Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 478. Malachi

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 478. Malachi


Subjects in this Topic:



Malachi



Literature



Bennett, W. H., The Post-Exilic Prophets (1907), 88.

Calvin, J., The Twelve Minor Prophets, v. (1849) 461.

Driver, S. R., Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (1913), 355.

Driver, S. R., The Minor Prophets (Century Bible) (1906), 285.

Duhm, B., The Twelve Prophets (1912), 41, 197.

Farrar, F. W., The Minor Prophets (Men of the Bible), 223.

Jennings, S., The Story of the Captivity Retold (1908), 177.

Jordan, W. G., Prophetic Ideas and Ideals (1902), 301.

Kent, C. F., The Sermons, Epistles and Apocalypses of Israel's Prophets (1910), 402.

Kirkpatrick, A. F., The Doctrine of the Prophets (1892), 496.

Macfadyen, D., The Messenger of God (1910), 1.

McFadyen, J. E., Introduction to the Old Testament (1905), 234.

McWilliam, T., Speakers for God (1902), 257.

Morgan, G. C., Wherein? (1898), 1.

Orelli, C. von, The Twelve Minor Prophets (1893), 382.

Smith, G. A., The Book of the Twelve Prophets (Expositor's Bible), ii. (1898) 341.

Whitworth, W. A., The Sanctuary of God (1908), 78.

Church and Synagogue, iv. (1902) 55 (W. O. E. Oesterley).

Dictionary of the Bible, iii. (1900) 218 (A. C. Welch).

Dictionary of the Bible, iii. (Single-volume, 1909) 571 (G. G. Cameron).

Encyclopœdia Biblica, ii. (1901), col. 1921 (K. Budde).

Expositor, 3rd Ser., vi. (1887) 414 (M. Dods).

Expository Times, vii. (1896) 16, 73, 125 (J. T. Marshall).

Interpreter, iv. (1908) 402 (S. L. Brown).

Jewish Quarterly Review, xx. (1908) 167 (H. H. Spoer).

Journal of Biblical Literature, xvii. (1898) 1 (C. C. Torry).



Malachi



I have loved you, saith the Lord.- Mal_1:2.



1. After Haggai and Zechariah, the curtain falls on the fortunes of the Jews for another seventy years. The new energy inspired by these prophets sufficed to carry the building of the Temple on to completion, and it was dedicated with solemn gladness in the sixth year of Darius, 516 b.c. The inevitable reaction must have come; it was soon obvious that the completion of the Temple was not the inauguration of the glories of the Messianic era; the “nations of the earth” remained unshaken; Persia maintained its supremacy; and Judah continued to be a subject-province. In spite of more or less successful revolts, even Egypt for the most part submitted to the authority of the Achæmenidæ. The Jews had to settle down again to the dull round of sordid routine, with such relief and consolation as the more spiritually minded could derive from the Temple services and the study of the national literature.



Then God raised up a man of true prophetic spirit, with keen intuition to discern the plague spots in the nation's life, and with fearless zeal to expose them; and yet withal touched with tender pathos for the nation's woes. This man was in office, perhaps also in name, “the messenger of Jah”-Malachi.



2. The Book of Malachi is an original and attractive one; and we may be thankful that it has been preserved in the volume of the Twelve. Not only does it present us with the picture of a man of deep earnestness and incisive moral force contending boldly and independently against the abuses of his time, but it is, from an historical point of view, of great interest and value; for it sheds much welcome light upon the social and religious condition of Judah at a time about which our other sources leave us in many respects imperfectly informed.