_PROPHECY WITHIN THE LAW_
“MALACHI” i.—iv.
Beneath this title we may gather all the eight sections of the Book of
“Malachi.” They contain many things of perennial interest and validity:
their truth is applicable, their music is still musical, to ourselves.
But their chief significance is historical. They illustrate the
development of prophecy _within_ the Law. Not _under_ the Law, be it
observed. For if one thing be more clear than another about “Malachi’s”
teaching, it is that the spirit of prophecy is not yet crushed by the
legalism which finally killed it within Israel. “Malachi” observes and
enforces the demands of the Deuteronomic law under which his people
had lived since the Return from Exile. But he traces each of these
to some spiritual principle, to some essential of religion in the
character of Israel’s God, which is either doubted or neglected by his
contemporaries in their lax performance of the Law. That is why we may
entitle his book Prophecy within the Law.
* * * * *
The essential principles of the religion of Israel which had been
shaken or obscured by the delinquency of the people during the
half-century after the rebuilding of the Temple were three—the
distinctive Love of Jehovah for His people, His Holiness, and His
Righteousness. The Book of “Malachi” takes up each of these in turn,
and proves or enforces it according as the people have formally doubted
it or in their carelessness done it despite.
1. GOD’S LOVE FOR ISRAEL AND HATRED OF EDOM
(Chap. i. 2-5).
He begins with God’s Love, and in answer to the disappointed[1002]
people’s cry, _Wherein hast Thou loved us?_ he does not, as the older
prophets did, sweep the whole history of Israel, and gather proofs of
Jehovah’s grace and unfailing guidance in all the great events from the
deliverance from Egypt to the deliverance from Babylon. But he confines
himself to a comparison of Israel with the Gentile nation, which was
most akin to Israel according to the flesh, their own brother Edom. It
is possible, of course, to see in this a proof of our prophet’s
narrowness, as contrasted with Amos or Hosea or the great Evangelist of
the Exile. But we must remember that out of all the history of Israel
“Malachi” could not have chosen an instance which would more strongly
appeal to the heart of his contemporaries. We have seen from the Book
of Obadiah how ever since the beginning of the Exile Edom had come to
be regarded by Israel as their great antithesis.[1003] If we needed
further proof of this we should find it in many Psalms of the Exile,
which like the Book of Obadiah remember with bitterness the hostile
part that Edom played in the day of Israel’s calamity. The two nations
were utterly opposed in genius and character. Edom was a people of as
unspiritual and self-sufficient a temper as ever cursed any of God’s
human creatures. Like their ancestor they were _profane_,[1004] without
repentance, humility or ideals, and almost without religion. Apart,
therefore, from the long history of war between the two peoples, it was
a true instinct which led Israel to regard their brother as
representative of that heathendom against which they had to realise
their destiny in the world as God’s own nation. In choosing the
contrast of Edom’s fate to illustrate Jehovah’s love for Israel,
“Malachi” was not only choosing what would appeal to the passions of
his contemporaries, but what is the most striking and constant
antithesis in the whole history of Israel: the absolutely diverse
genius and destiny of these two Semitic nations who were nearest
neighbours and, according to their traditions, twin-brethren after the
flesh. If we keep this in mind we shall understand Paul’s use of the
antithesis in the passage in which he clenches it by a quotation from
“Malachi”: _as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated_.[1005] In these words the doctrine of the Divine election of
individuals appears to be expressed as absolutely as possible. But it
would be unfair to read the passage except in the light of Israel’s
history. In the Old Testament it is a matter of fact that the doctrine
of the Divine preference of Israel to Esau appeared only after the
respective characters of the nations were manifested in history, and
that it grew more defined and absolute only as history discovered more
of the fundamental contrast between the two in genius and
destiny.[1006] In the Old Testament, therefore, the doctrine is the
result, not of an arbitrary belief in God’s bare fiat, but of
historical experience; although, of course, the distinction which
experience proves is traced back, with everything else of good or evil
that happens, to the sovereign will and purpose of God. Nor let us
forget that the Old Testament doctrine of election is of election to
service only. That is to say, the Divine intention in electing covers
not the elect individual or nation only, but the whole world and its
needs of God and His truth.
The event to which “Malachi” appeals as evidence for God’s rejection
of Edom is _the desolation_ of the latter’s ancient _heritage_, _and_
the abandonment of it to the _jackals of the desert_. Scholars used
to think that these vague phrases referred to some act of the Persian
kings: some removal of the Edomites from the lands of the Jews in
order to make room for the returned exiles.[1007] But “Malachi” says
expressly that it was Edom’s own _heritage_ which was laid desolate.
This can only be Mount Esau or Se’ir, and the statement that it was
delivered _to the jackals of the desert_ proves that the reference is
to that same expulsion of Edom from their territory by the Nabatean
Arabs which we have already seen the Book of Obadiah relate about the
beginning of the Exile.[1008]
But it is now time to give in full the opening passage of “Malachi,” in
which he appeals to this important event as proof of God’s distinctive
love for Israel, and, “Malachi” adds, of His power beyond Israel’s
border (“Mal.” chap. i. 2-5).
