_THE BOOK OF “MALACHI”_
This book, the last in the arrangement of the prophetic canon, bears
the title: _Burden_ or _Oracle of the Word of Jehovah to Israel by the
hand of malĕ’akhi_. Since at least the second century of our era the
word has been understood as a proper name, Malachi or Malachias. But
there are strong objections to this, as well as to the genuineness of
the whole title, and critics now almost universally agree that the book
was originally anonymous.
It is true that neither in form nor in meaning is there any insuperable
obstacle to our understanding “malĕ’akhi” as the name of a person. If
so, however, it cannot have been, as some have suggested, an
abbreviation of Malĕ’akhiyah, for, according to the analogy of other
names of such formation, this could only express the impossible meaning
_Jehovah is Angel_.[949] But, as it stands, it might have meant _My
Angel_ or _Messenger_, or it may be taken as an adjective,
_Angelicus_.[950] Either of these meanings would form a natural name
for a Jewish child, and a very suitable one for a prophet. There is
evidence, however, that some of the earliest Jewish interpreters did
not think of the title as containing the name of a person. The
Septuagint read _by the hand of His messenger_,[951] “malĕ’akho”; and
the Targum of Jonathan, while retaining “malĕ’akhi,” rendered it _My
messenger_, adding that it was Ezra the Scribe who was thus
designated.[952] This opinion was adopted by Calvin.
Recent criticism has shown that, whether the word was originally
intended as a personal name or not, it was a purely artificial one
borrowed from chap. iii. 1, _Behold, I send My messenger_, “malĕ’akhi,”
for the title, which itself has been added by the editor of the Twelve
Prophets in the form in which we now have them. The peculiar words of
the title, _Burden_ or _Oracle of the Word of Jehovah_, occur nowhere
else than in the titles of the two prophecies which have been appended
to the Book of Zechariah, chap. ix. 1 and chap. xii. 1, and immediately
precede this Book of “Malachi.” In chap. ix. 1 _the Word of Jehovah_
belongs to the text; _Burden_ or _Oracle_ has been inserted before it
as a title; then the whole phrase has been inserted as a title in chap.
xii. 1. These two pieces are anonymous, and nothing is more likely than
that another anonymous prophecy should have received, when attached to
them, the same heading.[953] The argument is not final, but it is the
most probable explanation of the data, and agrees with the other facts.
The cumulative force of all that we have stated—the improbability of
malĕ’akhi being a personal name, the fact that the earliest versions do
not treat it as such, the obvious suggestion for its invention in the
malĕ’akhi of chap. iii. 1, the absence of a father’s name and place of
residence, and the character of the whole title—is enough for the
opinion rapidly spreading among critics that our book was, like so much
more in the Old Testament, originally anonymous.[954] The author
attacks the religious authorities of his day; he belongs to a pious
remnant of his people, who are overborne and perhaps oppressed by the
majority.[955] In these facts, which are all we know of his
personality, he found sufficient reason for not attaching his name to
his prophecy.
The book is also undated, but it reflects its period almost as clearly
as do the dated Books of Haggai and Zechariah. The conquest of Edom
by the Nabateans, which took place during the Exile,[956] is already
past.[957] The Jews are under a Persian viceroy.[958] They are in touch
with a heathen power, which does not tyrannise over them, for this
book is the first to predict no judgment upon the heathen, and the
first, moreover, to acknowledge that among the heathen the true God
is worshipped _from the rising to the setting of the sun_.[959] The
only judgment predicted is one upon the false and disobedient portion
of Israel, whose arrogance and success have cast true Israelites into
despair.[960] All this reveals a time when the Jews were favourably
treated by their Persian lords. The reign must be that of Artaxerxes
Longhand, 464—424.
The Temple has been finished,[961] and years enough have elapsed to
disappoint those fervid hopes with which about 518 Zechariah expected
its completion. The congregation has grown worldly and careless. In
particular the priests are corrupt and partial in the administration of
the Law.[962] There have been many marriages with the heathen women of
the land;[963] and the laity have failed to pay the tithes and other
dues to the Temple.[964] These are the evils against which we find
strenuous measures directed by Ezra, who returned from Babylon in
458,[965] and by Nehemiah, who visited Jerusalem as its governor for
the first time in 445 and for the second time in 433. Besides, “the
religious spirit of the book is that of the prayers of Ezra and
Nehemiah. A strong sense of the unique privileges of the children of
Jacob, the objects of electing love,[966] the children of the Divine
Father,[967] is combined with an equally strong assurance of Jehovah’s
righteousness amidst the many miseries that pressed on the unhappy
inhabitants of Judæa.... Obedience to the Law is the sure path to
blessedness.”[968] But the question still remains whether the Book of
“Malachi” prepared for, assisted or followed up the reforms of Ezra and
Nehemiah. An ancient tradition already alluded to[969] assigned the
authorship to Ezra himself.
