“I will come to put you on trial … says the Lord Almighty.”  Malachi 3:5

Malachi is a fascinating book.  It is unclear exactly when it was written, and even whether Malachi is the name of the author or simply a title (malachi  means “my messenger” in Hebrew, and the word is not found as a name anywhere else in the Bible), but the “message” of  Malachi is clear.

The last book in both the Hebrew Tanak and the Christian Old Testament,  Malachi deals with the theme of God’s judgment on the unfaithful and backsliding post-exilic Jewish community, and His eventual judgment of all peoples.  But there is an underlying aspect to this theme which is seldom mentioned in commentaries on this book.  Malachi presents his message by way of  legal complaints produced in trial. In this “trial” God Himself brings a number of charges against  Israel,  all of which Israel denies.  God then provides evidence of Israel’s guilt in each case. 

Guilty as charged

Malachi begins  immediately  with the first charge:    “I have loved you,” says the LORD “  (Malachi 1:2) and the charge is implied in this simple statement.   God had loved Israel  over a great length of time,  yet  His people had refused to return His love and had been constantly unfaithful to the covenant which He had made with them.   Israel’s  ungrateful response to the charge:  “How have you loved us?” is all the more reprehensible considering  God had only recently created the circumstances which allowed the Jews to return from captivity.

Malachi then lists a number of ways in which Israel  persisted in breaking  its covenant  with God and rejecting the love He gave them.  First,  he charges that Israel had greatly disrespected  God (Malachi 1:6)  Once again Israel denies the charge:  “How have we shown contempt for your name?” , but the evidence is clear: by  offering blemished and inferior offerings (Malachi 1:7-8).    Malachi particularly faults the priests for accepting and offering such sacrifices: “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger [malach] of the LORD Almighty”  (Malachi 2:7).

The same legal pattern of charge, denial, and then presentation of evidence of guilt is repeated throughout the greater part of the book of Malachi:

Charge: The  Israelites were breaking their  covenant with God by marrying women who worshiped  foreign gods, by being unfaithful to  their own wives, and by divorcing them (Malachi 2: 12-16).

Charge: Israel was breaking its covenant  with God through the injustice which permeated the land (Malachi 2:17 – 3:5).

 At this key point the legal nature of  this book is made especially clear.  God says to Israel : “I will send my messenger (malachi), who will prepare the way before me … the messenger  (malach) of the covenant …” (Malachi 3:1) and  “… I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the LORD Almighty.” (Malachi 3: 5; see also Isaiah 3:13-15 where God also appears as prosecuting attorney and judge).   

Two final  charges follow this  legal  broadside:

Charge:   Israel  was being unfaithful in its tithes – by not paying a full tithe.  (Malachi 3:8-10).

Charge:  ‘You have spoken arrogantly against me,’ says the LORD. You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements …’ (Malachi 3:13-15).

Applying the charges to ourselves

Throughout  these legal proceedings,  Malachi shows the Israelites repeatedly  denied the charges brought against them,  asking “how have we done this?”  or “how have we done that?”  They are portrayed as full of sin, yet  clean in their own eyes. But before we judge them for this,  could any of these charges apply to spiritual Israel? Can we ask ourselves the same questions that God asked them?  

Have we failed in our covenant relationship with God in any of the ways spelled out in the charges leveled in the book of Malachi?   Let’s take a single example and  look at the charge of giving  inferior offerings.  Malachi shows the Israelites were giving blemished and sub-standard offerings to God that  they would probably be embarrassed to  give as gifts to one another.  It’s easy to read over this and not see how it might apply in our lives, but does it?  Malachi offers an instructive example from everyday life in any age: “Try offering [the inferior offerings]  to your governor [read “boss”]! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?’ says the LORD Almighty”  (Malachi 1:8). 

We may faithfully give to  our church in terms of monetary offerings, but what about the other things we offer God? Are our prayers too often short, “sleepy time” offerings which skimp on our covenant relationship?  We talk about spending “quality time” with our mates, but what about the quality of the time we give to God each day and week – is it hastily crammed in around the edges, or is it something better?   How about the Sabbath?  Do we keep it in the letter of the law, or do we see it as an opportunity to offer some undivided attention  to God within the parameters of the day?  These things are just as much our offerings to God as our monetary support of the Gospel.

All of Israel’s failings in their covenant relationship with God have obvious and sometimes not so obvious parallels in our lives (Romans 15:4), and  some of the charges against physical Israel may apply to us today.   They  are worth thinking about. 

