The burden of the word of Jehovah to Israel by Malachi.
Malachi opens the last book of the Old Testament with a title, not a story. The verse names a heavy word, a nation, and a man we are told almost nothing about.
Where the ESV says "oracle," older translations say "burden." They also print God's name as "Jehovah," where the ESV has "the LORD." The word opens other prophecies too, and scholars read it in more than one way.
Besides its common use, this word starts several prophecies: "The burden of Babylon," "the burden of Moab" (Isaiah 13:1; 15:1, and others). Scholars do not agree on the force of massa in such places. Its natural meaning would be "a judgement that lies heavy on the people." But some take it to mean "an oracle or sentence pronounced against them." The word also occurs in Jeremiah 23:33-38, where it is "the burden of the Lord." The false prophets were not to use this expression, as if they had a message from God. If they did, it would bring judgement on them.
The verse names the prophet and says nothing else about him. One writer sees purpose in that silence.
It is clear that God has a purpose in His silence as truly as in His speech. The prophet differs from other men in one thing: he gives us not man's mind but God's revelations — though certainly for the good of man. If then the person of the prophet is hidden, we may gather that it is best to leave it so. The purpose is met only by what God had to say.
The verse gives no father and no birthplace. Some have argued the name is a title, not a person's name.
Critics have therefore doubted whether Malachi is really the prophet's personal name. Many believe it is only an ideal name, given to an unknown person because of his message. Malachi means "my messenger" or "the messenger of Jehovah." … One reason for this theory is that "the first verse does not contain any further personal description, and nothing is said about his father or place of birth." But Obadiah and Habakkuk leave out the same details. … There is no reason to doubt that Malachi is the real name of the prophet.
The name also matters inside the book. It ties the prophet himself to chapter 3.
It is interesting to note, especially in connection with chapter 3, that "Malachi" means the messenger of Jehovah. So the prophet, as was often the case, was himself a type — a picture pointing beyond himself.
The message is national. Only a fraction of the nation was there to hear it.
This prophecy is a message to God's chosen earthly people. All Israel may fall within the scope of the prophecy. Yet it goes only to the small part (often called "the remnant") set free from the captivity of Babylon. We learn this from other parts of Scripture. Most of the people were still in captivity. But in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah some sixty thousand had been allowed to return to the land of their fathers. There they rebuilt the Temple, revived the sacrifices, built the walls and set up the gates of Jerusalem.
The earlier messages had targets that this one no longer had.
It was no longer a charge of idolatry, as in the days of the Kings. It was not a call to return to the Land, as in the days of Ezra. It was not a call to rebuild the Temple, as in the days of Haggai, or to rebuild the walls, as in the days of Nehemiah. Idolatry had stopped. The remnant were back in the Land. The Temple stood rebuilt, and the round of religious observances went on with the appearance of outward order. Outwardly they held a right position, with a correct ritual, yet their moral state was completely wrong. So the burden of the Lord, in this last message, is mainly a solemn appeal to the conscience of the remnant about their low moral and spiritual state.
This message closes the Old Testament. What follows it is silence.
Jehovah's silence for four centuries in the history of His chosen people is very solemn. Think of the widespread evil they pursued for so long, recorded by their inspired writers, despite the goodness and patience God had shown them. … In this solemn way the Old Testament writings came to a close. We have no God-given records of the Hebrew people for the next four hundred years. May we ponder its grave significance!
You would expect a heavy word to open with an accusation. It does not.
Whatever the state of His people, the Lord never forgets, and never hesitates to declare, His love for them. It is in this way indeed that He brings their true condition to light. We might have supposed that the first word would be warning and rebuke for their sins. But no. God's first word is one that ought to have recalled the length and breadth, the depth and height, of that unchanging love. That love had flowed out in His mercy and grace from the call of Abraham until now.
- Burden. The heading word means a weight. It is either a judgement pressing on a people or a sentence spoken against them; commentators differ on which.
- Bearer. The verse tells us nothing about the man. One view is that God hides him on purpose, so that only what God had to say remains.