Recent criticism has been divided among the years immediately before
Ezra’s arrival in 458, those immediately before Nehemiah’s first visit
in 445, those between his first government and his second, and those
after Nehemiah’s disappearance from Jerusalem. But the years in which
Nehemiah held office may be excluded, because the Jews are represented
as bringing gifts to the governor, which Nehemiah tells us he did not
allow to be brought to him.[970] The whole question depends upon what
Law was in practice in Israel when the book was written. In 445 Ezra
and Nehemiah, by solemn covenant between the people and Jehovah,
instituted the code which we now know as the Priestly Code of the
Pentateuch. Before that year the ritual and social life of the Jews
appear to have been directed by the Deuteronomic Code. Now the Book of
“Malachi” enforces a practice with regard to the tithes, which agrees
more closely with the Priestly Code than it does with Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy commands that every third year the whole tithe is to be
given to the Levites and the poor who reside _within the gates_ of the
giver, and is there to be eaten by them. “Malachi” commands that the
whole tithe be brought into the storehouse of the Temple for the
Levites in service there; and so does the Priestly Code.[971] On this
ground many date the Book of “Malachi” after 445.[972] But “Malachi’s”
divergence from Deuteronomy on this point may be explained by the fact
that in his time there were practically no Levites outside Jerusalem;
and it is to be noticed that he joins the tithe with the tĕrûmah or
heave-offering exactly as Deuteronomy does.[973] On other points of the
Law he agrees rather with Deuteronomy than with the Priestly Code. He
follows Deuteronomy in calling the priests _sons of Levi_,[974] while
the Priestly Code limits the priesthood to the sons of Aaron. He seems
to quote Deuteronomy when forbidding the oblation of blind, lame and
sick beasts;[975] appears to differ from the Priestly Code which allows
the sacrificial beast to be male or female, when he assumes that it is
a male;[976] follows the expressions of Deuteronomy and not those of
the Priestly Code in detailing the sins of the people;[977] and uses
the Deuteronomic phrases _the Law of Moses_, _My servant Moses_,
_statutes and judgments_, and _Horeb_ for the Mount of the Law.[978]
For the rest, he echoes or implies only Ezekiel and that part of the
Priestly Code[979] which is regarded as earlier than the rest, and
probably from the first years of exile. Moreover he describes the Torah
as not yet fully codified.[980] The priests still deliver it in a way
improbable after 445. The trouble of the heathen marriages with which
he deals (if indeed the verses on this subject be authentic and not a
later intrusion[981]) was that which engaged Ezra’s attention on his
arrival in 458, but Ezra found that it had already for some time been
vexing the heads of the community. While, therefore, we are obliged to
date the Book of “Malachi” before 445 B.C., it is uncertain whether it
preceded or followed Ezra’s attempts at reform in 458. Most critics now
think that it preceded them.[982]
The Book of “Malachi” is an argument with the prophet’s contemporaries,
not only with the wicked among them, who in forgetfulness of what
Jehovah is corrupt the ritual, fail to give the Temple its dues, abuse
justice, marry foreign wives,[983] divorce their own, and commit
various other sins; but also with the pious, who, equally forgetful
of God’s character, are driven by the arrogance of the wicked to
ask, whether He loves Israel, whether He is a God of justice, and
to murmur that it is vain to serve Him. To these two classes of his
contemporaries the prophet has the following answers. God does love
Israel. He is worshipped everywhere among the heathen. He is the Father
of all Israel. He will bless His people when they put away all abuses
from their midst and pay their religious dues; and His Day of Judgment
is coming, when the good shall be separated from the wicked. But before
it come, Elijah the prophet will be sent to attempt the conversion of
the wicked, or at least to call the nation to decide for Jehovah. This
argument is pursued in seven or perhaps eight paragraphs, which do not
show much consecutiveness, but are addressed, some to the wicked, and
some to the despairing adherents of Jehovah.
1. Chap. i. 2-5.—To those who ask how God loves Israel, the proof of
Jehovah’s election of Israel is shown in the fall of the Edomites.
2. Chap. i. 6-14.—Charge against the people of
dishonouring their God, whom even the heathen reverence.
3. Chap. ii. 1-9.—Charge against the priests, who have broken the
covenant God made of old with Levi, and debased their high office by
not reverencing Jehovah, by misleading the people and by perverting
justice. A curse is therefore fallen on them—they are contemptible in
the people’s eyes.
