Overview of Malachi

Finishing off the last of the prophets, we have Malachi. There’s some debate about when Malachi was written. Some place him as contemporaries of Ezra and Nehemiah. Others place him up to 100 years after the people return to exile. Either way, this message is for a post-exilic generation to hold on to God and his way.

As we saw, the Jews had returned with such hope that God was going to restore his people and establish a new Jerusalem. And yet nothing has changed. The people are still corrupt, allowing injustice and severe poverty.

So Malachi addresses this through a series of back and forths between God and his people. The first six sections are structured the same. God brings a claim, the people then challenge the claim, and God points to the truth of what he says. The final section is a conclusion.

Malachi 1:1-5 - God’s love for his people

Malachi 1:6-2:9 - God rebukes the priests

Malachi 2:10-16 - God rebukes the people for their broken covenants

Malachi 2:17-3:5 - God’s justice

Malachi 3:6-12 - The tithe

Malachi 3:13-4:3 - God rewards the faithful and punishes the wicked

Malachi 4:4-6 - Hold on to scripture and a future prophet

One of the strongest themes throughout Malachi is the idea of covenant. The people are to bind themselves to God and not stray from the way of living they agreed to with God. Malachi points out all the ways they have strayed from the covenant and invites them back.

The conclusion then establishes how the people will remain true to the covenant. First, they are to hold to the Torah and all its teachings. Second, God will send a future prophet who will transform the people from the inside out so that they remain true to God and one another.

Malachi 1-2

God starts by reminding his people that he has loved them. But rather than accepting God's love, they challenge it. “How have you loved us?” (Malachi 1:2) they respond. God points to how he has chosen his people.

Many years ago, it was Jacob and his descendants that he chose, not Esau. The people of Esau were destroyed and taken into exile just like the Israelites, except God never returned them to their land or restored them. The Jews were unique. They were chosen and loved by God, and Malachi is exposing their lack of trust in God.

Next, God challenges them for polluting their offerings to him. Again they ask, “How have we polluted you?” (Malachi 1:7). God points out that they have been bringing their unhealthiest animals to sacrifice to God. Animals that are sick and diseased. If they were to serve those animals as food for their governor, he would be furious, and yet they think this is acceptable to serve before God.

God expects the best from his people, yet they scoff at the idea, arguing that's too much to expect. Then they try to offer him things that are sick or stolen, as though God would approve. God declares his own greatness and demands respect.

The main people responsible for this are the priests. God challenges them for how they have dishonoured him. He is going to take their offerings, that are as worthless as dung, and throw it back in their faces. He is going to turn his blessings upon them into curses.

God had made a covenant with the Levites. God would give them peace and uprightness, allowing them to enter his presence. In return, they would fear and respect him. They would live rightly and teach others about God. But instead they have become corrupt, and actually lead others away, not towards God.

Then God challenges the people for their broken covenants. Many of the men have gone after foreign women, but rather than teaching these women to worship God, they have allowed them to continue worshipping their foreign gods. Having brought this into the land, it then spreads as it did in the time before the exile. In doing so, they’ve broken their covenant with God.

In the same way, they have been so casual with their covenants with one another. They no longer take the importance of marriage seriously, and this is also reflected in how easily they will divorce their wives to chase after other women. These men have come faithless in their marriages and faithless in their relationship with God. Until they learn to be faithful in their marriages again, he will withhold his blessing from them.

Next, God challenges the people for allowing evil people free rein. The people argue that it doesn’t matter because God is okay with it, or that he’s doesn’t even care about justice.

Psalm 61

The psalm is attributed to king David, and while it doesn’t specify, it would fit with the period when David was on the run outside Israel.

The psalmist feels far away from God, but also wants to see the kingship of Israel sustained. Alternatively, it could be from the perspective of a king that is on a military campaign far from the Tabernacle/Temple.

The psalm falls into the category of petition psalm, where the psalmist is primarily making a request of God.

Psalm 61:1-5 - A prayer for refuge

Psalm 61:6-8 - A prayer for the king

The psalm opens with that common request, hear me, O God. They are calling to God from a place that is far away. They feel both geographically and spiritually distant from God.

This psalm then gives us some interesting language and imagery. The psalmist asks they be led to the rock ‘higher than I’.

This could be a reference to God’s holy mountain. Either way, there’s two ideas conveyed through this imagery. The first is that the rock symbolises a place of security and stability.

Then secondly, the fact that it is ‘higher than I’ would also suggest that God’s presence is there and that the psalmist needs God’s help to reach it.

In short, this “rock that is higher than I” is God’s presence. The psalmist needs God’s help to get there, but once there, they know they will be safe and secure with God.

The next image is much the same. God is like a strong tower. A place of security where one could look out and see what was coming.

The third image is no different. The psalmist wants to dwell in God’s tent. Again, the tent of God was where God’s presence is and is a place where one can experience that presence and protection.

And the fourth image is also the same. The psalmist wants to be secure under God’s wings. These wings are meant to illicit the sense of God’s presence that you would find under the wings of the cherubim in the tabernacle and temple.

They are also meant to conjure up the image of a mother bird protecting their young. Why does the psalmist use four different images to say the same thing? Because images and language aid our ability to understand and communicate ideas.

You now have four new images that you can use and apply to your own life, which is something that both Israelites and Christians have done for thousands of years.

And so the psalmist turns their focus to the king. Some argue that here the psalm takes a messianic focus. As with most of the messianic psalms, the psalm likely had a meaning at the time, that could then also be applied to the messiah.

The psalmist asked that the king, or the throne, endures forever, throughout generations. Why? Because God is a loving and faithful God.

Because of this, the psalmist will sing God’s praise and perform all their vows.

This psalm is an important example to us of the power of imagery.

“The Psalms do not insist that we follow word for word and line by line, but they intend us to have great freedom to engage our imagination toward the Holy God”

Walter Brueggeman