The Book of Malachi, Chapter by Chapter

We want to take you through the book of Malachi chapter by chapter. This is the last book of the Old Testament. In our Zechariah study we saw the people finish the temple with great hope. Their King was coming. But years went by. And he did not come yet. The people got tired. The priests got lazy. The worship got cheap. So God sent one more prophet. Malachi. After him heaven was quiet for about 400 years. We will tell you what each chapter is about and how it fits into the message of the book. And how it points us to the one God that is revealed in Jesus Christ.

Malachi is written like an argument. God says something. The people answer back “Wherein?” How have we done that. Then God shows them. They were offering blind and sick animals on the altar. The priests were not teaching the truth. The men were divorcing their wives to marry pagan women. And the people were not paying their tithes. They said it is no use serving God. And God answered them. I have loved you. And I am coming.

There are three things we want you to take away from this study. Malachi is about giving God our best. “If then I be a father, where is mine honour?” (1:6). Malachi is about the one God who does not change. “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?” (2:10). “For I am the LORD, I change not” (3:6). And Malachi points to Jesus Christ. “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple” (3:1). “Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” (4:2). We will explain these points as we go through the book. But we want you to keep them in mind as we begin.

“The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi” (1:1). Malachi means my messenger. It is the same word God uses in 3:1. “Behold, I will send my messenger.” Some believe Malachi was not his name but a title.¹ We will not go into that here. We do not know anything else about him.

Malachi does not give a date. But the temple was standing and sacrifices were being offered. A governor was ruling (1:8). And the sins he names are the same sins Nehemiah fought. We saw in our Nehemiah study that Nehemiah found Jews married to women from Ashdod and Ammon and Moab. And the people were robbing God in tithes. So most believe Malachi preached around the time of Nehemiah. About 450 to 430 BC.² About 100 years after Haggai and Zechariah.

The book is a set of arguments between God and his people. God makes a statement. The people say “Wherein?” or something like it. Then God answers. This happens over and over (1:2, 6, 7; 2:14, 17; 3:7, 8, 13).³ It shows how hard their hearts had become. They could not even see their own sin.

We will break the book down like this. I have loved you (1). The priests and the covenant (2). The Lord shall suddenly come to his temple (3:1–6). Will a man rob God (3:7–18). And the Sun of righteousness (4). Then we will look at the 400 silent years. Then we will put together what Malachi teaches about the one God. Just like in our other studies we will be using the KJV for our scripture quotations. And we will let you know where you can find the work of the scholars we reference.

Jacob Have I Loved

The last book of the Old Testament starts with God saying I have loved you. After everything. And the people say how. Show us. So God points to Edom. Esau and Jacob were brothers. Twins. But God chose Jacob. We saw in our Obadiah study what happened to Esau’s nation. Edom was laid waste. Israel came back from captivity. Edom never did. God’s love is shown in his choosing. Paul quotes this verse. “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (Romans 9:13). Many believe the word hated here means God chose one and not the other.⁴ God did not choose Jacob because Jacob was better. He chose him because he loved him. That is grace.

Where Is Mine Honour

God calls himself a father and a master. A son honors his father. A servant fears his master. But the priests did neither. And they did not even know it. So God told them. “Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar” (v.7). “If ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person?” (v.8). They kept the best animals for themselves. And gave God the ones that were going to die anyway. We saw in our Leviticus study that God said every sacrifice had to be without blemish. You would not give a sick animal to the governor as a gift. But they gave it to God.

God said “Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought?” (v.10). I wish someone would just shut the doors of the temple. Better no worship than fake worship. “Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it” (v.13). They were bored with God. They rolled their eyes at serving him. Worship had become a chore. That can happen to anyone. Giving God the leftovers. Of our time. Our money. Our energy. And being bored with it.

In the middle of the rebuke God gives a promise. The priests in Jerusalem despised his name. But one day his name would be great among the Gentiles. From east to west. In every place. Not just at the temple. A pure offering. That is the church. Gentiles all over the world calling on the name of the Lord. The prayers of the saints are the incense (Revelation 5:8). And notice the name. My name shall be great. 3 times in this one verse. The name the Gentiles would call on is the name of Jesus. Paul said God “hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9). “For I am a great King, saith the LORD of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen” (v.14).

The Priest’s Lips Should Keep Knowledge

“And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you” (v.1). If they would not give glory to God’s name he would curse their blessings (v.2). Then God reminded them what a priest should be. He talked about his covenant with Levi.

That is a picture of a true minister. Truth in his mouth. No lies on his lips. Walking with God. Turning people away from sin. The people should be able to come to him and learn the word of God. “But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law” (v.8). They did the opposite. And they showed favoritism in the law (v.9). Every preacher should read this chapter. James says “be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation” (James 3:1).

Have We Not All One Father

One father. One God. One Creator. Notice the father and the God are the same. Not two. The one father is the one God who created us. That is what Isaiah said. “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter” (Isaiah 64:8). And “thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer” (Isaiah 63:16). We covered those in our Isaiah study. Paul says “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Ephesians 4:6).

