Malachi

Malachi (Heb. Mal’akhi, “my messenger”) closes the Old Testament canon roughly a century after the return from exile, perhaps around 430 BC, contemporary with Nehemiah’s second visit to Jerusalem (Neh.13). The temple has been rebuilt for almost a century, but the early enthusiasm of Haggai and Zechariah has given way to a tired and cynical religion: priests offer blemished animals on the altar (Mal.1.7–8), husbands divorce the wives of their youth to marry foreign women (Mal.2.11–16), tithes are withheld (Mal.3.8), and the people complain that it is vain to serve God (Mal.3.14). Malachi’s style is unique among the prophets: a series of disputations in which the LORD makes a charge, the people protest “Wherein?” and the LORD answers. The book is dominated by promise as well as rebuke: “the messenger of the covenant” will suddenly come to his temple (Mal.3.1); a refining fire awaits the sons of Levi; the sun of righteousness will arise with healing in his wings (Mal.4.2). The final words of the Hebrew prophetic canon promise that the LORD will send Elijah the prophet before the great and dreadful day of the LORD (Mal.4.5), a promise the New Testament identifies with the ministry of John the Baptist (Mat.11.14; Mat.17.10–13). After Malachi, four centuries of prophetic silence precede the opening of the Gospels.