Malachi 1:1-5

SECTION I

Malachi 1:1-5

God’s peculiar Love to Israel above Edom

1, 2The burden1 of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved2 you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, 3And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons3 [jackals] of the wilderness. 4Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished4 [ruined], but we will return [again] and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of Hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation for eMalachi Malachi 1:5 And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified5 [great is Jehovah] from6 the border of Israel.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Malachi 1:1.The burden of the word of the Lord. Some of the recent German Commentators, following Vitringa, understand by burden (מַשָּׂא) nothing more than a divine speech, prophecy, or utterance, so that it would mean, “the speech of Babylon, Damascus, Egypt, Moab,” instead of the upon these countries. Jerome remarks: “The word massa is never placed in the title, save when the vision is heavy and full of burden and toil.” In this interpretation he has been followed by Hengstenberg, who has fully discussed the subject, and by Köhler and Keil. Henderson has translated it sentence. The connection in the first verse with word shows that it means something more, or it would have been superfluous. Eleven times in Isaiah (Isaiah 13:1; Isaiah 14:28; Isaiah 15:1; Isaiah 17:1; Isaiah 19:1; Isaiah 21:1; Isaiah 21:11; Isaiah 21:13; Isaiah 23:1), in Ezekiel 12:10; Habakkuk 1:1; Zechariah 9:1; Zechariah 12:1, it is followed by a prophecy of a threatening nature. In Jeremiah 23:33-36, the meaning burden, heavy prophecy is presupposed. The people, whenever they met the prophets, asked scoffingly, if they had received any new massa, or burden. “What is the burden of the Lord?” not believing that the predicated evil would come. As a punishment for their blasphemy God declares (Malachi 1:39) “I will burden you.” See Lange on Jeremiah 23:33-40; Alexander on Isaiah 13:1.

To Israel, not concerning Israel, but to, as אֶל shows. By Israel is meant here not the kingdom of Israel as distinct from that of Judah but the small colony composed of all the tribes who had returned to Judæa after the Captivity, and thus became the central point of the divine promises and threatenings. Those who did not return lost the name of Israel, while those who did were called Israel by way of eminence, as those to whom the promises were made. Nehemiah and Ezra use the word Israel in the same way.

By Malachi, through Malachi. The Hebrew is, by the hand of Malachi. Köhler, Ewald, and Delitzsch have discussed the question, whether the prophecy, as it now is, was delivered orally to the people, and have concluded that we have only the substance of the more copious oral addresses of the prophet, at different times, brought together into one single prophecy. The Septuagint, as we have already remarked in the Introduction, has translated it, ἐν χειρὶ , by the hand of his angel.

Malachi 1:2. I have loved you, saith Jehovah. The whole prophecy represents the relations of Jehovah to his people, first, as their Father and Lord, secondly, as their only God, and final Judge.

The Prophet introduces Jehovah as declaring his love to them, as the foundation of the rebukes, threatenings, exhortations, and promises, which follow. This love of Jehovah to them laid them under obligation to love Him in return, and to keep his commandments. It is because He loved the people that He rebuked and chastened them.In reply to the people, who ask for proofs of Jehovah’s love, he condescends to appeal to facts in their history, and in his dealings with them that clearly prove this love. Was not Esau a brother of Jacob’s? saith Jehovah, yet I loved Jacob, and hated Esau. The question is put in this way, and the names of Jacob and Esau mentioned, rather than those of Israel and Edom, to call attention to the fact, that, though they were brothers, and sustained the same relation to Jehovah, so that it might have been expected, that He would have dealt with both alike, yet He had not done so, neither in their own persons nor in their posterity, so that judging from the results we might regard the one as loved and the other as hated.

That the word hate is not used here in its strongest sense, is clear from several passages of Scripture, as where Leah says that she was hated by Jacob (Genesis 29:33), and in Deuteronomy 21:15, where the case is put of a man’s having two wives, one beloved and the other hated, and in Luke 16:13, where it is said of a servant with two masters, that he will hate the one and love the other, and Luke 14:26, compared with Matthew 10:37, where the hating one’s father and mother is interpreted by loving less. St. Paul, in Romans 9:11, refers to Jacob and Esau as illustrations of the purpose of God, according to election. Their history typified and conditioned that of their posterity.

