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Malachi 1 Commentary
Witten and edited by Glenn Pease
PREFACE
I have searced for the best comments on each verse of this book of Malachi, and Ihave added my own comments. Most all of this material is available, but it takes anenormous amount of time to find it all. I have put it in a verse by verse commentaryin order to save those who desire to study this book a great deal of time. I am opento anyone making further comments that add to the value of this commentary. If you desire to add your own insights, or those of others you have read that are not just repetious of what is already here, send me those ideas or quotes, and I willgladly add them to this commentary. Send them to glenn_p86@yahoo.com
INTRODUCTION
1. Calvin wrote, "The sum and substance of the Book is, — that though the Jewshad but lately returned to their own country, they yet soon returned to their ownnature, became unmindful of God’s favor, and so gave themselves up to manycorruptions; that their state was nothing better than that of their fathers beforethem, so that God had as it were lost all his labor in chastising them. As then theJews had again relapsed into many vices, our Prophet severely reproves them, andupbraids them with ingratitude, because they rendered to God their deliverer soshameful a recompense. He also mentions some of their sins, that he might prove thepeople to be guilty, for he saw that they were full of evasions. And he addresses thepriests, who had by bad examples corrupted the morals of the people, when yet theiroffice required a very different course of life; for the Lord had set them over thepeople to be teachers of religion and of uprightness; but from them did emanate agreat portion of the vices of the age; and hence our Prophet the more severelycondemns them. He shows at the same time that God would remember hisgratuitous covenant, which he had made with their fathers, so that the Redeemerwould at length come. — This is the substance of the whole:"2. In essence it is a book about the unfaithfulness of God's people, and thefaithfulness of God in spite of it. No matter how indifferent and unresponsive hispeople are, God is not going to abandon his plan to bring a Savior into the worldthat will bless all mankind, and bring eternal glory to himself. Man's failure willnever prevent God's success. God will be faithful to his plan regardless of man'suncooperative spirit.
 
3. Ray Stedman, "This last book of the Old Testament is separated in time from thefirst book of the New Testament by a period of more than 400 years. After theministry of Malachi the heavens fell silent, and no prophet came to Israel and nofurther Scriptures were written. History, of course, was still going on, andremarkable things were taking place in Israel among the Jews. New institutionswere being formed that appear in the opening of the New Testament, but none of this is recorded in sacred history.As we have already seen, the Jews did not return from Babylon in one great happythrong. There was a drawn out, straggling return, consisting of several groups. Thefirst one, led by Zerubbabel, was in 535 B.C. After building their own homes theybegan to lay the foundations of the Temple, but when this work slowed to a halt itwas Haggai's ministry 15 years later that stirred them up to carry on the work.The Temple was completed during the ministry of Zechariah, and during this timeEzra the priest led another group back from Babylon. Finally the last return wasaccomplished under Nehemiah, who in 445 B.C. began to lay the walls of the city of Jerusalem. It was shortly after Nehemiah finished his task that the prophet Malachiappeared on the scene. If the prophecy of Malachi is read in connection with thehistorical events of Nehemiah, it is clearly evident that they were contemporary."4. Claude Stauffer, "The last Minor Prophet is Malachi whose name means mymessenger. It is very possible that Malachi is an abbreviated form of the messengerof the LORD. The KJV Bible Commentary states the following about this prophet:"Nothing is known of the personal life of the prophet. This has given rise to anumber of theories concerning him. Because the Hebrew language, like the Greeklanguage, has only one word that can mean either messenger or angel, some of thechurch fathers suggested that Malachi was in reality an angel incarnate. Otherscholars have taken Malachi to be a pseudonym for Ezra, Nehemiah, orZerubbabel; but there is no historical basis for this, nor is there any precedent for itin any other prophetical literature. Jewish tradition holds that Haggai, Zechariah,Ezra, and Malachi were members of the Great Synagogue of Israel. Some havesupposed that since the priesthood occupies such a prominent place in the book thatMalachi must have been a priest. This may or may not be so. The simplest and bestview is to consider Malachi as the name of the last prophet in Israel. The fact thatnothing is known of his personal lineage or history is not uncommon among theprophets. Once again, the message to be conveyed is much more important than themessenger. That the messenger is adequate for the task committed to him isevident."Malachi is likely the last of the Old Testament prophets who ministered after Ezra,Haggai and Zechariah. This view is based on the fact that in the book of Malachi wesee the priests ministering and bringing offerings which implies the Templereconstruction has been completed (1:6-7). Mention is made of the "storehouse"which was a part of the Temple structure (3:10). Furthermore, time has elapsed sothat the priests and people have once again become corrupt. This last fact would
 
likely require a span of time as Ezra and Haggai’s accounts depict the people in astate of revival (Ezra 10; Haggai 1:14). If Malachi ministered after the Temple hadbeen rebuilt then this would put his time of ministry in close proximity with that of Nehemiah who returned to Jerusalem in 444-445 B.C. (Nehemiah 1:1). While Ezrawas called by God to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple (Ezra 1:1-3), it wasNehemiah God called about one hundred years later to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2)."5.536 BC - Cyrus signs decree for Jews (50,000) to return to Judea under Zerubabbel534 BC - Foundation of Temple laid (EZR 3)520 BC - Temple rebuilding resumed under ministry of Haggai-Zechariah (EZR 5)516 BC - Temple completed (EZR 6)445 BC - Nehemiah rebuilds the city walls430 BC - Nehemiah returns to Persia and Malachi prophesies6. David Roper has this excellent description of the times. "It was written sometimearound 450 B.C., a very interesting and significant time in the Mediterranean world.This was the golden age of Greece, the age of Pericles. This was when men likeAristotle and Socrates and Plato lived, and historians, poets, and writers likeThucydides. This was a time when the Greeks celebrated some of their greatvictories over the Persian armies, when Leonidas and his 300 Spartans held off theentire army of Xerxes for a period of time. These were golden days in the history of Greece. Yet if you had lived at this time and had been looking at the nation of Israelfrom the Jew's point of view, this was anything but a golden era. They were terriblydiscouraged, bordering on despair. They had returned from exile some sixty toseventy years before. They had been in exile first under the Babylonian empire, andthen under the Persian empire for seventy years. Now they had returned and hadbegun to rebuild, but their efforts were not too rewarding. In fact, they weredownright discouraging. They were able to rebuild the wall, but they did not haveenough men of military age to protect them against any sort of siege. There wereprobably less than 100,000 Jews in all of Palestine. They were living in huts, ill-protected from the rains. Their farms were not producing well, they had undergoneseveral periods of drought, they were in economic trouble. They had rebuilt thetemple, but it was certainly nothing like Solomon's temple. The Chaldeans hadburned Solomon's temple, and all that was left was a burned-out shell. The Jewshad been able to replace some of the interior, but they could not put back the goldand silver. Someone has estimated that between ten and twenty million dollars'worth of gold was used in building Solomon's temple. Of course the Jews did nothave that sort of money; they were poverty-stricken. And they did not have a king,but an appointee from the Persian government who was their governor. The y hadvery little freedom, and certainly no national pride. They were terribly depressedand discouraged, and if you had talked to them of the love of God, I am sure theywould have said that God had forgotten them. God may love the Greeks. All theyhad to do was look at the morning newspapers--they were all quoting the Greekleaders. But nobody was quoting the prophets and poets of Israel. We are forgotten.God does not care. He has cast us aside in a kind of historical backwater, and
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