Volume III
The Book of the Prophet Malachi
With John Brown’s marginal references, notes and reflections · Vol. III, p. 1501
Malachi seems to have prophesied about a.m. 3600, contemporary with or quickly after the government of Nehemiah. His principal scope is to reprove the Jews for their neglect or profanation of God's ordinances; their sacrilege, heathen marriages, and other abominations; and to warn them of the approaching incarnation of the Messiah. [Of Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets, the tribe and family, and even the precise date of his prophecy, are unknown; and the conjectural opinions of the learned it is useless to detail. Three things only are certain.—(1) That he prophesied after Haggai; for at the time of his prophesying the temple was built, and the worship restored, ch. 1. 7, 10, 12; 3. 10. (2) That his book was, at all times, recognized as an inspired portion of the Jewish canon. (3) That he was fully recognized by our Lord, Mat. 11. 10. The only probability which it seems important to notice is—that Malachi prophesied during or shortly after the administration of Nehemiah. Kennicott and Hales agree in assigning this prophecy to 420 b.c.—a long and dreary interval, during which no one arises whom the Jewish church recognizes as an inspired ambassador of Jehovah. C. The introductory words of this book which declare the writer, and which may be literally rendered 'by the hand of Malachi,' are translated in the Septuagint version, 'by the hand of his angel.' Such a rendering would require a slightly different reading of the Hebrew; and it has been conjectured by both Jewish and Christian commentators that Malachi is only an official title. Some have affirmed that Ezra was the author of the book, and have supposed their opinion to be corroborated by the fact that nothing is mentioned or known regarding the prophet. It is vain to speculate upon such a subject, and the safest criticism is to take Malachi to be the real name of the writer. The careful reader will observe a close resemblance in many points between this book and Nehemiah. 'Both presuppose the temple to have been already built. The same condition of the Jews is described. They both condemn foreign marriages, and enforce the due payment of tithes which had been neglected. They likewise correct abuses which had crept in with respect to the sacrifices, and reprove their countrymen for their want of sympathy with the poor.' In style the prophet is purer and more elevated than any of the later writers of the Old Testament. This may be accounted for by the fact that Hebrew had ceased to be spoken by the Jewish people. It was now a language for literary men, who naturally made the Pentateuch and the earlier prophets their models. P.]