- Messenger. His name means "my messenger," and it ties the man himself to chapter 3.
- Reach. The word is addressed to Israel as a whole, but lands on the small group brought back from Babylon.
- Weight. The burden is not about idols, exile or ruined walls. It is about a right position held with a wrong heart. And God brings that charge only after telling them He has loved them.
I have loved you, saith Jehovah; but ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith Jehovah, and I loved Jacob,
God opens His message not with a charge or a warning, but with love. The people answer Him with a question. That exchange sets the tone for the whole book. It raises two questions: why would anyone doubt God's love, and what does it mean that He loved Jacob?
God declares His love before He names a single sin. One writer shows how deliberate that order is.
Whatever the state of His people, the Lord never forgets, and never hesitates to declare, His love for them. It is in this way indeed that He brings their true condition to light. We might have expected His first word to be a warning and a rebuke for their sins. But no. God's first word should have reminded them of the length and breadth, the depth and height, of that unchanging love. That love had flowed out in His mercy and grace from the call of Abraham until now. It is the same in the New Testament letters. God always shows His heart for His saints before He gives the warnings and corrections they need… We can never be reminded too often that we do not belong to the Lord because we love Him, but because He has loved us and made us what we are.
They had been through hard years, and they read hardship as proof that God did not care.
Satisfied with themselves, they were dissatisfied with God. So when the prophet made his first statement — "I have loved you, says the LORD" — they challenge it at once. Many troubles afflicted the Jews in Palestine in those years. God allowed these troubles as a chastisement because of their state. They resented them, and saw them as harshness, the opposite of love. So they challenged the statement, in an insolent way, asking, "How have you loved us?"
Their answering back runs through the whole book.
If God reminds them of His love, they say, "How have you loved us?" If He rebukes them for despising His name, they say, "How have we despised it?" If He accuses them of wearying Him, they say, "How have we wearied Him?" If God charges them with robbery, they say, "How have we robbed You?"
God could have said "Israel," the honoured name. He says "Jacob."
God's love is free. In Malachi He appeals to His people on the ground of the love He had shown to Jacob, and He uses the name that recalls their father's natural character — a character stamped on his descendants too, before divine grace had made him Israel… The name shows how little the "worm Jacob" had deserved divine love. But when He has to say, in contrast, "Esau I have hated," He marks out the wickedness on their part that stirred His anger against them… The free love of divine grace has no matching free hate. God is patient toward the creatures He has made.
Many read God's word about Esau as if He spoke it at the children's birth. The timing matters.
God did not say "I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated" before the children were born. He said it hundreds of years later, after the real character and practical ways of each had been shown in full. Before the children were born, God said only this: "the older shall serve the younger." It is more than a sad mistake to represent God as hating a man before he was born.
God answers with proof: one from the past, one from the future.
The Lord takes them back to the past and reminds them of the sovereign love that chose their father Jacob. He leads them on to the future and shows them that His love has purposed to make Israel the centre of blessing on the earth… In the prophet's day they claimed they could not see His love. But the Lord replies that a day is coming when they will see.
We can make the same mistake. We read God's discipline as a sign that He no longer loves us.
The Lord may have to speak to us in the most serious way about our moral condition. He may have to deal with us severely because of it. But behind His rebukes and His chastenings there is love. The hand that strikes is moved by a heart that loves.
- Love speaks first. God's opening word to a failing people is not rebuke but love — and that love is what exposes their real condition.
- Love doubted. They measured His love by their circumstances and resented His chastening. The same "How?" comes back at every charge in the book.
- Love is free. He names Jacob, not Israel — the undeserving name — so no one can imagine the love was earned.
- Love, then judgment. God spoke the word about Esau centuries later, after Esau's line had shown what it was. Free grace has no matching free hate.
- Love will be seen. The proof runs from a choice made in the past to a day when their own eyes will see the Lord magnified.
and I hated Esau; and made his mountains a desolation, and [gave] his inheritance to the jackals of the wilderness.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.