v6-14
2v1-9
2v10-16
2v1-3v5
3v6 -12
3v13-4v3
4v4-6
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God’s love for Israel
Israel’s neglect of God’s holiness
The sins of the priests
Divorce and mixed marriages
Where is the God of judgment?
Repentance by tithes
The judgment to come
The return of Elijah
Introduction
The name ‘Malachi’ means ‘My messenger’. The
formula of the prophet’s message is to introduce
a series of questions. The people’s response is
introduced by the words, “How have we..?”
The prophet then replies with a full answer to their
objection. This pattern is repeated seven times in
all, in 1:2, 1:6, 1:7, 2:17, 3:7, 3:8, 3:13.
It is clear from these questions that the people
were unaware of their real condition in the sight
of God - revealing the terrible blinding power of
sin, where men lose their sensitiveness to reality
and their perception of spiritual issues. Hosea
emphasises the same truth, “Foreigners sap his
strength, but he does not realise it. His hair is
sprinkled with grey, but he does not notice.” Hos.7v9
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God’s Love
The first question and answer deal with the disappointed hopes that gripped
the people when the promised restoration of the Temple was followed by
hard times of discouragement and difficulty,
which made them doubt God’s love and
interest in them.
Over against the disheartening of the people
Malachi sets a gloriously assuring word, ‘I
have loved you’. He does not do what many
of his predecessors did - rehearse God’s
mighty redemption from Egyptian bondage,
or point to their restoration after their
Babylonian captivity. Instead, he holds before
them the contrast between Gods treatment of
Esau (that is Edom) and his treatment of Israel.
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God’s Love
Edom, the hereditary enemy of Israel, had summed
up all her antagonism, hatred and contempt of
God’s people in the merciless treatment they had
meted out to them when Babylon took them
captive in 586 BC [see Obadiah 10 ff]. Obadiah’s
prophecy against Edom was fulfilled, and they were
destroyed utterly.
It is to this event that Malachi refers here. It is cited
as a proof of God’s love for Israel. For Israel was still
in existence as a nation, while her former captors,
Babylon, and her enemy, Edom, were no more.
God’s judgment of Israel’s enemies was final; his
treatment of His own people corrective and
remedial, because he loved them.
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God’s Love
God’s love for them is seen in taking them into
and bringing them through the fires of exile and
captivity, preserving them, and returning them
to their homeland in order to fulfil his purposes
through them.
The implication is that God’s love for his people
was to be seen, for those who had eyes to see,
just as much in his correcting disciplines as they
were in his glorious past deliverances. As the
writer to the Hebrews says, ‘Whom the Lord
loves, he disciplines’, Heb12v6.
To doubt this, to lose sight of this, is the cause
of many ills in our spiritual lives.
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God’s Love
And so, at the outset of this book we are
shown the reality of God’s love. God
hovers over his people, overshadowing
them even when they were least aware
of him. And all the time he is seeking to
break through to claim their love anew.
This is really what the remainder of the
prophecy is about. It is an exhortation to
God’s people to renew their covenant with
him, and to let the claims of the loving
covenant-relationship, which they had sadly
broken and neglected, grip their lives afresh.
The message of the Messenger is therefore
a recall to covenant obedience.
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Blemished Sacrifices
Malachi’s words are addressed to the priests v6,
but all the people are involved in the sacrifices
offered in temple worship. God’s complaint
provokes a response of blank incomprehension.
‘In what way have we despised your name?’ v6.
They are oblivious to the gravity of their sin.
But the majesty and holiness of God have been
wronged and insulted by the low and unworthy
thoughts the people have entertained about his
altar, and by the cheap and blemished sacrifices
they have offered on it v7-8.
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Blemished Sacrifices
Such contemptuous gifts would not be offered to their
earthly governor. What made them think that God would
be pleased with them?
Verse 9 is meant to be taken ironically:
“Go then, with such ragged offerings, and
intercede with God.... Do you think that he
will accept such an insult? I tell you no.”
God says that it would be better for sacrifice
to cease altogether than that such offerings
should be presented.
“Is there no-one to close the doors of the
Temple, to prevent such vain and worthless
sacrifices on my altar?” v 10.
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Blemished Sacrifices
What can we learn from Malachi’s teaching.
First think of the time when David returned
the Ark to Jerusalem [2 Sam.6]. It had been
out of Israel for 20 years and by returning
the Ark to Jerusalem David was preparing
for a spiritual renewal at national level.