Suspended penalties  and  the law of love

Before he moves to the penalty phase of trial,  Malachi shows that some few do accept the charges by admitting guilt and penitently turning to God.    “Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name.  “ ‘On the day when I act,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him.’ ” (Malachi 3:16-18).

The final section of Malachi then jumps to a future time when most  humans finally will understand, appreciate and respond to the covenant that God has offered them and will no longer deceive themselves:  “Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not” (Malachi 3:18). For those who do not, the penalty will be inescapable and final (Malachi 4:1).

“But for you who revere my name” God says, “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays …” (Malachi 4:2). What does this mention of the sun in Malachi have to do with a legal trial?  It is interesting that for many of the nations which were ancient Israel’s neighbors,  the  sun god  was also the god of justice and the sun was thus a symbol of justice and law in the Near East,  just as the scales of justice are a symbol  of law to us. But Malachi stresses that rather than some pagan sun god, the “sun of righteousness”  - the embodiment of perfect righteous law - would rise on God’s repentant people.

Then Malachi ends on  words  that  focus on both the law of God: “Remember the law…” (Malachi 4:4) and the  love of God which began this book:  “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.  He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents….” (Malachi 4:5-6). 

This turning of the hearts as a result of the work of an Elijah-like figure doubtless applies equally to our relationship with our spiritual parent as much as it does to physical parent-child relationships. It also has two possible applications in terms of the person of the latter day Elijah. In the first and clearest  application, the prophet “Elijah” indicates John the Baptist who prepared the way for the ministry of Jesus and the institution of the new covenant .  “And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:17) Notice  also the words of Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father,  “And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord …  by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven” (Luke 1: 76-78 which uses the same imagery of the rising sun as Malachi 4:3-4).  Jesus himself confirms this  identity of Malachi’s Elijah figure in Matthew 11:14 by saying of John the Baptist, “And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come” (see also Matthew 17:10-12).

In the second understanding, this prophecy also applies to some yet future individual or individuals, but in either case,  the closing section of  Malachi clearly stresses the  parent-child  relationship  as a metaphor  of the love that God has offered throughout the human story.  

When God says   “I have loved you” at the opening of Malachi it is in the legal context of Israelite and human failure to respond to his love. But the closing verses of this book show that due to the love of God these legal proceedings will eventually have a good outcome for those who accept God’s love.  The book of Malachi plainly shows that law has a place in love, and that love has a vital place in law. 

“Why, LORD, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you?” (Isaiah 63:17).
 
This is sometimes said to be one of the most difficult verses to understand in the Bible.  All the major translations essentially agree on how the verse should be worded, so the problem is not one of understanding what the underlying Hebrew text says, but simply what it means.  On the surface, the prophet Isaiah seems to blame God for ancient Israel’s sins, and to claim that it is because of God’s action in some way that we do not properly fear him.

Because the plain meaning of the words seems to contradict the rest of what the Bible teaches – that humans are entirely responsible for their own sins – some commentators have claimed that the passage must be understood as being spoken by those antagonistic to God who simply want to blame him for their wrongdoings.  But the context shows this explanation is impossible.  The section begins, in verse 7, with the words “I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the Lord has done for us” and continues in this kind of positive and devout manner till the speaker says “you, Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name” (vs. 16) immediately before asking “Why, Lord, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts …” (vs. 17). So, there is no sign of antagonism toward God at all – simply the asking of a question we would not expect Isaiah to ask.

The best way to understand this scripture is probably as referring to the fact that the people of Israel’s desire to do right – no matter how weak the desire may have been – was rendered useless by God’s continued displeasure with them, and the resulting lack of his help that they desperately needed if they were to do what was right (see vs. 10). As such, the statement is a strong affirmation of Israel’s own sinfulness and need of God rather than an accusation of God’s action in “making” them sin.  

This meaning of Isaiah’s words can be seen to be likely because the question is immediately followed by the request “Return for the sake of your servants” (vs. 18) – a request for God’s help as in times past (vs. 9).  So we might paraphrase Isaiah’s seemingly strange question as “Will you not help us again so that we are not left to our own wandering and hardness of heart.”

Certainly, there is nothing to be found anywhere else in the book of Isaiah that would suggest this is not the meaning of Isaiah 63:17.  In fact, the situation is clearly summarized in Isaiah’s very next chapter where the prophet speaks on behalf of Israel, saying: “You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? … for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins” (Isaiah 64:5–7).

Rather than an accusation that God was causing Israel to sin, Isaiah’s message is clearly that sinful Israel needed God’s help to do right – a lesson we can also learn from this powerful biblical book, and one we should never forget.