Malachi 1:1-3

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 

1:2 “I have shown love to you,” says the Lord, but you say, “How have you shown love to us?”

“Esau was Jacob’s brother,” the Lord explains, “yet I chose Jacob 1:3 and rejected Esau. ³  I turned Esau’s ⁴  mountains into a deserted wasteland ⁵  and gave his territory ⁶  to the wild jackals.”

[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.

[1:3]  ³ tn Heb “and I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated.” The context indicates this is technical covenant vocabulary in which “love” and “hate” are synonymous with “choose” and “reject” respectively (see Deut 7:8; Jer 31:3; Hos 3:1; 9:15; 11:1).

[1:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Esau) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “I set his mountains as a desolation.”

[1:3]  ⁶ tn Or “inheritance” (so NIV, NLT).