MALACHI. LECTURE XLV. MALACHI. of the pro- The last brief Prophets. "THE age of Ezra- the last pure glow of the "long days of the Old Testament seers"duced one more prophetic work, the composition of Malachi. With its clear insight into "the real wants of the time, its stern reproof even of "the priests themselves, and its bold exposition of the "eternal truths and the certainty of a last judgment, "this book closes the series of prophetic writings in “a manner not unworthy of such lofty predecessors. And, indeed, it is no less important than consistent in "itself that even the setting sun of the Old Testament days should still be reflected in a true prophet, and "that the fair days of Ezra and Nehemiah should in "him be glorified more nobly still." 66 66 Malachi was the last of the Prophets. Such prophets and prophetesses as had appeared since the time of Haggai and Zechariah 2 were but of a weak and inferior kind. He alone represents the genuine spirit of the ancient oracular order-as far at least as concerns the purely Hebrew history-till the final and transcendent burst of Evangelical and Apostolical proph 1 Ewald, v. 176. 2 Nehemiah vi. 7, 12, 14. 1 Macc. iv. 46; ix. 27; xiv. 41; Dan. iii. 38 (LXX.); Psalm lxxiv 9; Ecclus. xxxvi. 15. The ecy, when a new era was opened on the world. approximate time of the work can be fixed by its allusions to the surrounding circumstances, which are still of the same kind as those which form the scene of the operations of Ezra and Nehemiah. To them he must have stood in the same relation as Isaiah to Hezekiah, or Haggai to Zerubbabel; and, although there is no probability in the tradition which identifies him with Ezra, it is true that he represents the prophetic aspect of the epoch of which the two great Reformers were the scholastic and secular representatives. 2 1 8 There is the same close union as then between the office of Priest and Scribe. There is the same demoralization of the Priesthood as then in the questionable associations of the house of the High Priest Eliashib the Eli of those later days — the gross and audacious plundering of Hophni and Phineas repeated on the paltry scale of meaner and more niggardly pilfering. There are, as in Ezra's time, the faithless husbands, deserting for some foreign alliance their Jewish wives, who bathe the altar with their tears. There are the wealthy nobles, as in the days of Nehemiah, who grind down the poor by their exactions. Against all these the Prophet raises up his voice in the true spirit of Amos or of Joel. There is also the passionate denunciation of Edom, which runs like a red thread through all the prophetic strains of this epoch, from Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Second Isaiah, through Obadiah and the Babylonian Psalmist, down to this last and fiercest expression, which goes so far as to enhance 1 Mal. ii. 7. 2 lb. i. 6-12; ii. 8, 9. See Lecture XVIII. 4 Mal. ii. 10-14. 5 Mal. iii. 5. 6 Mal. i. 2, 3. See Lecture XL the Divine love for Jacob by contrasting it with the Divine hatred for Esau. But there are three ideas peculiar, if not in substance yet in form, to Malachi significantly marking the point from which, as it were, he looks over the silent waste of years that is to follow him, unbroken by any distinct prophetic utterance, yet still responding in various faint echoes to the voice of this last of the long succession of seers that had never ceased since the days of Samuel. I. We speak first of the chief idea which is inwrought into the very structure of his work The Mesand of his being. The expectation of an senger. Anointed King of the house of David has ceased. Since the death of Zerubbabel, neither in Ezra, nor Nehemiah, nor Malachi, nor in any contemporary books, is there any trace of such a hope. It is another form in which the vision of the future shaped itself, and which was peculiarly characteristic of the time. The prominent figure is now that of the Messenger, the avant courier-to use the Greek word, "the Angel" to use the Hebrew word, the Malachi, of the Eternal. Such a figure had, doubtless, been used before. In the Patriarchal age, and at times in the Monarchy, there had been heavenly Messengers who brought the Divine Word to the listening nation. Once by the Great Prophet of the Captivity Israel himself is termed the Angel or the Messenger.1 In Haggai' after the Return that idea had been still further localized. was himself "the Angel of the Eternal." In Zechariah the same expression (was it the aged Haggai of whom he spoke, or the unseen Presence which Haggai represented?) describes the mysterious guide that led 8 1 Isa. xlii. 19. Haggai i. 13. 87ech. i. 11, 12; iii. 1; iv. 1. He |