First let's get something clear about erroneous notions of Paul and his founding a new religion, which he didn't. True, the halakhah of his Judaism switched from the Pharisaic oral law to the Ruach Hakodesh, but his religion was still one of the Judaisms of the time, not a new non-Judaism Gentile religion.

MALACHI

A mah-SAH is an "oracle," a word from the L-rd. It is also a

"burden," something that must be carried and delivered. Malachi,

many scholars believe, is preaching against the same sins

described in Nehemiah ch. 13, which can be dated in the last

third of the 5th century B.C.E. This would presumably make

Malachi the last of the minor prophets.

A modern Malachi might be burdened to preach against these same

sins today. In order to translate Malachi's 5th century B.C.E.

situation into our modern situation, use your imagination.

Suppose your congregational leader's salary could not be paid

because the people were not paying their tithes. Suppose they

treated the offering plate with contempt and gave begrudgingly to

the L-rd as though He were a despicable, unworthy street beggar,

giving Him a dime, perhaps, or nothing at all. Suppose the people

showed up at the Lord's House late or not at all. Suppose the

women dressed like they were going to the gym and the men like

they were at a rodeo, lounging around disrespectfully in the hair

styles and tight-fitting costumes and jewelry of the pagan world.

Suppose that the congregants, even some of the clergy, were

divorcing their believing spouses in order to marry worldly

people with no respect or concern for raising up g-dly children

in the House of the L-rd.

"What a nuisance all this is!" they say. "What a bother!" The

people can't wait to get out the door when the service is

concluded, and they jump at the smallest excuse to skip the

meetings, which they often do, sometimes weeks at a time. Any

opportunity to cheat or shirk their responsibilities is seized

greedily. Whereas once the congregants "turned many from

iniquity" by preaching on the street to large crowds every week,

now they have compromised the doctrine and allowed themselves to

come under the sway of unregenerated family members and friends,

who influence them to show partiality toward what is not in

accordance with Scripture. Suddenly, the blessings these

backsliders once knew in the House of G-d become curses, and the

joy of the L-rd eludes them.

If you were a modern Malachi and faced a congregation like this,

you would be agitated because, looking out over their faces, you

couldn't distinquish between those who really knew the L-rd and

those who did not (3:18). To correct this terrible situation, a

burden from the L-rd might come on you, and you would then feel

the obligation weighing on you to preach against this

faithlessness, this disrepect of G-d, this lack of interest in

the things of the L-rd, this cold-heartedness that makes G-d

furious. When congregants hear about spiritual things and sigh

with boredom, they arouse G-d's jealous anger. He then feels like

a husband whose worldly wife is bored with him and can't wait to

escape his hum-drum presence in order to pursue secret romantic

excitement elsewhere. Such a despised husband would want to take

any hypocritical gestures of marital devotion, any little

proffered gifts, and throw them into the face of such an

unfaithful wife! And this is how G-d feels: "I will smear offal

on your face, the offal of your festival (animal) morifim"

(Malachi 2:3)! When your wicked heart grows tired of G-d and

falls under the spell of the world, whatever you bring to G-d in

worship is just a lie, a hypocrisy, just feigning devotion that

is not there, just looking at your watch and going through the

motions of worship as fast as you can to get it over with. This

makes G-d furious. G-d threatens to excommunicate and expel from

His House the wicked hypocrites that do this. See Malachi 2:l2

"May the L-rd cut off the man who does this!" Also see Revelation

3:16 "Because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about

to spit you out of my mouth!"

Interestingly, a congregation can be super-spiritual,

hyper-charismatic, and hysterically emotional, and still be

luke-warm about G-d as far as obeying His commands is concerned.

But G-d is not fooled. He says, "And this you also do, you cover

the alter of the L-rd with tears, weeping and groaning."

Emotionalism or religious exhibitionism will not turn curses into

blessings, or cause prayers to be answered, if there is sloven,

dishonest, contemptuous religiosity such as Malachi saw in the

5th century post-exilic community of Judah. The people were

experiencing poverty, oppression, famine, discouragement,

disillusionment, treacherous interpersonal relationships,

drought, spiritual dryness and doubt. They were gripped by

terrible indifference and bitterness, because they had prayed for

relief and it wasn't coming. Malachi says that people like these

are dishonest sneaks in the world (3:5) and also cheats in the

House of G-d (3:8-10), and there is a curse overtaking these

faithless backsliders that will only be removed if they stop

blaming G-d, stop envying worldly people, and repent (2:2, 17;

3:6-12, 14). Malachi's exhortation to "guard yourself in your

spirit and do not be faithless" (2:16)! Only then will the

devouring curse be rebuked by the L-rd (3:11). G-d wants zealous

believers faithfully in fellowship and He is taking attendance

(3:16; cf. Hebrews 10:25)!

Malachi realizes that the people have lost hope in the coming of

the L-rd's Davidic "Branch," the Righteous Servant, the Moshiach,

inspite of the more recent feverish Messianic expectations of

Haggai and Zechariah. Therefore, Malachi sees the Moshiach

arising as "the sun of righteousness with healing in His wings."

He will come to burn away the dross and to put the wicked under

the feet of the refined remnant and to bring the joy of the

Messianic age (Malachi 4:2-3). A forerunner will precede the

Moshiach as an end-time Elijah redivivus figure, and if the

people don't turn back to Him in g-dly heart-felt repentance as

His true fathers and true sons, the L-rd will come and strike the

land with a curse (though not the curse of Edom, however, because

Edom's national salvation is hopeless, whereas there is hope for

Israel, according to Malachi 1:2-5).