4. Chap. ii. 10-16.—A charge against the people for their treachery to
each other; instanced in the heathen marriages, if the two verses, 11
and 12, upon this be authentic, and in their divorce of their wives.
5. Chap. ii. 17—iii. 5 or 6.—Against those who in the midst of such
evils grow sceptical about Jehovah. His Angel, or Himself, will come
_first_ to purge the priesthood and ritual that there may be pure
sacrifices, and _second_ to rid the land of its criminals and sinners.
6. Chap. iii. 6 or 7-12.—A charge against the people of neglecting
tithes. Let these be paid, disasters shall cease and the land be
blessed.
7. Chap. iii. 13-21 Heb., Chap. iii. 13—iv. 2 LXX. and Eng.—Another
charge against the pious for saying it is vain to serve God. God will
rise to action and separate between the good and bad in the terrible
Day of His coming.
8. To this, Chap. iii. 22-24 Heb., Chap. iv. 3-5 Eng., adds a call to
keep the Law, and a promise that Elijah will be sent to see whether he
may not convert the people before the Day of the Lord comes upon them
with its curse.
The authenticity of no part of the book has been till now in serious
question. Böhme,[984] indeed, took the last three verses for a later
addition, on account of their Deuteronomic character, but, as Kuenen
points out, this is in agreement with other parts of the book.
Sufficient attention has not yet been paid to the question of the
integrity of the text. The Septuagint offers a few emendations.[985]
There are other passages obviously or probably corrupt.[986] The text
of the title, as we have seen, is uncertain, and probably a later
addition. Professor Robertson Smith has called attention to chap. ii.
16, where the Massoretic punctuation seems to have been determined with
the desire to support the rendering of the Targum “if thou hatest her
put her away,” and so pervert into a permission to divorce a passage
which forbids divorce almost as clearly as Christ Himself did. But in
truth the whole of this passage, chap. ii. 10-16, is in such a curious
state that we can hardly believe in its integrity. It opens with the
statement that God is the Father of all us Israelites, and with the
challenge, why then are we faithless to each other?—ver. 10. But vv. 11
and 12 do not give an instance of this: they describe the marriages
with the heathen women of the land, which is not a proof of
faithlessness between Israelites. Such a proof is furnished only by vv.
13-16, with their condemnation of those who divorce the wives of their
youth. The verses, therefore, cannot lie in their proper order, and vv.
13-16 ought to follow immediately upon ver. 10. This raises the
question of the authenticity of vv. 11 and 12, against the heathen
marriages. If they bear such plain marks of having been intruded into
their position, we can understand the possibility of such an intrusion
in subsequent days, when the question of the heathen marriages came to
the front with Ezra and Nehemiah. Besides, these verses 11 and 12 lack
the characteristic mark of all the other oracles of the book: they do
not state a general charge against the people, and then introduce the
people’s question as to the particulars of the charge. On the whole,
therefore, these verses are suspicious. If not a later intrusion, they
are at least out of place where they now lie. The peculiar remark in
ver. 13, _and this secondly ye do_, must have been added by the editor
to whom we owe the present arrangement.
FOOTNOTES:
[949] מלאכיה or מלאכיהו. To judge from the analogy of other cases
of the same formation (_e.g._ Abiyah = Jehovah is Father, and not
Father of Jehovah), this name, if ever extant, could not have borne the
meaning, which Robertson Smith, Cornill, Kirkpatrick, etc., suppose it
must have done, of _Angel of Jehovah_. These scholars, it should be
added, oppose, for various reasons, the theory that it is a proper
name.
[950] Cf. the suggested meaning of Haggai, Festus. Above, p. 231.
[951] And added the words, _lay_ it _to your hearts_: ἐν χειρὶ ἀγγέλοῦ
αὐτοῦ θέσθε δὴ ἐπὶ τὰς καρδίας ὑμῶν. Bachmann (_A. T. Untersuch._,
Berlin, 1894, pp. 109 ff.) takes this added clause as a translation of
וְשִׂימוּ בַלֵּב, and suggests that it may be a corruption of an original וּשְְׁמוֹ
כָלֵב, _and his name was Kaleb_. But the reading וְשִׂימוּ בַלֵּב is not the
exact equivalent of the Greek phrase.
[952] מַלְאֲכִי דְיִתְקְרֵי שְׁמֵיהּ עֶזְרָא סָפְרָא.
[953] See Stade, _Z.A.T.W._, 1881, p. 14; 1882, p. 308; Cornill,
_Einleitung_, 4th ed., pp. 207 f.
[954] So (besides Calvin, who takes it as a title) even Hengstenberg in
his _Christology of the O. T._, Ewald, Kuenen, Reuss, Stade, Rob.
Smith, Cornill, Wellhausen, Kirkpatrick (probably), Wildeboer, Nowack.