Malachi 1:3. And his inheritance for the jackals of the desert. We are not informed when and by whom this utter desolation of Edom took place. Jahn and Hitzig ascribe it to the Persians, so also Köhler; Keil and others to the Chaldæans, fulfilling thus the prophecies of Amos, Obadiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

The word translated in the A. V. dragons should be rather translated, jackals, with the Jewish Commentators, and Ewald, Köhler, Umbreit, Reinke, Stier, Pressel. Our version follows Jerome, Luther, Calvin, Bochart, Cocceius, J. H. Michaelis, who translate it serpents, or dragons. The Septuagint translates it, δώματα ἐρήμον, desert dwellings, in which they are followed by De Wette ( Wöhnungen), Gesenius, Maurer, Rosenmüller, Rödiger, Fürst, Henderson, and Noyes.

The word in this form is found only here. We regard it with Köhler, Keil, and others, as the feminine plural of תַּן. The masculine plural is found, Psalms 44:20; Psalms 63:10; Isaiah 13:22; Isaiah 34:3; Isaiah 35:7; Isaiah 43:20; Jeremiah 9:11; Jeremiah 10:22; Jeremiah 49:33; Jeremiah 51:37; Lamentations 4:3 (where it is strangely translated sea monsters); and is translated in our version dragons. In Isaiah 13:22, Micah 1:8, they are represented as crying and wailing, so they could not have been dragons, or serpents.

Malachi 1:4. Whereas Edom saith, or rather, although Edom should say, we are ruined, but we will again rebuild the ruins, Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, or Jehovah of Sabaoth. Hengstenberg has labored to show, in opposition to Gesenius, that Sabaoth is in, apposition with Jehovah, and to be separated from it by a comma, as a special appellation of God. It is translated by the Septuagint, παντοκράτωρ (Almighty), twenty four times in Malachi, and passes over into the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 6:18, The Lord Almighty; the Almighty, in Revelation 1:8; Lord God Almighty, Revelation 4:8, and frequently.

While Israel was rebuilding its ruins, all the attempts of Edom to repair its desolations will prove abortive.

The border of wickedness. By the word border is meant here the land, with its inhabitants. When Edom fails to recover its former prosperity all men must acknowledge that it is a perpetual monument of God’s wrath.

Malachi 1:5. Great is Jehovah over the land of Israel. Hitzig, Maurer, Ewald, Umbreit, Reinke, Noyes, Pressel, understand this clause to mean, that from the doom of Edom Israel will be forced to confess that Jehovah is not only great in Israel, but beyond its borders. Henderson, following A ben Ezra, connects, from the border of Israel with the ye of the preceding clause, ye from the border of Israel. But, as beyond is an unprecedented meaning of מֵעִל, as Israel had no doubt that Jehovah ruled beyond the borders of Israel, we had better understand it to mean, that Israel, by contrasting its condition with that of Edom, will be more deeply convinced that Jehovah’s government of his people Israel was a gracious one. As the future precedes the subject it had better be translated, says Köhler, as an optative, May Jehovah be praised! but it is more congruous to the context to translate it, Great is Jehovah over the borders of Israel! as in Psalms 35:27, where it is to be translated, Great is Jehovah! See Alexander and Delitzsch on the 35th Psalm, also on Psalms 40:17, where the same words occur.

DOCTRINAL, HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

W. Pressel: We cannot more correctly and fully express the meaning of these prophetic words, than the Apostle Paul has done in two passages in Romans 9:7; Romans 9:11 : “Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children; ” and, “Not of works, but of him that calleth:” for the Apostle as well as the Prophet recognizes in the relation of Esau and Jacob, and of the descendants of both, a striking example, that descent from one and the same patriarch is not the ground of one and the same election on the part of God, but that it is his free grace, which uses one as an instrument for the kingdom of God, and the other not, and according to which the one does not frustrate the saving purpose of God, through his want of faithfulness, and the other, in spite of all his forts, does not obtain salvation for himself. And yet, in the words of the prophet, as well as of the Apostle, the close connection of guilt on the part of the individual, with the rejection on the part of God, is also intimated. As much as in the Old Covenant the circle of revelation was limited, and necessarily so, to the people of Israel, so rich is this revelation, however, especially by the prophets in hints that the decree and glory of Jehovah should extend beyond the limits of Israel, if even at first only in the execution of his judgments, which were necessary to prepare the way among the heathen for the visitation of grace.