Now who created us. John says of the Word that became flesh “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). And Paul says of Jesus “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth” (Colossians 1:16). The one God who created us is the one Father. And all things were made by Jesus. Not by two creators. The one Father who created us is the God who was manifest in Jesus Christ. That is why Isaiah called the child “The everlasting Father” (Isaiah 9:6).

Then Malachi uses the one God and one Father to make a point. If we have one Father we are brothers. So why do we betray each other. “Judah hath dealt treacherously … and hath married the daughter of a strange god” (v.11). The men were marrying women who worshipped idols. And to do it they were divorcing their Jewish wives.

The Wife of Thy Youth

The people cried at the altar and wondered why God would not accept their offering. They said “Wherefore?” (v.14). God told them. “Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant” (v.14). Marriage is a covenant. And God was the witness at the wedding. When they broke it they broke a covenant before God.

“And did not he make one? … And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed” (v.15). God made husband and wife one flesh. We saw that in our Genesis study (Genesis 2:24). And one reason is so that children would be raised in a godly home. “Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away” (vv.15–16). Putting away means divorce. God hates it. Jesus said “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:6).

Then the last charge in the chapter. “Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?” (v.17). They said God does not care about sin. The wicked do fine. They asked where God was. And God answered in the next verse.

They asked where is the God of judgment. God said I am coming. First I will send my messenger to prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are looking for will come to his temple. There are three things we want to point out.

First the messenger is John the Baptist. Jesus said so. “For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee” (Matthew 11:10). Mark starts his gospel with this verse and Isaiah 40:3 together (Mark 1:2–3). We saw in our Isaiah study that the voice in the wilderness would “Prepare ye the way of the LORD” (Isaiah 40:3).

Second notice whose way John prepared. God says “he shall prepare the way before me.” Before me. The LORD of hosts is speaking. And John prepared the way for Jesus. So Jesus is the LORD of hosts who said before me. Trinitarians will say Matthew 11:10 changes it to before thy face. As if the Father is talking to the Son.⁵ But notice. Malachi says before me. Isaiah says the way of the LORD. Our God. The gospels apply those words to Jesus. The way John prepared was the way of the LORD. Not the way of a second person who came after the LORD. The one who came after John was the LORD himself in the flesh.

Third the Lord would suddenly come to his temple. His temple. It belongs to him. And Jesus came to the temple. As a baby in his mother’s arms. As a boy of 12 who said “wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). And as a man who drove out the money changers and said “make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise” (John 2:16). We saw in our Haggai study that the glory of the latter house was greater because God in the flesh came into it. And notice he is called “the messenger of the covenant.” The new covenant. Jesus is “the mediator of a better covenant” (Hebrews 8:6). The Lord and the messenger of the covenant are the same one.

They wanted the God of judgment to come. But they were not ready for him. He would come like fire to melt metal. Like strong soap to scrub clothes. He would burn away the dirt and keep the gold. And he would start with the priests. There is an old saying that a refiner watches the silver until he can see his own face in it. Then he knows it is pure. Jesus wants to see himself in us. John the Baptist said “he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Matthew 3:11).

“And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless” (v.5). There is the God of judgment they asked for. Then this.

God does not change. That is why they were still alive. If God changed he would have given up on them a long time ago. But he made a promise to Jacob. And he keeps his promises. Hebrews says “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). The LORD who changes not is Jesus Christ who is the same forever. James says with God there is “no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

“Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?” (v.7). The same promise Zechariah gave. Return to me and I will return to you. But they did not even know they had left.

The tithe is the first tenth. Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek (Genesis 14:20). Jacob promised a tenth to God (Genesis 28:22). And the law gave the tithe to the Levites so they could serve in the temple. We saw that in our Numbers study. But the people were keeping it. So the Levites had to leave the temple and go work in the fields (Nehemiah 13:10). We saw in our Nehemiah study that Nehemiah had to fix that.

Notice. This is one of the only places where God invites his people to test him. Prove me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse. And see if I will not open the windows of heaven. God said I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes (v.11). The locusts would not eat your crops. And all nations shall call you blessed (v.12). Jesus said “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over” (Luke 6:38). You cannot outgive God.

A Book of Remembrance

Then the last argument. “Your words have been stout against me” (v.13). They said “It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance?” (v.14). We call the proud happy. The wicked get ahead. They tempt God and get away with it (v.15). That is what they were saying. But not everyone.

A small group still feared the LORD. They talked to each other about God. And God was listening. He wrote their names in a book. Notice also. They “thought upon his name.” They meditated on the name of the LORD. And God said they shall be mine. My jewels. My treasure. Paul says “The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2:19). Hebrews says “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” (Hebrews 10:25). When God’s people get together and talk about him God writes it down. “Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not” (v.18). One day the difference will be clear.

“For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up … that it shall leave them neither root nor branch” (v.1). The proud people who said the wicked are happy. That day would burn them up. Then this.

The same day. For the proud it is a furnace. For those that fear his name it is a sunrise. The sun that burns the stubble warms the righteous. And notice. You that fear my name. The name again. The Sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. The wings of the sun are its rays spreading out over the earth.

