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(Malachi 1:1-14) The prophet Malachi has the solemn duty of delivering God's last message to His earthly people before the coming of Christ. The message having been delivered, God speaks no more for a period of four hundred years. Then at length the silence is broken by the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight."
Last words possess a special power by which they often reach the conscience, touch the heart, and linger in the memory. If this be so with men's poor words, how much more when towards the end of a dispensation God speaks a last word! And as we read the prophet Malachi we do well to let it speak to us with all the power of a last word from God.
(Vs.1) Let us first consider the circumstances under which the book was written, for, however truly it may have an application to God's people in these last days, we must not forget to whom in the first instance it was addressed. The prophecy opens with the words: "The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel." It is a message, therefore, to God's chosen earthly people. Yet while all Israel may thus be included in the scope of the prophecy, it is actually addressed only to the small part (often called "the remnant") delivered from the captivity of Babylon. As we learn from other parts of Scripture, while the great mass of the people were still in captivity, some sixty thousand, in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, had been allowed to return to the land of their fathers, rebuild the temple, revive the sacrifices, build the walls and set up the gates of Jerusalem.
God's people, therefore, at that time, were divided into two main classes, and it will be helpful to notice the broad distinctions between them.
There was (1) the mass of the nation in Babylonia, in captivity. They were not in Palestine where God had placed them, but in Babylonia, whither their sin had brought them. They were not freemen as God by His power and goodness had made them, but slaves to a foreign overlord. Clearly therefore the mass of the nation may be rightly described as in a wrong position, because not in the place or state purposed for them by God.
But they were clearly in a wrong condition also, for they were content to remain in this wrong position when the opportunity, the invitation to leave it was extended as a special favor from Cyrus King of Persia (see Ezra 1:3).
Then there was (2) the band of returned Israelites dwelling in their own land and engaged in the religious rites and exercises originally ordained for them by God. Of these, unlike their captive brethren, it may be said they were in a right position, as being in the place and carrying on the religious system purposed for them by God. But, as of those in Babylonia, so of these in Jerusalem, it must be said they were in a wrong condition, for the book of Malachi throughout is an exposure of their moral and spiritual failure while outwardly characterized by formal orthodoxy.
Again, in both of these great classes were to be found a third class of individuals in happy contrast with their surroundings; men marked by practical nearness, faithfulness and devotedness to God. Daniel and his friends may be cited as examples amongst those of the captivity, while Ezra, Nehemiah and the pious few referred to in Mal. 3:16 will serve to indicate those of a similar stamp among the returned "remnant."