_I have loved you, saith Jehovah. But ye say, “Wherein hast Thou loved
us?” Is not Esau brother to Jacob?—oracle of Jehovah—and I have loved
Jacob and Esau have I hated. I have made his mountains desolate, and
given his heritage to the jackals of the desert. Should _the people
of_ Edom say,[1009] “We are destroyed, but we will rebuild the waste
places,” thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, They may build, but I will pull
down: men shall call them “The Border of Wickedness” and “The People
with whom Jehovah is wroth for ever.” And your eyes shall see it, and
yourselves shall say, “Great is Jehovah beyond Israel’s border.”_
2. “HONOUR THY FATHER” (Chap. i. 6-14).
From God’s Love, which Israel have doubted, the prophet passes to His
Majesty or Holiness, which they have wronged. Now it is very remarkable
that the relation of God to the Jews in which the prophet should see
His Majesty illustrated is not only His lordship over them but His
Fatherhood: _A son honours a father, and a servant his lord; but if I
be Father, where is My honour? and if I be Lord, where is there
reverence for Me? saith Jehovah of Hosts_.[1010] We are so accustomed
to associate with the Divine Fatherhood only ideas of love and pity
that the use of the relation to illustrate not love but Majesty, and
the setting of it in parallel to the Divine Kingship, may seem to us
strange. Yet this was very natural to Israel. In the old Semitic world,
even to the human parent, honour was due before love. _Honour thy
father and thy mother_, said the Fifth Commandment; and when, after
long shyness to do so, Israel at last ventured to claim Jehovah as the
Father of His people, it was at first rather with the view of
increasing their sense of His authority and their duty of reverencing
Him, than with the view of bringing Him near to their hearts and
assuring them of His tenderness. The latter elements, it is true, were
not absent from the conception. But even in the Psalter, in which we
find the most intimate and tender fellowship of the believer with God,
there is only one passage in which His love for His own is compared to
the love of a human father.[1011] And in the other very few passages of
the Old Testament where He is revealed or appealed to as the Father of
the nation, it is, with two exceptions,[1012] in order either to
emphasise His creation of Israel or His discipline. So in
Jeremiah,[1013] and in an anonymous prophet of the same period perhaps
as “Malachi.”[1014] This hesitation to ascribe to God the name of
Father, and this severe conception of what Fatherhood meant, was
perhaps needful for Israel in face of the sensuous ideas of the Divine
Fatherhood cherished by their heathen neighbours.[1015] But, however
this may be, the infrequency and austerity of Israel’s conception of
God’s Fatherhood, in contrast with that of Christianity, enables us to
understand why “Malachi” should employ the relation as proof, not of
the Love, but of the Majesty and Holiness of Jehovah.
This Majesty and this Holiness have been wronged, he says, by low
thoughts of God’s altar, and by offering upon it, with untroubled
conscience, cheap and blemished sacrifices. The people would have been
ashamed to present such to their Persian governor: how can God be
pleased with them? Better that sacrifice should cease than that such
offerings should be presented in such a spirit! _Is there no one_,
cries the prophet, _to close the doors_ of the Temple altogether, so
that _the altar_ smoke not _in vain_?
The passage shows us what a change has passed over the spirit of Israel
since prophecy first attacked the sacrificial ritual. We remember how
Amos would have swept it all away as an abomination to God.[1016] So,
too, Isaiah and Jeremiah. But their reason for this was very different
from “Malachi’s.” Their contemporaries were assiduous and lavish in
sacrificing, and were devoted to the Temple and the ritual with a
fanaticism which made them forget that Jehovah’s demands upon His
people were righteousness and the service of the weak. But “Malachi”
condemns his generation for depreciating the Temple, and for being
stingy and fraudulent in their offerings. Certainly the post-exilic
prophet assumes a different attitude to the ritual from that of his
predecessors in ancient Israel. They wished it all abolished, and
placed the chief duties of Israel towards God in civic justice and
mercy. But he emphasises it as the first duty of the people towards
God, and sees in their neglect the reason of their misfortunes and the
cause of their coming doom. In this change which has come over prophecy
we must admit the growing influence of the Law. From Ezekiel onwards
the prophets become more ecclesiastical and legal. And though at first
they do not become less ethical, yet the influence which was at work
upon them was of such a character as was bound in time to engross their
interest, and lead them to remit the ethical elements of their religion
to a place secondary to the ceremonial. We see symptoms of this even in
“Malachi,” we shall find more in Joel, and we know how aggravated these
symptoms afterwards became in all the leaders of Jewish religion. At
the same time we ought to remember that this change of emphasis, which
many will think to be for the worse, was largely rendered necessary by
the change of temper in the people to whom the prophets ministered.
“Malachi” found among his contemporaries a habit of religious
performance which was not only slovenly and indecent, but mean and
fraudulent, and it became his first practical duty to attack this.
