Malachi 1:1

Introduction and God’s Election of Israel

1:1 What follows is divine revelation. ¹  The word of the Lord came to Israel through Malachi: ² 

Malachi 1:5

1:5 Your eyes will see it, and then you will say, ‘May the Lord be magnified ³  even beyond the border of Israel!’”

Malachi 2:11

2:11 Judah has become disloyal, and unspeakable sins have been committed in Israel and Jerusalem. ⁴  For Judah has profaned ⁵  the holy things that the Lord loves and has turned to a foreign god! ⁶ 

Malachi 2:16

2:16 “I hate divorce,” ⁷  says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” ⁸  says the Lord who rules over all. “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.”

Malachi 4:4

Restoration through the Lord

4:4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, to whom at Horeb ⁹  I gave rules and regulations for all Israel to obey. ¹⁰ 

[1:1]  ¹ tn Heb “The burden.” The Hebrew term III מַשָּׂא (massa’), usually translated “oracle” or “utterance” (BDB 672 s.v. מַשָּׂא), is a technical term in prophetic literature introducing a message from the Lord (see Zech 9:1; 12:1). Since it derives from a verb meaning “to carry,” its original nuance was that of a burdensome message, that is, one with ominous content. The grammatical structure here suggests that the term stands alone (so NAB, NRSV) and is not to be joined with what follows, “the burden [or “revelation”] of” (so KJV, NASB, ESV).

[1:1]  ² tn Heb “The word of the Lord to Israel by the hand of Malachi.” There is some question as to whether מַלְאָכִי (mal’akhi) should be understood as a personal name (so almost all English versions) or as simply “my messenger” (the literal meaning of the Hebrew). Despite the fact that the word should be understood in the latter sense in 3:1 (where, however, it refers to a different person), to understand it that way here would result in the book being of anonymous authorship, a situation anomalous among all the prophetic literature of the OT.

[1:5]  ³ tn Or “Great is the Lord” (so NAB; similar NIV, NRSV).

[2:11]  ⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[2:11]  ⁶ tn Or perhaps “secularized”; cf. NIV “desecrated”; TEV, NLT “defiled”; CEV “disgraced.”

[2:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “has married the daughter of a foreign god.” Marriage is used here as a metaphor to describe Judah’s idolatry, that is, her unfaithfulness to the Lord and “remarriage” to pagan gods. But spiritual intermarriage found expression in literal, physical marriage as well, as vv. 14-16 indicate.

[2:16]  ⁷ tc The verb שָׂנֵא (sane’) appears to be a third person form, “he hates,” which makes little sense in the context, unless one emends the following word to a third person verb as well. Then one might translate, “he [who] hates [his wife] [and] divorces her…is guilty of violence.” A similar translation is advocated by M. A. Shields, “Syncretism and Divorce in Malachi 2,10-16,” ZAW 111 (1999): 81-85. However, it is possible that the first person pronoun אָנֹכִי (’anokhi, “I”) has accidentally dropped from the text after כִּי (ki). If one restores the pronoun, the form שָׂנֵא can be taken as a participle and the text translated, “for I hate” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT).

[2:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “him who covers his garment with violence” (similar ASV, NRSV). Here “garment” is a metaphor for appearance and “violence” a metonymy of effect for cause. God views divorce as an act of violence against the victim.

[4:4]  ⁹ sn Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (cf. Exod 3:1).

[4:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “which I commanded him in Horeb concerning all Israel, statutes and ordinances.”