When John the Baptist was born his father Zacharias said “the dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death” (Luke 1:78–79). The dayspring is the sunrise. Jesus said “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). When John saw Jesus in Revelation “his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength” (Revelation 1:16). Jesus is the Sun of righteousness. And he came with healing. He healed the sick everywhere he went. Some have pointed out that the word for wings is also used for the corners of a garment. Where the Jews wore their tassels. And a sick woman said “If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole” (Matthew 9:21). She touched the hem of his garment. And she was healed.⁶ “And ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” Calves let out of the barn in the morning jumping for joy. That is what salvation feels like.

“And ye shall tread down the wicked” (v.3). Then God says “Remember ye the law of Moses my servant” (v.4). Remember the word. Then the last promise of the Old Testament.

Elijah would come before the day of the LORD. We saw in our 2 Kings study that Elijah never died. He was taken up in a chariot of fire. So the Jews waited for Elijah to come back. They still pour a cup for him at Passover. But Jesus said John the Baptist was the Elijah who was to come. “And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come” (Matthew 11:14). When the angel told Zacharias about John he said “he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children” (Luke 1:17). That is Malachi 4:6.

Now notice the angel’s words. “He shall go before him.” Notice who he goes before. Look at the verse before. “And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him” (Luke 1:16–17). John went before the Lord their God. And John went before Jesus. Malachi said Elijah would come before the day of the LORD. And John came before Jesus. The coming of Jesus is the coming of the LORD.

And notice how the Old Testament ends. The last word is curse. “Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” The law could not take away the curse. It could only show it. And then heaven went silent. But the New Testament tells us how the curse was taken away. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). And the last book of the whole Bible ends differently. “And there shall be no more curse” (Revelation 22:3). Malachi ends with a curse. Revelation ends with grace. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen” (Revelation 22:21). What happened in between is Jesus.

After Malachi there was no new word from a prophet for about 400 years.⁷ We will not go into all the history here. But basically a lot happened. Persia fell to Alexander the Great. Just like Daniel saw. Alexander died and his kingdom was split in 4. Just like Daniel saw. Antiochus Epiphanes polluted the temple. Just like Daniel saw. The Jews fought back under the Maccabees. Then Rome came. And Herod the Edomite became king of the Jews. We saw that in our Obadiah study. And through all of it God was quiet.

But God was not idle. He was getting the world ready. Paul says “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law” (Galatians 4:4). One language most people could read. Greek. One empire with roads from one end to the other. Rome. Synagogues in every city where the Old Testament was read. Everything was ready for the gospel to go out fast.

And then the silence broke. An angel stood by the altar in the temple. He spoke to an old priest named Zacharias. He said your wife will have a son. And he quoted Malachi. He shall go before the Lord “to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children” (Luke 1:17). The Old Testament ended with a promise that Elijah would come. And the New Testament starts with Elijah’s spirit coming in John. Mark starts his gospel with Malachi 3:1. “Behold, I send my messenger before thy face” (Mark 1:2). The last words of the prophets became the first words of the gospel.

Malachi is the last word of the Old Testament. And it says the same thing about God that the first book did. Before we finish we want to put it all together. There are three things we want to point out.

First there is one God and one Father. “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?” (2:10). The Father is not one person in a group of three. The one Father is the one God who created us. And John tells us all things were made by the Word who became flesh (John 1:3). The one Father who created us came to us in Jesus Christ.

Second the one God does not change. “For I am the LORD, I change not” (3:6). He loved Jacob and he still loved Jacob’s children. He promised to come and he came. And Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day and for ever (Hebrews 13:8). The same LORD.

Third the LORD himself came. God said my messenger shall prepare the way before me (3:1). John prepared the way for Jesus. So the one who came after John is the LORD of hosts. The Lord came suddenly to his temple. He is the messenger of the covenant. The Sun of righteousness with healing in his wings. And Elijah came before the day of the LORD. John came before Jesus. Every promise in Malachi points to one person. One God. Revealed in Jesus Christ. “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

We have gone through Malachi chapter by chapter. Here is what we can conclude. First Malachi is about giving God our best. The priests gave God the blind and the lame. The people kept the tithes. The men broke covenant with the wives of their youth. And they said it is vain to serve God. God said if I be a father where is mine honour. He does not want our leftovers. He wants our hearts. And he said prove me.

Second Malachi is about the one God who does not change. One Father. One God who created us. The LORD who changes not. Who loved Jacob. Who keeps a book of remembrance for those who fear him and think upon his name. And who calls them his jewels.

Third Malachi points to Jesus Christ. The Lord who suddenly came to his temple. The messenger of the covenant. The refiner who purifies his people. The Sun of righteousness with healing in his wings. And the one whose way was prepared by Elijah. Which is John the Baptist. Malachi ends with a curse. But Jesus was made a curse for us. So that there would be no more curse.

This is the end of the Old Testament. From “In the beginning God” to “Behold, I will send you Elijah.” 39 books. And every one of them points to the one God who would come and save us himself. After 400 years of silence a priest named Zacharias went into the temple to burn incense. And an angel was waiting for him. The messenger was about to be born. And the Lord was about to come to his temple. That is where the New Testament begins.