Moreover the neglect of the Temple was not due to those spiritual
conceptions of Jehovah and those moral duties He demanded, in the
interests of which the older prophets had condemned the ritual. At
bottom the neglect of the Temple was due to the very same reasons as
the superstitious zeal and fanaticism in sacrificing which the older
prophets had attacked—false ideas, namely, of God Himself, and of what
was due to Him from His people. And on these grounds, therefore, we may
say that “Malachi” was performing for his generation as needful and as
Divine a work as Amos and Isaiah had performed for theirs. Only, be it
admitted, the direction of “Malachi’s” emphasis was more dangerous for
religion than that of the emphasis of Amos or Isaiah. How liable the
practice he inculcated was to exaggeration and abuse is sadly proved in
the later history of his people: it was against that exaggeration,
grown great and obdurate through three centuries, that Jesus delivered
His most unsparing words.
_A son honours a father, and a servant his lord. But if I am Father,
where is My honour? and if I am Lord, where is reverence for Me? saith
Jehovah of Hosts to you, O priests, who despise My Name. Ye say, “How
then have we despised Thy Name?” Ye are bringing polluted food to Mine
Altar. Ye say, “How have we polluted Thee?”[1017] By saying,[1018] “The
Table of Jehovah may be despised”; and when ye bring a blind _beast_ to
sacrifice, “No harm!” or when ye bring a lame or sick one, “No
harm!”[1019] Pray, take it to thy Satrap: will he be pleased with thee,
or accept thy person? saith Jehovah of Hosts. But now, propitiate[1020]
God, that He may be gracious to us. When _things_ like this come from
your hands, can He accept your persons? saith Jehovah of Hosts. Who is
there among you to close the doors_ of the Temple altogether, _that ye
kindle not Mine Altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah
of Hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hands. For from
the rising of the sun and to its setting My Name is glorified[1021]
among the nations; and in every sacred place[1022] incense is offered
to My Name, and a pure offering:[1023] for great is My Name among the
nations, saith Jehovah of Hosts. But ye are profaning it, in that ye
think[1024] that the Table of the Lord is polluted, and[1025] its food
contemptible. And ye say, What a weariness! and ye sniff at it,[1026]
saith Jehovah of Hosts. _When_ ye bring what has been plundered,[1027]
and the lame and the diseased, yea,_ when _ye_ so _bring an offering,
can I accept it with grace from your hands? saith Jehovah. Cursed be
the cheat in whose flock is a male_ beast _and he vows it,[1028] and
slays for the Lord a miserable beast.[1029] For a great King am I,
saith Jehovah of Hosts, and My Name is reverenced among the nations._
Before we pass from this passage we must notice in it one very
remarkable feature—perhaps the most original contribution which the
Book of “Malachi” makes to the development of prophecy. In contrast to
the irreverence of Israel and the wrong they do to Jehovah’s Holiness,
He Himself asserts that not only is _His Name great and glorified among
the heathen, from the rising to the setting of the sun_, but that _in
every sacred place incense and a pure offering are offered to His
Name_. This is so novel a statement, and, we may truly say, so
startling, that it is not wonderful that the attempt should have been
made to interpret it, not of the prophet’s own day, but of the
Messianic age and the kingdom of Christ. So, many of the Christian
Fathers, from Justin and Irenæus to Theodoret and Augustine;[1030] so,
our own Authorised Version, which boldly throws the verbs into the
future; and so, many modern interpreters like Pusey, who declares that
the style is “a vivid present such as is often used to describe the
future; but the things spoken of show it to be future.” All these take
the passage to be an anticipation of Christ’s parables declaring the
rejection of the Jews and ingathering of the Gentiles to the kingdom of
heaven, and of the argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the
bleeding and defective offerings of the Jews were abrogated by the
sacrifice of the Cross. But such an exegesis is only possible by
perverting the text and misreading the whole argument of the prophet.
Not only are the verbs of the original in the present tense—so also in
the early versions—but the prophet is obviously contrasting the
contempt of God’s own people for Himself and His institutions with the
reverence paid to His Name among the heathen. It is not the mere
question of there being righteous people in every nation, well-pleasing
to Jehovah because of their lives. The very sacrifices of the heathen
are pure and acceptable to Him. Never have we had in prophecy, even the
most far-seeing and evangelical, a statement so generous and so
catholic as this. Why it should appear only now in the history of
prophecy is a question we are unable to answer with certainty. Many
have seen in it the result of Israel’s intercourse with their tolerant
and religious masters the Persians. None of the Persian kings had up to
this time persecuted the Jews, and numbers of pious and large-minded
Israelites must have had opportunity of acquaintance with the very pure
doctrines of the Persian religion, among which it is said that there
was already numbered the recognition of true piety in men of all
religions.[1031] If Paul derived from his Hellenic culture the
knowledge which made it possible for him to speak as he did in Athens
of the religiousness of the Gentiles, it was just as probable that Jews
who had come within the experience of a still purer Aryan faith should
utter an even more emphatic acknowledgment that the One True God had
those who served Him in spirit and in truth all over the world. But,
whatever foreign influences may have ripened such a faith in Israel, we
must not forget that its roots were struck deep in the native soil of
their religion. From the first they had known their God as a God of a
grace so infinite that it was impossible it should be exhausted on
themselves. If His righteousness, as Amos showed, was over all the
Syrian states, and His pity and His power to convert, as Isaiah showed,
covered even the cities of Phœnicia, the great Evangelist of the Exile
could declare that He quenched not the smoking wicks of the dim heathen
faiths.