On the other side Hitzig, Vatke, Nägelsbach and Volck (in Herzog), Von
Orelli, Pusey and Robertson hold it to be a personal name—Pusey with
this qualification, “that the prophet may have framed it for himself,”
similarly Orelli. They support their opinion by the fact that even the
LXX. entitle the book Μαλαχιας; that the word was regarded as a proper
name in the early Church, and that it is a possible name for a Hebrew.
In opposition to the hypothesis that it was borrowed from chap. iii. 1,
Hitzig suggests the converse that in the latter the prophet plays upon
his own name. None of these critics, however, meets the objections to
the name drawn from the peculiar character of the title and its
relations to Zech. ix. 1, xii. 1. The supposed name of the prophet gave
rise to the legend supported by many of the Fathers that Malachi, like
Haggai and John the Baptist, was an incarnate angel. This is stated and
condemned by Jerome, _Comm. ad Hag._ i. 13, but held by Origen,
Tertullian and others. The existence of such an opinion is itself proof
for the impersonal character of the name. As in the case of the rest of
the prophets, Christian tradition furnishes the prophet with the
outline of a biography. See (Pseud-)Epiphanius and other writers quoted
above, p. 232.
[955] iii. 16 ff.
[956] See above on Obadiah, p. 169, and below on the passage itself.
[957] i. 2-5.
[958] i. 8.
[959] i. 11: the verbs here are to be taken in the present, not as in
A.V. in the future, tense.
[960] _Passim_: especially iii. 13 ff., 24.
[961] i. 10; iii. 1, 10.
[962] ii. 1-9.
[963] ii. 10-16.
[964] iii. 7-12.
[965] See above, pp. 195 f.
[966] i. 2.
[967] ii. 10.
[968] ii. 17—iii. 12; iii. 22 f., Eng. iv. The above sentences are from
Robertson Smith, art. “Malachi,” _Encyc. Brit._, 9th ed.
[969] Above, p. 332, n. 952.
[970] “Mal.” i. 8; Neh. v.
[971] Deut. xii. 11, xxvi. 12; “Mal.” iii. 8, 10; Num. xviii. 21 ff.
(P).
[972] Vatke (contemporaneous with Nehemiah), Schrader, Keil, Kuenen
(perhaps in second governorship of Nehemiah, but see above, p. 335, for
a decisive reason against this), Köhler, Driver, Von Orelli (between
Nehemiah’s first and second visit), Kirkpatrick, Robertson.
[973] Deut. xii. 11. In P tĕrûmah is a due paid to priests as distinct
from Levites.
[974] ii. 4-8: cf. Deut. xxxiii. 8.
[975] i. 8; Deut. xv. 21.
[976] i. 14; Lev. iii. 1, 6.
[977] iii. 5; Deut. v. 11 ff., xviii. 10, xxiv. 17 ff.; Lev. xix. 31,
33 f., xx. 6.
[978] iii. 22 Heb., iv. 4 Eng. _Law of Moses_ and _Moses My servant_
are found only in the Deuteronomistic portions of the Hexateuch and
historical books and here. In P Sinai is the Mount of the Law. To the
above may be added _segullah_, iii. 17, which is found in the
Pentateuch only outside P and in Psalm cxxxv. 4. All these resemblances
between “Malachi” and Deuteronomy and “Malachi’s” divergences from P
are given in Robertson Smith’s _Old Test. in the Jewish Church_, 2nd
ed., 425 ff.: cf. 444 ff.
[979] Lev. xvii.—xxvi. From this and Ezekiel he received the conception
of the profanation of the sanctuary by the sins of the people—ii. 11:
cf. also ii. 2, iii. 3, 4, for traces of Ezekiel’s influence.
[980] ii. 6 ff.
[981] See below, pp. 340, 363, 365.
[982] Herzfeld, Bleek, Stade, Kautzsch (probably), Wellhausen
(_Gesch._, p. 125), Nowack before the arrival of Ezra, Cornill either
soon before or soon after 458, Robertson Smith either before or soon
after 445. Hitzig at first put it before 458, but was afterwards
moved to date it after 358, as he took the overthrow of the Edomites
described in chap. i. 2-5 to be due to a campaign in that year by
Artaxerxes Ochus (cf. Euseb., _Chron._, II. 221).
[983] But see below, pp. 340, 365.
[984] _Z.A.T.W._, 1887, 210 ff.
[985] i. 11, for גדול δεδόξασται; perhaps ii. 12, עד for ער; perhaps
iii. 8 ff., for עקב קבע; 16, for או ταῦτα.
[986] i. 11 ff.; ii. 3, and perhaps 12, 15.