MALACHI, PROPHECY OF (ante), has a place in the canon of Scripture which has never been disputed and is explicitly confirmed by at least six quotations in the New Testament. I. As to the time when it was written. That Malachi WaS contemporary with the latter part of Neliemiah's administration is argued from the similar state of things mentioned in the prophecy and the history. 1. Malachi speaks of the governor of the Jews by the same name as that given to Nehemiah by the Persian king. 2. Malachi reproves the priests for having neglected, despised, and profaned the worship of God; and Nehemiah relates that, on his return a second time from Persia to Jerusalem, he found that a grandson of the high-priest had married a daughter of Sanballat, the notorious adversary of the Jews' religion ; that the high-priest had established Tobiah the Ammonite in the precincts of the temple; that the priests and the Levites were defiled, their sacred covenant despised, and the Sabbath profaned. 3. Malachi charges the whole nation of the Jel,vs with having robbed God by withholding the tithes and other appointed offerings; and Nehemiah relates that during his absence the portions of the Levites had not been given them, and that consequently they and the singers appointed to conduct the services had gone home to their fields. 4. Malachi denounces judgments on the nation for dealing treacherously with the wives of their youth and marrying strange wives; and Nehemiah relates that the Jews had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab, and that their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, having lost the knowledge of their fathers' language. II. These indications of
the time when the prophecy was written explain also its contents, which are. 1. A declaration of God's love to Israel as proved by their history; 2. An address to the priests rebuking them for their heartless, mercenary, and corrupt services, threatening them with judgments if they persisted in their sins, and describing the character of a true priest in bright contrast with their own; 3. A rebuke of the people for their mar riages with the heathen and their rejection of the lawful wives of their youth, who were left to weep at the altars of God, the institutor of marriage at the beginnin,g as a perpetual covenant; 4. An announcement of the sudden coming of the Lord, whom they claimed to seek, but who in an unexpected coming would sit in judgment against all transgressors, supplying by his own omniscience swift testimony against them; 5. A. call to repentance, with the promise of abundant blessings to all who obey; 6. A testi mony that there were some who feared God, and an assurance to them that they would always be precious in his sight; 7. A renewed announcement both of the appointed judgment and of the promised Savior, before whose great and dreadful day one in the spirit and power of Elijah the prophet would come calling fathers and children to repent ance as the only way of avoiding the hastening doom.