As interesting, however, as the origin of “Malachi’s” attitude to
the heathen, are two other points about it. In the first place, it is
remarkable that it should occur, especially in the form of emphasising
the purity of heathen sacrifices, in a book which lays such heavy
stress upon the Jewish Temple and ritual. This is a warning to us not
to judge harshly the so-called legal age of Jewish religion, nor to
despise the prophets who have come under the influence of the Law. And
in the second place, we perceive in this statement a step towards the
fuller acknowledgment of Gentile religiousness which we find in the
Book of Jonah. It is strange that none of the post-exilic Psalms strike
the same note. They often predict the conversion of the heathen; but
they do not recognise their native reverence and piety. Perhaps the
reason is that in a body of song, collected for the national service,
such a feature would be out of place.
3. THE PRIESTHOOD OF KNOWLEDGE (Chap. ii. 1-9).
In the third section of his book “Malachi” addresses himself to the
priests. He charges them not only with irreverence and slovenliness in
their discharge of the Temple service—for this he appears to intend by
the phrase _filth of your feasts_—but with the neglect of their
intellectual duties to the people. _The lips of a priest guard
knowledge, and men seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the
Angel_—the revealing Angel—_of Jehovah of Hosts_. Once more, what a
remarkable saying to come from the legal age of Israel’s religion, and
from a writer who so emphasises the ceremonial law! In all the range of
prophecy there is not any more in harmony with the prophetic ideal. How
needed it is in our own age!—needed against those two extremes of
religion from which we suffer, the limitation of the ideal of
priesthood to the communication of a magic grace, and its evaporation
in a vague religiosity from which the intellect is excluded as if it
were perilous, worldly and devilish.[1032] “Surrender of the intellect”
indeed! This is the burial of the talent in the napkin, and, as in the
parable of Christ, it is still in our day preached and practised by the
men of one talent. Religion needs all the brains we poor mortals can
put into it. There is a priesthood of knowledge, a priesthood of the
intellect, says “Malachi,” and he makes this a large part of God’s
covenant with Levi. Every priest of God is a priest of truth; and it is
very largely by the Christian ministry’s neglect of their intellectual
duties that so much irreligion prevails. As in “Malachi’s” day, so now,
“the laity take hurt and hindrance by our negligence.”[1033] And just
as he points out, so with ourselves, the consequence is the growing
indifference with which large bodies of the Christian ministry are
regarded by the thoughtful portions both of our labouring and
professional classes. Were the ministers of all the Churches to awake
to their ideal in this matter, there would surely come a very great
revival of religion among us.
_And now this Charge for you, O priests: If ye hear not, and lay not to
heart to give glory to My Name, saith Jehovah of Hosts, I will send
upon you the curse, and will curse your blessings—yea, I have cursed
them[1034]—for none of you layeth it to heart. Behold, I ... you
...[1035] and I will scatter filth in your faces, the filth of your
feasts....[1036] And ye shall know that I have sent to you this Charge,
to be My covenant with Levi,[1037] saith Jehovah of Hosts. My covenant
was with him life and peace,[1038] and I gave them to him, fear and he
feared Me, and humbled himself before My Name.[1039] The revelation of
truth was in his mouth, and wickedness was not found upon his lips. In
whole-heartedness[1040] and integrity he walked with Me, and turned
many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest guard knowledge, and men
seek instruction[1041] from his mouth, for he is the Angel of Jehovah
of Hosts. But ye have turned from the way, ye have tripped up many by
the Torah, ye have spoiled the covenant of Levi, saith Jehovah of
Hosts. And I on My part[1042] have made you contemptible to all the
people, and abased in proportion as ye kept not My ways and had respect
of persons in_ delivering your _Torah_.
4. THE CRUELTY OF DIVORCE (Chap. ii. 10-17).
In his fourth section, upon his countrymen’s frequent divorce of their
native wives in order to marry into the influential families of their
half-heathen neighbours,[1043] “Malachi” makes another of those wide
and spiritual utterances which so distinguish his prophecy and redeem
his age from the charge of legalism that is so often brought against
it. To him the Fatherhood of God is not merely a relation of power
and authority, requiring reverence from the nation. It constitutes
the members of the nation one close brotherhood, and against this
divorce is a crime and unnatural cruelty. Jehovah makes the _wife of a
man’s youth his mate_ for life _and his wife by covenant_. He _hates
divorce_, and His altar is so wetted by the tears of the wronged women
of Israel that the gifts upon it are no more acceptable in His sight.
No higher word on marriage was spoken except by Christ Himself. It
breathes the spirit of our Lord’s utterance: if we were sure of the
text of ver. 15, we might almost say that it anticipated the letter.
Certain verses, 11-13_a_, which disturb the argument by bringing in the
marriages with heathen wives are omitted in the following translation,
and will be given separately.