All this was fulfilled when Yochanan of the tevilah of teshuva

(Malachi 3:1a; 4:5) began preaching, and when Moshiach Yehoshua

"suddenly" (Malachi 3:1b) came to purge the Beis Hamikdash and

refine the remnant and pronounce the curse of Canaan (Joshua

6:17-19) on the fig tree of the heathen Jerusalem of that day and

her Beis Hamikdash, who rejected Him and consequently received

the fiery curse (Mal. 4:6) of the destruction of 70 C.E.

Malachi 3:1 is extremely important because here is one place in

the Hebrew Bible that clearly states that the Moshiach will be

called Adon (the L-rd). (See also Romans 10:9-10.) David Kimhi

(Radak) in his commentary published in the Mikraot Gedolot

Rabbinic Bible explains Malachi 3:1's "the lord" (spelled with a

lower case "1") is King Moshiach, who will come suddenly--no one

knows when. He says that Moshiach is the Messenger of the

Covenant referred to in this verse. However, the lower case "l"

for "lord" will not do because in Zechariah 4:14 and 6:5 Adon kol

ha'Aretz ("the L-rd of all the earth) uses the same word for

L-rd and clearly the L-rd G-d is intended. So it is tendentious

Rabbinic exegesis to assert a lower case "l" in one place and a

capital "l" in the other.

A final word is in order about Malachi's situation. When Malachi

writes down his prophecy, probably around 433 B.C.E., it is

likely that Nehemiah, having arrived in Israel in 445 B.C.E., has

completed his first term as Governor and has temporarily returned

to Persia (modern Iran). Zechariah and Haggai are deceased.

Esther, the Jewish-Persian beauty queen, is now an old lady or

dead, Ezra the Scribe is aging because he has now been in the

Promised Land some 25 years (since his arrival in 458 B.C.E.). It

has been a long time since the Beis Hamikdash has been

resurrected (516 B.C.E.) from its 586 B.C.E. Babylonian

demolition. With the building of the new Beis Hamikdash amidst

Messianic expectations, disappointingly, nothing earth-shaking

(as prophets like Zechariah and Haggai and Ezekiel had promised)

has happened yet. The people are getting bored with religion and

doubtful of G-d's promises about the Moshiach's coming. To

encourage and rebuke them, Malachi points to Esau, the father of

the Edomites, and proves by the military defeats of the Edomites

at the hands of the Nabetean Arabs (who drove the Edomites from

their homeland in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.E.) that G-d

loves Israel and has elected her for ultimate salvation. On the

other hand, nations, who are indifferent to G-d and despise Him,

will lose everything and be utterly wiped off the land of their

inheritance as had already happened to the Edomites (see Genesis

25:32-34). This was a very strong warning to the bored-with-G-d

backsliders of Malachi's day.

Edom had migrated into the Negev by 312 B.C.E. because in that

year the Nabatean Arabs were in control of Petra, a former

stronghold of Edom conquered by the Romans in C.E. 106. The

Edomites remained in the Negev and were known as Idumeans. King

Herod came from them. This area should not be confused with

Pella, the Transjordan mountains where Messianic Jews fled

shortly before the Roman 70 C.E. seige (see Mt. 24:16).

Like Esau and the Edomites, the people of Malachi's day doubted

G-d's love and were becoming careless in their walk, just as the

ministers were becoming indifferent in both their example and

their doctrinal position (see 2:6-9). Yet these backsliders

looked around and saw many prosper who were even farther from

G-d, and this they hypocritically threw in G-d's face (2:17).

Therefore, G-d answers that the Moshiach, the Messenger of the

Covenant Malach HaBrit (who is the L-rd Himself--3:l) is coming,

and He will be the fiery nemesis who will bring divine justice

and burn up impurity. Yochanan of the tevilah of teshuva

meditated on these words in the desert and preached them when he

appeared to his people (Matthew 3:12). For the Day of the L-rd

would burn up the wicked (See also II Thes. 1:8) but those who

repent and believe will be healed in the rays of G-d's Rising

Sun. The Day of the L-rd came "near" in an anticipatory way in

586 B.C.E. and C.E. 70, though the ultimate burning Day is still

in the future.

One of the impurities that needed to be burned away was not just

the bored unenthusiasm of their worship but also their

ingratitude to G-d reflected in their thieving from His tithes

(Malachi 3:7-10). The tithes provided for the upkeep of the Beis

Hamikdash and the support of the ministers and was to be a part

of their worship--one tenth returned to G-d.

"The lips of a kohen should guard knowledge" (2:7). Therefore,

the Moshiach, the Messenger of the Brit Chadasha, will refine the

Brit Chadasha kohenhood, which we are (3:3; I Shliach Kefa 2:5).

Therefore, we must make sure that we guard the doctrine that has

been entrusted to us, taking the time to learn Biblical languages

and to study to show ourselves approved by G-d as workmen who

rightly use the true teaching (II Tim. 2:15).

MALACHI 4:5(3:23)-6(3:24)

4:5(3:23).

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of

the great and dreadful day of the L-rd:

4:6(3:24)

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and

the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite

the earth with a curse.