Malachi

The book opens with the LORD’s word, “I have loved you,” and the people’s reply, “Wherein hast thou loved us?” (1:2). He answers from their history. Esau was Jacob’s brother, “yet I loved Jacob,” and the difference can be seen: Esau’s mountains lie waste, and if Edom rebuilds, “They shall build, but I will throw down” (1:3–4). The love is the LORD’s choosing, made before either brother had done anything. Paul cites the verse for that: “not of works, but of him that calleth” (Romans 9:11–13). Augustine read it of persons chosen by grace: The election was of grace, not of merit. Others read it chiefly of the two peoples, since Rebekah was told, “Two nations are in thy womb” (Genesis 25:23), and Malachi goes straight on to Edom. Either way, Israel’s survival and Edom’s ruin are the answer to “Wherein?”

“If then I be a father, where is mine honour?” (1:6). The priests ask how they have despised his name, and the answer lies on the altar: the blind, the lame and the sick, which the governor himself would refuse (1:8). Against that contempt the LORD sets the nations: “my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering” (1:11). Worship will not be bound to one altar. Christians have read the pure offering in two ways. The Didache applied it to the Lord’s-day breaking of bread: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice. Others read it of prayer and praise, “the sacrifice of praise” (Hebrews 13:15); Aphrahat says the prayer of the righteous served them as a ‘pure offering.’

Malachi measures every failure against a covenant. Of Levi the LORD says, “My covenant was with him of life and peace” (2:5): the faithful priest kept the law of truth in his mouth and turned many from iniquity, “for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts” (2:7). The priests of Malachi’s day “have corrupted the covenant of Levi” (2:8). The people profane “the covenant of our fathers” by dealing treacherously with one another (2:10), and a man who puts away his wife breaks a covenant the LORD witnessed: “yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant” (2:14). Asked about putting away, Jesus went back to the beginning: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:4–6). Against every broken covenant the LORD promises “the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in” (3:1).

The people ask, “Where is the God of judgment?” (2:17), and say, “It is vain to serve God” (3:14). The LORD’s answer is a day: “who may abide the day of his coming?” (3:2). It refines the sons of Levi and shows the difference “between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not” (3:18). For the proud it “shall burn as an oven”; on them that fear his name “shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” (4:1–2). Before it the LORD sends Elijah. Jesus said both “Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things” and “Elias is come already” (Matthew 17:11–13), meaning John. Many hold the promise fulfilled in him alone (Matthew 11:14). Others, with Tertullian, also await Elijah himself before the end: He will come back as Elijah, with the same name.