_Have we not all One Father? Hath not One God created us? Why then are
we unfaithful to one another, profaning the covenant of our
fathers?...[1044] Ye cover with tears the altar of Jehovah, with
weeping and with groaning, because respect is no longer had to the
offering, and acceptable gifts are not taken from your hands. And ye
say, “Why?” Because Jehovah has been witness between thee and the wife
of thy youth, with whom thou hast broken faith, though she is thy
mate[1045] and thy wife by covenant. And ...[1046] And what is the one
seeking? A Divine Seed. Take heed, then, to your spirit, and be not
unfaithful to the wife of thy youth.[1047] For I hate divorce, saith
Jehovah, God of Israel, and that a man cover his clothing[1048] with
cruelty, saith Jehovah of Hosts. So take heed to your spirit, and deal
not faithlessly._
The verses omitted in the above translation treat of the foreign
marriages, which led to this frequent divorce by the Jews of their
native wives. So far, of course, they are relevant to the subject
of the passage. But they obviously disturb its argument, as already
pointed out.[1049] They have nothing to do with the principle from
which it starts that Jehovah is the Father of the whole of Israel.
Remove them and the awkward clause in ver. 13_a_, by which some editor
has tried to connect them with the rest of the paragraph, and the
latter runs smoothly. The motive of their later addition is apparent,
if not justifiable. Here they are by themselves:—
_Judah was faithless, and abomination was practised in Israel[1050],
and in Jerusalem, for Judah hath defiled the sanctuary of Jehovah,
which was dear to Him, and hath married the daughter of a strange
god. May Jehovah cut off from the man, who doeth this, witness and
champion[1051] from the tents of Jacob, and offerer of sacrifices to
Jehovah of Hosts._[1052]
5. “WHERE IS THE GOD OF JUDGMENT?”
(Chap. ii. 17—iii. 5).
In this section “Malachi” turns from the sinners of his people to those
who weary Jehovah with the complaint that sin is successful, or, as
they put it, _Every one that does evil is good in the eyes of Jehovah,
and He delighteth in them_; and again, _Where is the God of Judgment?_
The answer is, The Lord Himself shall come. His Angel shall prepare His
way before Him, and suddenly shall the Lord come to His Temple. His
coming shall be for judgment, terrible and searching. Its first object
(note the order) shall be the cleansing of the priesthood, that proper
sacrifices may be established, and its second the purging of the
immorality of the people. Mark that although the coming of the Angel is
said to precede that of Jehovah Himself, there is the same blending of
the two as we have seen in previous accounts of angels.[1053] It is
uncertain whether this section closes with ver. 5 or 6: the latter goes
equally well with it and with the following section.
_Ye have wearied Jehovah with your words; and ye say, “In what have we
wearied_ Him _?” In that ye say, “Every one that does evil is good in
the eyes of Jehovah, and He delighteth in them”; or else, “Where is the
God of Judgment?” Behold, I will send My Angel, to prepare the way
before Me, and suddenly shall come to His Temple the Lord whom ye seek
and the Angel of the Covenant whom ye desire. Behold, He comes! saith
Jehovah of Hosts. But who may bear the day of His coming, and who stand
when He appears? For He is like the fire of the smelter and the acid of
the fullers. He takes His seat to smelt and to purge;[1054] and He will
purge the sons of Levi, and wash them out like gold or silver, and they
shall be to Jehovah bringers of an offering in righteousness. And the
offering of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to Jehovah, as in the
days of old and as in long past years. And I will come near you to
judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and the
adulterers and the perjurers, and against those who wrong the hireling
in his wage, and the widow and the orphan, and oppress the stranger,
and fear not Me, saith Jehovah of Hosts._
6. REPENTANCE BY TITHES (Chap. iii. 6-12).
This section ought perhaps to follow on to the preceding. Those whom it
blames for not paying the Temple tithes may be the sceptics addressed
in the previous section, who have stopped their dues to Jehovah out of
sheer disappointment that He does nothing. And ver. 6, which goes well
with either section, may be the joint between the two. However this
be, the new section enforces the need of the people’s repentance and
return to God, if He is to return to them. And when they ask, how are
they to return, “Malachi” plainly answers, By the payment of the tithes
they have not paid. In withholding these they robbed God, and to this,
their crime, are due the locusts and bad seasons which have afflicted
them. In our temptation to see in this a purely legal spirit, let us
remember that the neglect to pay the tithes was due to a religious
cause, unbelief in Jehovah, and that the return to belief in Him could
not therefore be shown in a more practical way than by the payment of
tithes. This is not prophecy subject to the Law, but prophecy employing
the means and vehicles of grace with which the Law at that time
provided the people.
_For I Jehovah have not changed, but ye sons of Jacob have not done
with (?).[1055] In the days of your fathers ye turned from My statutes
and did not keep them. Return to Me, and I will return to you, saith
Jehovah of Hosts. But you say, “How then shall we return?” Can a man
rob[1056] God? yet ye are robbing Me. But ye say, “In what have we
robbed Thee?” In the tithe and the tribute.[1057] With the curse are ye
cursed, and yet Me ye are robbing, the whole people of you. Bring in
the whole tithe to the storehouse, that there may be provision[1058] in
My House, and pray, prove Me in this, saith Jehovah of Hosts—whether
I will not open to you the windows of heaven, and pour blessing
upon you till there is no more need. And I will check for you the
devourer,[1059] and he shall not destroy for you the fruit of the
ground, nor the vine in the field miscarry, saith Jehovah of Hosts. And
all nations shall call you happy, for ye shall be a land of delight,
saith Jehovah of Hosts._
7. THE JUDGMENT TO COME
(Chap. iii. 13-21 Heb., iii. 13—iv. 2 Eng.).