Was the judgment on Uzzah, who touched
the Ark, severe? No for his action was
presumptuous. The Ark was the symbol of
God’s presence and there were regulations
concerning it [Num. 4v5,15,19,20]. It was
not to be touched, on pain of death.
Uzzah’s carelessness indicated a lack of
seriousness in a desire to return to God.
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Blemished Sacrifices
We cannot turn back to God in a moment and
casually resume intimate fellowship with him as if
there had been no estrangement. The fear of the
Lord [v6] was at a discount in Israel in David’s day,
and also in Malachi’s. There was a complacency
about holy things and a weariness with them
[v13]. It awakened God’s displeasure.
There are modern day parallels. E.g. in the first
stages of a spiritual movement, there is
enthusiasm and a burden of prayer; in time, the
prayer becomes more a duty than a joy; then,
people discover more important engagements
and cannot come to pray; finally, excuses are
made, to extricate them from what is now an
unwelcome and wearisome commitment.
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Blemished Sacrifices
Secondly, Malachi’s attack on abuse of the temple worship was shared by
earlier prophets. Cf. Isaiah 1. The earlier prophets stressed that it was the
ethical behaviour that God wanted in religion and not ritual. “what does
the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. ” Micah 6v8. They appear to give the
impression that sacrifices were unimportant but this was not the case.
There are two tables of the law, and that although the
prophetic emphasis on the ethical points to the
second table; man’s duty to his fellows,
the first table speaks of man’s relation
to God. This is precisely where the
sacrifices came into their own.
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Blemished Sacrifices
Malachi does not sweep away the temple worship because it is slovenly, or
indecent; rather he opposes it because of the false ideas of God it has
sown in the minds of the people. Although Malachi’s emphasis is, at first
sight, very different from the earlier prophets - he wants to see the ritual
renewed and honoured, not swept away.
Malachi does precisely the same thing as
his predecessors by going to the root of
the problem. It was wrong of Israel in
the C8th BC to neglect the ethical content
of religion; but it was just as wrong of
Israel in the C5th BC to neglect the ritual
itself. Both attitudes clearly betrayed
something serious at the heart of the nation.
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Blemished Sacrifices
Spiritual life is often subject to swings of the pendulum.
At certain times a very narrow pattern of life tends to
develop in fellowships. There is nothing wrong with
this. Jesus taught, “Narrow is the way that leads to
life”. And a wonderful spirit of consecration and
separation is often produced.
But when the original inspiration for such a spirit
disappears, the outward pattern often remains;
resulting in the crystallisation of a way of life
characterised by narrow prejudices and taboos,
which are observed because they have been there
for years. They become tests of orthodoxy itself, but
it is a hard, unattractive and negative legalism that
finds expression. In such a situation nothing is needed
so much as the message of Christian liberty .
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Blemished Sacrifices
But it is possible for the pendulum to swing too far,
in the other direction and liberty is mistaken for
licence. Christian liberty becomes carelessness
corrupting the testimony of the believer. Thus
calling for a new Puritanism in life and behaviour
among Christians. This is not a recall to the old
legalism and bondages, any more than Malachi
was calling for a return to the old multiplication
of sacrifices when hearts were far from God.
We need to return to the biblical idea of
separation with a new spiritual dynamic, which
makes clear that this world is not our home, that
we are strangers and pilgrims in a foreign land.
Our passports have been issued by the City of God!
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Blemished Sacrifices
The third point has to do with the interpretation of 10 and 11. It
may be that the wish that the doors of the temple should be closed
conveys an intimation that if no-one is found to shut them God will
do it himself; or rather will forsake that temple, and
leave it an altar without a promise, and a shrine
without a divinity.
Note then the connection with v11 which refers to
God’s name being praised among the Gentiles.
Does this suggest that if his own people continue
to violate the covenant, God will turn elsewhere to
find those to advance his purpose in the world?
This is, after all, Paul’s argument about the Jews and
the Gentiles in Romans 11v17-21.
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Blemished Sacrifices
No group of people, however orthodox and
impeccable in doctrine, are indispensable to God.
The words spoken by Mordecai the Jew to Queen
Esther are very applicable to us also: “For if you
remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for
the Jews will arise from another place, but you and
your father’s family will perish. And who knows but
that you have come to your royal position for such a
time as this?” Esther 4v14.
Declension in the people of God may lead to their
becoming castaway. God wants a people separated
to himself, and invites our co-operation in his work.
This work will go on through the instrumentality of
willing and dedicated lives, or in spite of them.
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