Maleachi the Prophet

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)
Visiting Professor
Kyungpook National University
Sangju Campus
South Korea
Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College
Australia
19 May 2012

Liberal scholars and Rationalists of the past, who are actually the same, claim that there is no prophet Maleachi but that it is an attachment of the name to someone anonymous' work (A. Weiser). This cannot be right since the person is adressed and put himself forth as a person involved and not as a fake situation.
Maleachi is very clear in chapter one with his message: Intend to give your best to the Lord. Intend always to give your best to the Lord. Never compromise your good intentions. Give your best always after you intended to do so. Half gifts are no gifts. Reckless gifts are no gifts. Gifts obtained from false methods, e.g. violence, or stolen, is not acceptable. The Lord gave Maleachi a burden. Many prophets experience a burden when they preach. It was not just a pastoral sermon collected under the name of prophecy. God saw things that are sometimes kept secret in His message to Maleachi. The corruption lies on many levels so that it is an informed position that requires more than human abilities.
God gave the message in the hand of Maleachi. Rabbis of the Middle Ages, thus Middle Age Judaism by mouth of Rashi et al believed that people's souls are created long in advance and equiped for their task and that when a person is born the soul is merely carry out what God equiped it to do. This view is clear from the Jewish commentator Rashi on Maleachi 1:1 where he says that all prophets were present on Sinai in 1448 BCE when God gave the Torah to Moses. There souls were all there but they could not speak until God "switched on" their message. It is true that a prophet cannot utter until ordered to do so by the Spirit of God. But, that the souls of all prophets were present on Mount Sinai in 1448 to be equiped, is not correct. It is mere speculation. "All prophecies were transmitted to the souls of the prophets at the time of the giving of the Torah" (Midrash Tanhuma, Yithro 11 and in Exodus Rabbah 28:6).
The Lord said that He loved the faithful. "I have loved you". This is remarkable for a God to say. People questioned the words however by asking "In what have You loved us?" (Maleachi 1:2). Not understanding properly the plan of salvation and not really understanding what sin is and what desperate need humanity is in, and not fully comprehending the Messianic role predicted through all the prophets, they were asking, in what God loved them. They are vague as far as the testimonies of their history is concerned as well.
With the book of Maleachi the Lord has said enough. After this book there would be 400 years that the Lord did not speak to Israel at all. A silence period. There was at this point enough for Israel to know about the loving, caring God and His desire to interact in a ongoing relationship with His faithful.
Esau was the brother of Jacob, the same blood, yet God chose Jacob and loved Him. The love of God for Jacob has more to do than just an arbitrary choice of love and hatred. God's omnipotence is also His omniscience. He knows everything from the beginning till the end and also the non-verbal intentions of the heart. Esay rejected God. That is why he was rejected. Jacob chose God that is why he was accepted. Jacob fought with an Angel at the Jabbok and won. The book of Hosea adds to our picture these words that Jacob was weeping that night wrestling with the angel. "He wept and beseeched Him" (Hosea 12:5). The tears of a person softenes the heart of God. Hosea says that in the womb, Jacob seized his brother's heel (Hosea 12:40. This is not the reason why the Lord loves Jacob. This is also what Genesis 25:26 is saying. "And his hand was holding the heel of Esau". Obadiah anticipates the end of Esau when the house of Jacob shall be afire and the house of Joseph a flame, "and there shall not be a remnant for the house of Esau". What does this mean? Ethnic Arabs will have no remnant at the final eradication of evil? No. God does not look at the outside. In fact, careful reading of the Bible, and that includes some points at the end of Maleachi 1, indicates that God has all nations in mind and thus do not single out a particular nation to damnation on ethnic basis. Faith relationship is the key. God reads intentions as He did when this chapter started. Rabbi Rashi thought that the one who was weeping at Jabbok was the angel. There are many who indicated that the angel was indeed Christ Himself. There was an instrumental selection of Israel above all nations in Deuteronomy 4:19. It is based on faith and a faith relationship with God. Outside that domain there is no link. Should the faith relationship show up in other nations, like in the book of Ruth, it is there. God follows faith not blood. It was at Bethel that the angel or Christ found Jacob and it is there in the same manner that He will find us and speak with us (Hosea 12:5).