This is another charge to the doubters among the pious remnant of
Israel, who, seeing the success of the wicked, said it is vain to
serve God. Deuteronomy was their Canon, and Deuteronomy said that if
men sinned they decayed, if they were righteous they prospered. How
different were the facts of experience! The evil men succeeded: the
good won no gain by their goodness, nor did their mourning for the
sins of their people work any effect. Bitterest of all, they had to
congratulate wickedness in high places, and Jehovah Himself suffered
it to go unpunished. _Such things_, says “Malachi,” _spake they that
feared God to each other_—tempted thereto by the dogmatic form of their
religion, and forgetful of all that Jeremiah and the Evangelist of the
Exile had taught them of the value of righteous sufferings. Nor does
“Malachi” remind them of this. His message is that the Lord remembers
them, has their names written before Him, and when the day of His
action comes they shall be separated from the wicked and spared. This
is simply to transfer the fulfilment of the promise of Deuteronomy to
the future and to another dispensation. Prophecy still works within the
Law.
The Apocalypse of this last judgment is one of the grandest in all
Scripture. To the wicked it shall be a terrible fire, root and branch
shall they be burned out, but to the righteous a fair morning of God,
as when dawn comes to those who have been sick and sleepless through
the black night, and its beams bring healing, even as to the popular
belief of Israel it was the rays of the morning sun which distilled the
dew.[1060] They break into life and energy, like young calves leaping
from the dark pen into the early sunshine. To this morning landscape a
grim figure is added. They shall tread down the wicked and the arrogant
like ashes beneath their feet.
_Your words are hard upon Me, saith Jehovah. Ye say, “What have we
said against Thee?” Ye have said, “It is vain to serve God,” and “What
gain is it to us to have kept His charge, or to have walked in funeral
garb before Jehovah of Hosts? Even now we have got to congratulate the
arrogant; yea, the workers of wickedness are fortified; yea, they tempt
God and escape!” Such things[1061] spake they that fear Jehovah to each
other. But Jehovah gave ear and heard, and a book of remembrance[1062]
was written before Him about those who fear Jehovah, and those who keep
in mind[1063] His Name. And they shall be Mine own property, saith
Jehovah of Hosts, in the day when I rise to action,[1064] and I will
spare them even as a man spares his son that serves him. And ye shall
once more see_ the difference _between righteous and wicked, between
him that serves God and him that does not serve Him._
_For, lo! the day is coming that shall burn like a furnace, and all the
overweening and every one that works wickedness shall be as stubble,
and the day that is coming shall devour them, saith Jehovah of Hosts,
so that there be left them neither root nor branch. But to you that
fear My Name the Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in His
wings, and ye shall go forth and leap[1065] like calves of the
stall.[1066] And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be as
ashes[1067] beneath the soles of your feet, in the day that I_ begin to
_do, saith Jehovah of Hosts._
8. THE RETURN OF ELIJAH
(Chap. iii. 22-24 Heb., iv. 3-5 Eng.).
With his last word the prophet significantly calls upon the people to
remember the Law. This is their one hope before the coming of the great
and terrible day of the Lord. But, in order that the Law may have full
effect, Prophecy will be sent to bring it home to the hearts of the
people—Prophecy in the person of her founder and most drastic
representative. Nothing could better gather up than this conjunction
does that mingling of Law and of Prophecy which we have seen to be so
characteristic of the work of “Malachi.” Only we must not overlook the
fact that “Malachi” expects this prophecy, which with the Law is to
work the conversion of the people, not in the continuance of the
prophetic succession by the appearance of original personalities,
developing further the great principles of their order, but in the
return of the first prophet Elijah. This is surely the confession of
Prophecy that the number of her servants is exhausted and her message
to Israel fulfilled. She can now do no more for the people than she has
done. But she will summon up her old energy and fire in the return of
her most powerful personality, and make one grand effort to convert the
nation before the Lord come and strike it with judgment.
_Remember the Torah of Moses, My servant, with which I charged him in
Horeb for all Israel: statutes and judgments. Lo! I am sending to you
Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and terrible day of
Jehovah. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the sons, and
the heart of the sons to their fathers, ere I come and strike the land
with the Ban._
* * * * *
“Malachi” makes this promise of the Law in the dialect of Deuteronomy:
_statutes and judgments with which Jehovah charged Moses for Israel_.
But the Law he enforces is not that which God delivered to Moses on the
plains of Shittim, but that which He gave him in Mount Horeb. And so
it came to pass. In a very few years after “Malachi” prophesied Ezra
the Scribe brought from Babylon the great Levitical Code, which appears
to have been arranged there, while the colony in Jerusalem were still
organising their life under the Deuteronomic legislation. In 444 B.C.
this Levitical Code, along with Deuteronomy, became by covenant between
the people and their God their Canon and Law. And in the next of our
prophets, Joel, we shall find its full influence at work.
