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THE BOOK OF MALACHI
Lesson 1, Introduction

As with all the other Hebrew Bible prophets (that is, the so-called Old
Testament prophets), Malachai speaks not only to the wayward Hebrews of his
era, but rather to all people of all eras. I think, as I look around at the place
and trajectory of world events and history in our day and time, his words have
urgent and most pertinent meaning for us all, if only we’ll hear them.

Among the themes of Malachai, the one that grabs my attention above all the
others is the failure of the Hebrew religious leadership to know truth and to
speak truth. The Priesthood is the primary target of Malachai’s disputations.
They had grown lax, yet again; they had adopted paganized doctrines to teach
and practice instead of God’s recorded Word… yet again… and were leading the
people towards yet another catastrophe unless a significant repentance and
change of direction happened. How very applicable his words are to the
modern state of both Judaism and Christianity.

I say “modern state” advisably, because for a long period of time, some of the
great Believing theological thinkers who had the courage to do so have been
warning and attempting to expose not only what is called Christendom for
what it actually is, but also for what its beginning really was. Few have paid
attention, and more often these men have been marginalized and left in the
shadows so as not to disrupt huge and complex religious systems put in place
long ago, designed more to bring about the agendas of men than the will of
God.

One of these great thinkers is Soren Kierkegaard, who has greatly bothered
the Church for nearly 2 centuries. Even so, he has been heavily quoted (and
often misquoted), and his many works utilized by Christian Theological
institutions since the mid-1800’s, so profound are some of his thoughts. And,
yet, they have also been cherry-picked to avoid the things he said that they
did not like or that, frankly, condemned these same theologians and Church
governments for their perversions of Biblical truth. To summarize who this
man was and to best explain what academic disciplines were his specialties,
which of course combined to greatly affect his point of view, I want to use the

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secular Wikipedia so as to avoid religious denominational and doctrinal
contamination. Here is a quote from their expose on him.

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Søren_Kierkegaard )

“Kierkegaard's theological work focuses on Christian ethics,
the institution of the Church, the differences between purely
objective proofs of Christianity, the infinite qualitative
distinction between man and God, and the individual's subjective
relationship to the God-Man Jesus Christ,
[5]
which came through
faith.
[6][7]
Much of his work deals with Christian love. He was
extremely critical of the doctrine and practice of Christianity as a
state-controlled religion (Caesaropapism ) like the Church of Denmark .
His psychological work explored the emotions and feelings of
individuals when faced with life choices.
[8]
Unlike Jean-Paul Sartre and
the atheistic existentialism paradigm, Kierkegaard focused
on Christian existentialism.”

Before I quote Kierkegaard himself, let me explain an important term used in
Wikipedia’s brief expose. Existentialism is a family of philosophical views and
inquiry that explore the human individual's struggle to lead an authentic
life despite the apparent randomness, chaos, and incomprehensibility of our
existence as we humans experience life in the real world. So, existentialism
examines meaning, purpose, and value, and where our thoughts about these
things come from, how we decide which to adopt, and what roles they play in
our actual daily lives. Thus, here is what Kierkegaard concluded about
Christianity the institution as a competing source of meaning and purpose for
living an authentic life. Again, I am bringing this before you because this is
essentially the foundational reasons for Malachai’s disputations and criticisms
of the Priesthood in his era, which are meant for Bible readers to understand
as expanding in scope over time to include all the official religious institutions
that purport to represent the God of the Bible and His Son, Yeshua of
Nazareth. I urge you to give all your focus to these few sentences.

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“Christendom is an effort of the human race to go back to walking on
all fours, to get rid of Christianity, to do it knavishly under the pretext
that this IS Christianity, claiming that it is Christianity perfected.

The Christianity of Christendom… takes away from Christianity the
offense, the paradox, etc. and instead of that introduces probability,
the plainly comprehensible. That is, it transforms Christianity into
something entirely different from what it is in th e New Testament,
yea, into exactly the opposite; and this is the Christianity of
Christendom, of us men.