The Lord is the God of hosts and the Lord is His name. There is a midrashic view that the angel was Michael (Rabbi Redak cited Midrash Abchir which was quoted in Yalkut Shimoni, Vayishlach, 132). Adventists would agree here with Rabbi Redak since Michael is Christ and the angel was Christ.
God hated Esau because He could see that in his future he would make himself hateful by selecting secularism and agnosticism as a way of life.
In the days of Maleachi, Edom may have been a larger domain than we allocate it to be in modern times. There is an equation made here with Edom and Esau and then also with Transjordan. They will be poor and when they will intend to built there [denouncing faith of course] the Lord will demolish (Maleachi 1:4). They shall be called the border of wickedness and the people whom the Lord has damned forever. This is a prophetic outlook through the centuries in future that they will never accept faith and thus, taking Obadiah in consideration, be damned to their condition unchanged. The biblical fact is that God does not damn only Edom's unfaithfulness and unfaithful but all unfaithful all over the globe.
In the eschaton, the unfaithful, including Edom will be able to see that the Lord is great from over unto the border of Israel. This is not geographical Israel. It is spiritual Israel (Maleachi 1:5). At that time in the eschaton a son shall honor his father and a slave his master. Now there appear a question by the Lord in Maleachi 1:6, that had many Rabbis baffled and in fact, they skipped to comment on it. They Lord said, He is father so where is His honor. Then He said, "And if I am masters (note the plural) where is My (singular) fear". God in plurality acting in singularity, like the Trinity of the New Testament.
The priests are dispising His name. They pretend not to know how they despise the name of the Lord.
They are offering defiled food (verse 7); blind sacrifice (verse 8); lame [sacrifice]; sick [sacrifice]. They select these unwanted animals to themselves and give it to the priest to offer and then asked the priests to pray for them that the Lord will be graceful to them.
The Lord is not interested in the work of a deacon or a priest that makes fire on the altar who operates with this scenario (Maleachi 1:10).
The most terrible words of the Bible is found in "I have no desire in you" (Maleachi 1:10). Because He has no desire in them, He does not want to accept an offering from them. If God does not desire us, in vain do we worship. If you act bona fide, God will not reject you. If you do good mala fide, God will not accept your good.
Talking about bona fide actions and mala fide actions, only God can read the intentions of the heart. One should not play with God.
Maleachi 1:11 is the most radical verse for Rabbis. God said: "For, from the rising of the sun until its setting, My Name is great among the nations, and everywhere offerings are burnt and offered up to My Name, yea, a pure oblation, for My Name is great among the nations, says the Lord of Hosts".
This is not pluralism but some Rabbis interpreted it as such. Rashi said that "every prayer of Israel that they pray anywhere is to Me as a pure oblation" which is the opposite of pluralism, namely, ethnic Israel particularism spread out over the globe. Ethnic particularism is not correct.
Redak hang onto pluralism by saying that "although they worship idols, the nations acknowledge that God is the First Cause. They worship the heavenly bodies as intermediaries between themselves and God". This is not correct. God does not compromise.
Similar to Redak, Ibn Ezra suggested on this verse that "the oblations offered up to the pagan deities are indirectly meant for God". This is the current Catholic position of heathen faiths and Christian faiths as well. This is not correct and is not biblical. Elijah did not tolerate paganism that made inroads in Israel. It simply means that God is focussed on faithful people in every nation and tongue. It is the faithfulness that attracts Him, not the DNA.
In contrast to faithful examples in other nations in Maleachi's time. spiritual Israel was profaning the offerings. They selected a tired sheep, stolen sheep, lame sheep, sick sheep and gave it as gift. The offerings were defective and thus defiled (Maleachi 1:13).
Not only is the problem that the priests do not offer properly, the farmers selected with tricky craftmanship. Although there is a ram in the flock they vow and sacrifice a blemished one. The best is bypassed for the second-best. Also the priests accept it without complaint (Maleachi 1:14).