FOOTNOTES:
[1002] See above, p. 343.
[1003] See above, Chapter XIV. on “Edom and Israel.”
[1004] Heb. xii. 16.
[1005] Romans ix. 13. The citation is from the LXX.: τὸν Ἰακὼβ ἠγάπησα,
τὸν δὲ Ἠσαῦ ἐμίσησα.
[1006] This was mainly _after_ the beginning of exile. Shortly before
that Deut. xxiii. 7 says: _Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is
thy brother_.
[1007] So even so recently as 1888, Stade, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_,
II., p. 112.
[1008] See above, p. 169. This interpretation is there said to be
Wellhausen’s; but Cheyne, in a note contributed to the _Z.A.T.W._,
1894, p. 142, points out that Grätz, in an article “Die Anfänge
der Nabatäer-Herrschaft” in the _Monatschrift für Wissenschaft u.
Geschichte des Judenthums_, 1875, pp. 60-66, had already explained
“Mal.” i. 1-5 as describing the conquest of Edom by the Nabateans. This
is adopted by Buhl in his _Gesch. der Edomiter_, p. 79.
[1009] The verb in the feminine indicates that the population of Edom
is meant.
[1010] i. 6.
[1011] Psalm ciii. 9. In Psalm lxxiii. 15 believers are called _His
children_; but elsewhere sonship is claimed only for the king—ii. 7,
lxxxix. 27 f.
[1012] Hosea xi. 1 ff. (though even here the idea of discipline is
present) and Isa. lxiii. 16.
[1013] iii. 4.
[1014] Isa. lxiv. 8, cf. Deut. xxxii. 11 where the discipline of
Israel by Jehovah, shaking them out of their desert circumstance
and tempting them to their great career in Palestine, is likened to
the father-eagle’s training of his new-fledged brood to fly: A.V.
mother-eagle.
[1015] Cf. Cheyne, _Origin of the Psalter_, p. 305, n. O.
[1016] Vol. I., Chap. IX.
[1017] Or used polluted things with respect to Thee. For similar
construction see Zech. vii. 5: צמתוני. This in answer to Wellhausen,
who, on the ground that the phrase gives גאל a wrong object and
destroys the connection, deletes it. Further he takes מגאל, not in the
sense of pollution, but as equivalent to נבזה, _despised_.
[1018] Obviously _in their hearts = thinking_.
[1019] LXX. _is there no harm?_
[1020] _Pacify the face of_, as in Zechariah.
[1021] So LXX. Heb. _is great_, but the phrase is probably written by
mistake from the instance further on: _is glorified_ could scarcely
have been used in the very literal version of the LXX. unless it had
been found in the original.
[1022] מקום, here to be taken in the sense it bears in Arabic of
_sacred place_. See on Zeph. ii. 11: above, p. 64, n. 159.
[1023] Wellhausen deletes מגש as a gloss on מקטר, and the vau before
מנחה.
[1024] Heb. _say_.
[1025] Heb. also has ניבו, found besides only in Keri of Isa. lvii. 19.
But Robertson Smith (_O.T.J.C._, 2, p. 444) is probably right in
considering this an error for נבזה, which has kept its place after the
correction was inserted.
[1026] This clause is obscure, and comes in awkwardly before that which
follows it. Wellhausen omits.
[1027] גָּזוּל. Wellhausen emends אֶת־הָעִוֵּר borrowing the first three
letters from the previous word. LXX. ἁρπάγματα.
[1028] LXX.
[1029] Cf. Lev. iii. 1, 6.
[1030] Quoted by Pusey, _in loco_.
[1031] See Cheyne, _Origin of the Psalter_, 292 and 305 f.
[1032] _Isaiah i.—xxxix._ (Expositor’s Bible), p. 188.
[1033] See most admirable remarks on this subject in Archdeacon
Wilson’s _Essays and Addresses_, No. III. “The Need of giving Higher
Biblical Teaching, and Instruction on the Fundamental Questions of
Religion and Christianity.” London: Macmillan, 1887.
[1034] Doubtful. LXX. adds καὶ διεσκεδάσω τῆν εὐλόγιαν ὑμῶν κὰι οὐκ
ἔσται ἐν ὑμῖν: obvious redundancy, if not mere dittography.
[1035] An obscure phrase, הִנְנִי גֹּדֵעַ לָכֶם אֶת־הַזֶרַע, _Behold, I rebuke you
the seed_. LXX. _Behold_, _I separate from you the arm_ or _shoulder_,
reading זְרֹעַ for זֶרַע and perhaps גֹּדֵעַ for גֹּעֵר, both of which readings
Wellhausen adopts, and Ewald the former. The reference may be to the
arm of the priest raised in blessing. Orelli reads _seed = posterity_.
It may mean the whole _seed_ or _class_ or _kind_ of the priests. The
next clause tempts one to suppose that את־הזרע contains the verb of
this one, as if scattering something.
[1036] Heb. וְנָשָָׂא אֶתְכֶם אֵלָיו, _and one shall bear you to it_.
Hitzig: filth shall be cast on them, and they on the filth.