In the Christianity of Christendom , the Cross has become something
like a child’s hobby-horse and trumpet.”

I imagine you got the sense of this. But, due to the era this was written and
the high vocabulary of academia used at that time, let me assist a bit in
explaining what is being said. Here Kierkegaard first speaks of the brand of
Christianity that our Church institutions teach and practice. He means it in the
sense of a supposed-Christianity that is not the authentic Christianity that
Christ taught. Christendom is the general label he uses to call the combined,
vast Christian Church network composed of many institutions that had spread
around the world. Some of these were State religions whereby the king was
both head of state and head of the Church. I regularly use the term
Constantinian Church to more or less refer to same thing he does when he
says “Christendom”. So, to him, Christendom is the State institutional religion
begun during Constantine’s era when he, too, declared this new religion for
gentiles to be the State religion of the Roman Empire, and this religion’s
government to be defined and controlled by the Bishop of Rome in
collaboration with the Roman Emperor. Using Kierkegaard’s labels, then, the
idea is that Christendom claims to teach the authentic faith of Christ, but in
fact they do not. It is so far away from authentic, that he says it is nearly the
opposite, and it turns the Cross into some childish toy to be made into
whatever seems pleasurable.

To reduce this quotation down to its basic essence, it is that when looked at
not so much microscopically, but rather simply on the basis of what all can see

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and hear are the actual practices of the Church, its teachings and its effects,
what the Church (Christendom) espouses, teaches, and demands of its
adherents is the virtual opposite of the faith that Christ lived and taught. And,
I can tell you that many great theologians and Believing thinkers long before
Kierkegaard and well after him have been saying the same thing but to little
avail. The Church has become so powerful and headstrong that it merely bats
away all objective criticisms and continues its path of indoctrination of popular,
but unsound, religion even if its core principle of faith in Jesus is true and
solid.

Just as in the Old Testament Bible era when the Hebrew faith leaders time and
again would stray from the truth and institute, instead, their manmade
traditions and agendas, and when God would respond by sending Prophets
with warnings to them to return to the true faith, so during the last 1500 years
or so, a number of men of courage attempted to bring various reform
movements to Christendom. Sometimes this resulted in the creation of new
denominations. But, generally speaking, as these newer denominations grew
in numbers (if they survived at all), the leadership soon succumbed to the
illness that inherently affects all humans; that is, our hearts are sick, and
wicked beyond self-repair. So, Church leadership of these reformed Churches
devised ambitious agendas outside of God’s will that again began to override
God’s recorded truth.

In the 1960’s and 70’s the Jesus Movement arose, and it was a good thing that
brought countless thousands to the cause of Christ and also caused many
Church leaders to repair and reform their agendas to re-include the nearly-lost
components of evangelism and biblical authenticity. Of course, as typical, a
few new denominations arose from this newest reform and over the next 40
years most of them also succumbed to human agendas and consequently their
effectiveness has all but vanished.

In the 2000’s a new movement has sprung up that goes by various names,
including the name Seed of Abraham chooses, which is Hebrew Roots. And, so,
I begin today’s introduction to our study of the Prophet Malachai with a
warning to us all who call ourselves Hebrew Roots, Jewish Roots, or Messianic:
listen very carefully to Malachai’s message. What God began as something

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good can be quickly tarnished by human hands. Malachai’s message was not
against the institution of a Priesthood as originally ordained by The Father, but
rather against what it had become. And, the negative outcomes always… and I
stress ALWAYS… begin by men…leadership…straying slowly, and then at a
quickening pace, step-by-step, away from the strict truths and commands of
the Bible, only to be replaced by the subjective thoughts of those men who
think they have been divinely inspired by new truths and commands that
modifies or replaces the older and original ones. The reality is that new truths
that replace the older and original biblical truths is an oxymoron. The new
truths are not truth at all.

