The last book of the Old Testament, and it is not a sermon. It is a quarrel, written down as a quarrel — God says something, the people answer back, and God answers the answer. Seven times.

The prophet, and the moment

Nothing is known about Malachi except what is in the prophecy itself. He was probably a contemporary of Nehemiah, because the prophecy describes that period better than any other.

The temple has been rebuilt for a while now. Haggai and Zechariah won their argument, the house is standing, the sacrifices are running, and the excitement has entirely worn off. Nothing has gone wrong in a dramatic way. That is the situation Malachi is sent into, and it is a harder one to preach against than idolatry.

“But you ask”

The most interesting aspect of the book is the dialogue between the LORD and His people. A constant contrast runs through it — you say, over against thus says the LORD. It starts in the second verse.

“‘I loved you,’ says the LORD. ‘But you ask, How did you love us?’”Malachi 1:2 · GW

That is the pattern for the whole book, and it happens six times: a statement, a flat contradiction from the people, then the evidence. How did you love us. How have we dishonoured you. How are we cheating you.

What is striking is that the questions are not sneering. They are sincere, and that is the trouble. These people genuinely cannot see it. They are not defiant, they are numb — still going through the whole of it and no longer able to tell that anything is missing.

The exhibit

The first charge is about the sacrifices, and God makes it concrete immediately.

“When you bring a blind animal to sacrifice, isn’t that wrong? When you bring a lame or a sick animal, isn’t that wrong? Try offering it to your governor. Would he accept it from you? Would he welcome you?”Malachi 1:8 · GW

They had not stopped sacrificing. They had started economising — keeping the healthy animals and bringing the ones that were going to die anyway. Technically an offering. Technically.

And the test God proposes is devastating because it is so ordinary: try it on the Persian governor. Nobody would risk it. They were more careful of a provincial official’s opinion than of God’s, and the reason is simply that the governor would notice.

What he charges them with

The first section is a listing of the sins of a dishonest, ungrateful people (1:1 – 3:5), and it falls into two halves.

Robbing God — by refusing to obey divine law (3:8-9); by profaning God’s name (1:6); by presenting unacceptable sacrifices and offerings (1:7, 8, 13, 14); in the evil example of the priests and spiritual leaders (2:1–8); by elevating evil men (2:17; 3:15); by withholding tithes and offerings (3:8); by justifying impiety (3:14).

Sins of society — dishonest dealing with their brethren (2:10); intermarriage with ungodly nations (2:11); unfaithfulness to the marriage covenant (2:14–16); sorcery, impurity and oppression (3:5).

Note where the marriage material sits — in the middle of the complaint about worship, not in a separate section on morals. Malachi treats a broken covenant with a wife and a broken covenant with God as the same kind of failure, and says so in one of the bluntest sentences in the Old Testament: “I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel (2:16).

Test me

“Can a person cheat God? Yet, you are cheating me! But you ask, ‘How are we cheating you?’ When ⌜you don’t bring⌝ a tenth of your income and other contributions. … Bring one-tenth of your income into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house. Test me in this way, says the LORD of Armies. See if I won’t open the windows of heaven for you and flood you with blessings.”Malachi 3:8–10 · GW

Everywhere else in Scripture, testing God is the thing you must not do. Here He asks for it. It is the one place He puts Himself on the other side of the experiment.

And notice why the tithe is wanted — so that there may be food in my house. The Levites had no land and lived on it. The people had not merely been withholding from God in the abstract; they had been quietly starving the men who ran the worship they were complaining about.

The ones who talked to each other

Then, in the middle of all of it, something small and easy to miss.

“Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD paid attention and listened. A book was written in his presence to be a reminder to those who feared the LORD and respected his name. ‘They will be mine,’ says the LORD of Armies. ‘On that day I will make them my special possession.’”Malachi 3:16–17 · GW

They are not preaching or reforming anything. They are talking to each other, in a bad time, in a nation that is not listening. And that is what gets written down and kept.

It is the last picture of the faithful before the curtain comes down on the Old Testament, and it is a small group in conversation. Worth remembering when the whole nation seems to be going the other way.

The promises

The second section is prophecy of the coming of Messiah — the Messenger of the covenant and the pouring out of great blessing (3:1–4); the saints becoming God’s own possession (3:16–18); a new day in which righteousness is the hallmark of the kingdom (4:2–3); and the coming of the One who will usher in the day of the LORD (4:5–6).

“I’m going to send you the prophet Elijah before that very terrifying day of the LORD comes. He will change parents’ attitudes toward their children and children’s attitudes toward their parents.”Malachi 4:5–6 · GW

The last promise in the Old Testament, and the first page of the New picks it up: an angel tells an old priest in that same temple that his son will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah — quoting this verse (Luke 1:17). Jesus later says plainly that John was the Elijah who was to come (Matthew 11:14; 17:10–13).

Then nothing

This closing book of the Old Testament portrays the closing period of Old Testament history, and speaks to the changes needed to prepare the way for the coming of Messiah. It looks first at the sins of the people and the dishonesty of their leaders, and then sets against that the blessings that will come when Messiah comes.

And then Malachi stops, and no prophet speaks for about four hundred years.

The silence is not empty — a great deal happens in it, and it changes the world Jesus is born into beyond recognition. See Between the Testaments for what fills the gap.