[1037] Others would render _My covenant being with Levi_. Wellhausen:
_for My covenant was with Levi_. But this new Charge or covenant seems
contrasted with a former covenant in the next verse.
[1038] Num. xxv. 12.
[1039] This sentence is a literal translation of the Hebrew. With other
punctuation Wellhausen renders _My covenant was with him, life and
peace I gave them to him, fear..._
[1040] Or _peace_, שָׁלוֹם.
[1041] Or _revelation_, Torah.
[1042] וְנַם־אֲנִי: cf. Amos iv.
[1043] See above, p. 344.
[1044] Here occur the two verses and a clause, 11-13_a_, upon the
foreign marriages, which seem to be an intrusion.
[1045] See Vol. I., p. 259.
[1046] Heb. literally: _And not one did, and a remnant of spirit was
his_; which (1) A.V. renders: _And did not he make one? Yet he had the
residue of the spirit_, which Pusey accepts and applies to Adam and
Eve, interpreting the second clause as _the breath of life_, by which
Adam _became a living soul_ (Gen. ii. 7). In Gen. i. 27 Adam and Eve
are called one. In that case the meaning would be that the law of
marriage was prior to that of divorce, as in the words of our Lord,
Matt. xix. 4-6. (2) The Hebrew might be rendered, _Not one has done
this who had any spirit left in him_. So Hitzig and Orelli. In that
case the following clauses of the verse are referred to Abraham. _“But
what about the One?”_ (LXX. insert _ye say_ after _But_)—the one who
did put away his wife. Answer: _He was seeking a Divine seed_. The
objection to this interpretation is that Abraham did not cast off the
wife of his youth, Sarah, but the foreigner Hagar. (3) Ewald made a
very different proposal: _And has not One created them, and all the
Spirit_ (cf. Zeph. i. 4) _is His? And what doth the One seek? A Divine
seed._ So Reinke. Similarly Kirkpatrick (_Doct. of the Proph._, p.
502): _And did not One make_[you both]_? And why_ [did]_the One _[do
so]_? Seeking a goodly seed_. (4) Wellhausen goes further along the
same line. Reading הלא for ולא, and וישאר for ושאר, and לנו for לו, he
translates: _Hath not the same God created and sustained your (? our)
breath? And what does He desire? A seed of God._
[1047] Literally: _let none be unfaithful to the wife of thy youth_,
a curious instance of the Hebrew habit of mixing the pronominal
references. Wellhausen’s emendation is unnecessary.
[1048] See Gesenius and Ewald for Arabic analogies for the use of
clothing = wife.
[1049] See above, p. 340.
[1050] Wellhausen omits.
[1051] Heb. עֵר וְעֹנֶה, _caller and answerer_. But LXX. read עד,
_witness_ (see iii. 5), though it pointed it differently.
[1052] 13_a_, _But secondly ye do this_, is the obvious addition of the
editor in order to connect his intrusion with what follows.
[1053] See above, pp. 311, 313 f.
[1054] Delete _silver_: the longer LXX. text shows how easily it was
added.
[1055] _Made an end of_, reading the verb as Piel (Orelli). LXX.
_refrain from_. _Your sins_ are understood, the sins which have always
characterised the people. LXX. connects the opening of the next verse
with this, and with a different reading of the first word translates
_from the sins of your fathers_.
[1056] Heb. קבע, only here and Prov. xxii. 32. LXX. read עקב,
_supplant_, _cheat_, which Wellhausen adopts.
[1057] תְּרוּמָה, _the heave offering_, the tax or tribute given to
the sanctuary or priests and associates with the tithes, as here in
Deut. xii. 11, to be eaten by the offerer (_ib._ 17), but in Ezekiel by
the priests (xliv. 30); taken by the people and the Levites to the
Temple treasury for the priests (Neh. x. 38, xii. 44): corn, wine and
oil. In the Priestly Writing it signifies the part of each sacrifice
which was the priests’ due. Ezekiel also uses it of the part of the
Holy Land that fell to the prince and priests.
[1058] טֵרֶף in its later meaning: cf. Job xxiv. 5; Prov. xxxi. 15.
[1059] _I.e._ locust.
[1060] _A dew of lights._ See _Isaiah i.—xxxix._ (Expositor’s Bible),
pp. 448 f.
[1061] So LXX.; Heb. _then_.
[1062] Ezek. xiii. 9.
[1063] חשב, _to think_, _plan_, has much the same meaning as here
in Isa. xiii. 17, xxxiii. 8, liii. 3.
[1064] Heb. _when I am doing_; but in the sense in which the word is
used of Jehovah’s decisive and final doing, Psalms xx., xxxii., etc.
[1065] Hab. i. 8.
[1066] See note to Amos vi. 4: Vol. I., p. 174, n. 3.
[1067] Or _dust_.
_JOEL_
_The Day of Jehovah is great and very awful, and who may abide it?_
_But now the oracle of Jehovah—Turn ye to Me with all your heart, and
with fasting and with weeping and with mourning. And rend your hearts
and not your garments, and turn to Jehovah your God, for gracious and
merciful is He, long-suffering and abounding in love._