HOMILETICAL HINTS

Malachi 1:2. As there lies in the address of Jehovah the key to the understanding of the history of our life, so there lies in the reply of Israel the key to the understanding of our hearts. The history of our life appears, according to it, as a history of love, wherein the bitter as well as the sweet have only our good for their end, and as a decree of love, according to which nothing is accidental, but all ordained from eternity. Our heart appears in it in its blindness, since though the proofs of God’s love are very plain yet we fail to understand them, and in its ingratitude, and distrust the source of this blindness; or, the history of our life confirms to us what the Lord here testifies, and our perverse and desponding heart at least thinks what Israel here objects.

On Malachi 1:3. May it be deeply impressed upon my heart what a happiness it is to be a Christian! for how does the heathen world appear to us, when we look at the blessings of Christianity! The heathen are by nature our brethren, as Edom was the brother of Israel, and yet what a waste and kingdom of Satan is the heathen world”! In what light does Christianity appear to us, when we look at the curse of heathenism! What do we not enjoy in the knowledge of the love of God to us in Jesus Christ, and in communion with Him, and in all the blessings in heart and house, in the social and domestic circle, which flow to us therefrom, and yet how little have we deserved it, and how little is this blessing from step to step our work!

Malachi 1:4. The world’s defiance of God’s decree: It breaks down, He builds up; it builds, He breaks down.

On the whole section Malachi 1:1-6. The gracious election of God is the golden thread, which runs through not only the history of Israel, but through the whole history of the kingdom of God upon earth; but it is yet neither an “order of merit” for us, it rather humbles and disciplines, and spurs us on; it is only a cord of love by which the Lord draws us, while it brings destruction to those like the children of Edom. Love and hatred in the heart of God! What does the New Testament say to this prophetic expression? What does the history of the Church of Christ say to it? What does the witness of the Holy Ghost in our hearts say to it?

Malachi 1:5. Then and now! Then, the word of promise sounded, Great is the Lord beyond the limits of Israel ! and the promise found its fulfillment in the history of the mission to the Gentiles. Now, the word of promise sounds, Great is the Lord among Israel! and the promise finds likewise its fulfillment in the history of the mission to the Jews.

E. Pocock, Professor of Hebrew in Oxford and Canon of Christ Church: “I loved Jacob,” etc. The Apostle St Paul, in Romans 9:11, improveth this argument from thence, that this love to the one and hatred to the other was declared, when those children were not yet born, so that it could not be said that one had deserved better than the other, and therefore his love to one above the other must needs appear to be of free grace and choice, electing one, and rejecting the other; and the distinction was both in their temporal and spiritual state. But the literal explication of the words requires no more than the particular effect of his love to Jacob’s posterity and hatred to Esau’s, here instanced in the utter desolation of Esau’s country, and the restitution of Israel’s, the punishment proving to the one utter destruction, to the other a fatherly chastisement.

[Bishop Wordsworth, representing another school in the Church of England, remarks on Malachi 1:2-3 : The doctrine, taught by St. Paul in Romans 9:13, which has been much misrepresented and distorted by some Calvinistic teachers, may be illustrated by the divine words here. The love of God towards Jacob, as St. Cyril remarks, was not without foresight of Jacob’s faithfulness and piety as compared with Esau. The hatred of God toward Esau, “a profane person, who despised his birthright,” was certainly no arbitrary nor capricious passion. And if we extend these words to Edom, we find it bringing God’s judgments on itself by its unmerciful and revengeful spirit towards Israel. See Psalms 137:7; Isaiah 63:1; Obadiah 1:8.—P. S.]

Footnotes:

[1]Malachi 1:1.—מַשָּׂא דְבַר, found only together in Zechariah 9:1; Zechariah 12:1, followed by אֶל עַל בּ, to determine its relation to the object.

[2]Malachi 1:1.—The LXX. have inserted, before “I have loved”: lay to heart, or, consider, as in Haggai 1:7; Haggai 2:15.

[3]Malachi 1:3.—תַּנּוֹת, a fem. pl. for הַּנִים (so Ewald, Reinke) from תַּן, Micah 1:8; Isaiah 13:22.

[4]Malachi 1:4.—רֻשַּׁשְנוּ, pual of רָשַׁשׁ, to be destroyed, not from רוּש, as our version makes it.

[5]Malachi 1:5.—Great be Jehovah! praised as great and glorious. See Psalms 35:27; Psalms 40:17, where the same phrase occurs.

[6]Malachi 1:6.—מֵעַל, over, above, Nehemiah 3:28; Ecclesiastes 5:7, not beyond the border, the land of Israel.