AN
EXPOSITION,
W I T H P R A C T I C A L O B S E R V A T I O N
S,
OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
M
A L A C H I
GOD'S
prophets were his witnesses to his church, each in his day, for several ages,
witnesses for him and his authority, witnesses against sin and sinners,
attesting the true intents of God's providences in his dealings with his
people then and the kind intentions of his grace concerning his church in the
days of the Messiah, to whom all the prophets bore witness, for they all
agreed in their testimony; and now we have only one witness more to call, and
we have done with our evidence; and though he be the last, and in him prophecy
ceased, yet the Spirit of prophecy shines as clearly, as strongly, as brightly
in him as in any that went before, and his testimony challenges an equal
regard. The Jews say, Prophecy continued forty years under the second temple,
and this prophet they call the seal of prophecy, because in him the
series or succession of prophets broke off and came to a period. God wisely
ordered it so that divine inspiration should cease for some ages before the
coming of the Messiah, that that great prophet might appear the more
conspicuous and distinguishable and be the more welcome. Let us consider, I.
The person of the prophet. We have only his name, Malachi, and no
account of his country or parentage. Malachi signifies my angel,
which has given occasion for a conjecture that this prophet was indeed an
angel from heaven and not a man, as that Judges ii. 1. But there is no just
ground for the conjecture. Prophets were messengers, God's messengers; this
prophet was so; his name is the very same with that which we find in the
original (ch. iii. 1) for my messenger; and perhaps from that
word he might (though, probably, he had another name) be called Malachi.
The Chaldee paraphrase, and some of the Jews, suggest that Malachi was the
same with Ezra; but that also is groundless. Ezra was a scribe, but we never
read that he was a prophet. Others, yet further from probability, make him to
be Mordecai. But we have reason to conclude he was a person whose proper name
was that by which he is here called; the tradition of some of the ancients is
that he was of the tribe of Zebulun, and that he died young. II. The scope of
the prophecy. Haggai and Zechariah were sent to reprove the people for
delaying to build the temple; Malachi was sent to reprove them for the neglect
of it when it was built, and for their profanation of the temple-service (for
from idolatry and superstition they ran into the other extreme of impiety and
irreligion), and the sins he witnesses against are the same that we find
complained of in Nehemiah's time, with whom, it is probable, he was
contemporary. And now that prophecy was to cease he speaks more clearly of the
Messiah, as nigh at hand, than any other of the prophets had done, and
concludes with a direction to the people of God to keep in remembrance the law
of Moses, while they were in expectation of the gospel of Christ.
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