Malachi
The Old Testament's closing argument, with a God who opens by saying 'I have loved you'.
Who wrote it: 'Malachi' means 'my messenger' and may be a title rather than a name. Written in Persian-ruled Judah with the temple running, around 460 to 430 BC, probably near Nehemiah's time.
What it is
The temple is rebuilt, the excitement is gone, and nobody's sure God noticed. Malachi is built as six disputes, each starting with a claim from God, a skeptical 'how?' from the people, and God's evidence. 'I have loved you.' How have you loved us? 'You priests despise my name.' How have we despised it? You offer blind and lame animals; try giving those to the governor. 'You've worn the LORD out.' How? By saying everyone who does evil is good in his eyes, and asking where the God of justice is.
What Malachi is angry about is religion on autopilot: cheap sacrifices, priests who've stopped teaching, men divorcing the wives of their youth (God says he was witness to those vows), tithes withheld, and a general mood of 'what's the point of serving God?' He also sees people cheating workers, widows, orphans and foreigners, and puts it in the same list as sorcery.
What he's hopeful about is a messenger coming to prepare the way, and then the Lord himself arriving at his temple like a refiner's fire, purifying rather than destroying. To the ones who still fear God and talk with each other about him, he says a book of remembrance is being kept, they're his treasured possession, and the sun of righteousness will rise on them with healing in its wings. The famous tithe verse (3:10) is here, a challenge to test God's generosity, addressed to a community starving its own temple. It isn't a formula for personal wealth.
The last three verses promise Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD, to turn parents' hearts to children and children's to parents. Then four centuries of silence in the Christian ordering, until Mark opens his gospel with a messenger in the wilderness. Jesus said John the Baptist was the Elijah Malachi meant.
Verses worth keeping
- Malachi 1:2WEB
“I have loved you,” says the LORD. Yet you say, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” says the LORD, “Yet I loved Jacob;
Gen Zsame meaning, your words'I've loved you,' says the LORD. And you say, 'How have you loved us?' 'Wasn't Esau Jacob's brother?' says the LORD. 'Yet I loved Jacob.'
The Old Testament's last book opens with a declaration of love and an audience that doesn't believe it. Malachi spends four chapters on the reply.
- Gen Zsame meaning, your words
Because I, the LORD, don't change. That's why you, descendants of Jacob, haven't been wiped out.
God's consistency is given as the reason they're still here, not as a threat. The unchanging thing is his commitment.
- Malachi 3:10WEB
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this,” says the LORD of Armies, “if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there will not be enough room for.
Gen Zsame meaning, your words'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse so there's food in my house, and test me in this,' says the LORD of Armies, 'and see if I don't open heaven's windows for you and pour out more blessing than you have room for.'
Said to a nation withholding the temple tax while the priests went hungry. It's a real promise about God's generosity to people who stop hedging, not a get-rich formula.
16Then those who feared the LORD spoke one with another; and the LORD listened and heard, and a book of memory was written before him for those who feared the LORD and who honored his name. 17They shall be mine,” says the LORD of Armies, “my own possession in the day that I make. I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsThen the people who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD paid attention and listened. A book of remembrance was written in front of him for those who feared the LORD and honored his name. 'They'll be mine,' says the LORD of Armies, 'my own treasured possession on the day I act. I'll spare them the way a father spares a son who serves him.'
In a book about cynicism, the faithful are just people talking to each other about God. That's enough to get written down.
- Malachi 4:2WEB
But to you who fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings. You will go out and leap like calves of the stall.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsBut for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you'll go out and leap like calves from the stall.
The Old Testament's second-to-last image of the future: sunrise, healing, and animals let out to run. Charles Wesley put it in 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing'.
Read Malachi
The full text, every chapter, from the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation. Pick a chapter below. The highlighted verses are the place to start if you have never read it.
Malachi 3
1“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me! The Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple. Behold, the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, is coming!” says the LORD of Armies. 2“But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderers’ soap; 3and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer to the LORD offerings in righteousness. 4Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the LORD as in the days of old and as in ancient years.
5I will come near to you to judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says the LORD of Armies.
6“For I, the LORD, don’t change; therefore you, sons of Jacob, are not consumed. 7From the days of your fathers you have turned away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Armies. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’
8Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In tithes and offerings. 9You are cursed with the curse; for you rob me, even this whole nation. 10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this,” says the LORD of Armies, “if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there will not be enough room for. 11I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before its time in the field,” says the LORD of Armies. 12“All nations shall call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” says the LORD of Armies.
13“Your words have been harsh against me,” says the LORD. “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against you?’ 14You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God,’ and ‘What profit is it that we have followed his instructions and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of Armies? 15Now we call the proud happy; yes, those who work wickedness are built up; yes, they tempt God, and escape.’
16Then those who feared the LORD spoke one with another; and the LORD listened and heard, and a book of memory was written before him for those who feared the LORD and who honored his name. 17They shall be mine,” says the LORD of Armies, “my own possession in the day that I make. I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him. 18Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who doesn’t serve him.
Questions about Malachi
Does Malachi 3:10 promise that tithing makes you rich?
It promises that God would respond to a specific community, which had been shortchanging the temple while the priests went without, if they brought the full tithe. The blessing in view is rain and crops (verse 11 mentions the devourer and the vine). The principle that God is generous to people who stop hedging their bets is real and runs through the Bible. Turning it into a guaranteed return on giving is not what the verse says, and it's not what the rest of the Bible says either.
Does God hate divorce?
Malachi 2:16 is usually translated that way, and the Hebrew is difficult; the World English Bible reads it as condemning the man who hates and divorces. The context is men in Judah abandoning the wives of their youth, apparently for politically useful foreign marriages, and God saying he witnessed the original vows. It's a word against betrayal, aimed at the betrayers. Anyone who's been divorced against their will should hear it as God on their side, not against them.
Who is the Elijah at the end?
Malachi 4:5 promises Elijah before the day of the LORD, and Jews still set a place for him at Passover. Jesus said John the Baptist was the Elijah who was to come (Matthew 11:14, 17:12), meaning a prophet in Elijah's role, not the man himself, which John also denied being. The promise to turn the hearts of parents and children to each other is where the Old Testament ends in Christian Bibles, and it's the note Luke's Gospel picks up in its first chapter.
Is Malachi the last book chronologically?
Among the prophets, probably yes; it's from the mid-5th century BC, around Nehemiah. Some other Old Testament books may have reached their final form later (Chronicles, Daniel's final edition, some Psalms). In the Christian ordering it's placed last so the Old Testament ends on the promise of a messenger and Elijah, and the New Testament opens with John the Baptist. The Jewish ordering ends with Chronicles instead. Both endings point forward.