With that premise in mind, let me set the historical background for our study.
There is no consensus that a person named Malachai wrote this book. Malachai
in Hebrew means “my messenger” or possibly “my angel”. And even the word
Malachi itself is what is called an apocopated form. Before you scurry off to a
dictionary, all that apocopated means is that it is a shortened form of a word
or a phrase that usually is constructed by dropping the ending of that word or
phrase. It is a common literary and grammar technique used in most
languages. For instance, the common English word “photo” is but an
apocopated form of the word “photograph”.

The longer form of Malachai is Malachiyah which means “messenger of God”
or perhaps “messenger of Yehoveh”. This has resulted in some Bible scholars
thinking that this indicates that Malachai isn’t a proper name of a Prophet, by
rather the book’s title is actually meant to be “Messenger of Yehoveh”, which
includes no one’s name. In fact, today, the preponderance of commentators no
longer believe that Malachai is the proper name of a particular Prophet who
wrote this book; rather, the author is anonymous much the same as with the
New Testament Book of Hebrews .

The Greek Septuagint that was created in the 3
rd
century B.C. (which is but a
Greek language translation of the Hebrew Bible), translated Malachai as “by
the hand of his messenger”. Rashi and later Judaism, as well as Jerome and
Calvin in Church history, say that Malachai is not the author’s personal name.
These sources believe that malachai is simply a title for Ezra the scribe (that
is, the same Ezra that is the author of his own Bible book). There is no other

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person in the Bible named Malachai, so, there is good reason to suspect that it
was not a person’s proper name. That said, even later Jewish Tradition
seemed to eventually swing back the other direction to decide that although
his name was unique, still Malachai was the proper name of the Prophet who
wrote this book. Some of the biggest names in modern Christian scholarship
have done the same. I am taking the position from my own research that
Malachai is indeed the formal name of a specific Prophet, admitting that this
cannot be taken as a certainty. Although, he would certainly be unique among
Prophets because no book of biblical prophecy has been handed down through
the ages from an anonymous author. Either way, this doesn’t demean or cast
doubt on the authenticity or spiritually inspired nature of the book.

Although Malachai is far more straightforward prose and less reliant on
symbolism as compared to the book we just concluded… Zechariah… which is
mostly poetry and symbolism… nonetheless because the book is so ancient,
and based on a very unique Hebrew culture, and written in an ancient noun-
less form of Hebrew, then the many early translations of it in different
languages have translated the Hebrew text with some differences among
them. Therefore, when arriving at an accurate English text for the 21
st

century, it is best to look at all those various older texts, taking something of
value from each to arrive at the most probable and originally intended
interpretation.

In addition to us having the book in Hebrew that is based upon the Masoretic
Hebrew text of around 1000 A.D., we also have a few fragments of Malachai
from the Dead Sea Scrolls, but they are so limited and incomplete that not
enough can be drawn from them to be helpful, other than to confirm for
certain that the book was originally written in Hebrew, and that it had to have
happened well before the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls sect came to be. And
further that the book order of the Minor Prophets as we have it today was the
same in that ancient, pre-Christ time.

So, in addition to the ancient Hebrew texts of Malachai, there are also very old
Greek, Syriac, Aramaic and Latin versions. Interestingly, the Latin (also known
as the Vulgate) and the Masoretic Hebrew texts match so closely that they
offer a good witness of their accuracy. Therefore, other than for the typical

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unintended copyist errors that are normal and natural for hand-written copies
of the Bible in the pre-printing press era, what we have today for Malachai is
quite good and reliable. That said, we must always factor in (especially as
concerns the scores of English translation Bibles that are offered) is the
denomination and ideological mindsets of the publishers. They each have
agendas that can and do cause translations to be bent to uphold their
particular doctrines, traditions and pre-conceived notions. We’ll do our best to
filter those out.

Malachai is one of the 12 books of the so-called Minor Prophets; in fact, it is
the final book of the 12 and Malachai is considered as the last Old Testament
Prophet. I’ll remind you that the term “minor” was not meant to denote lesser
value or importance compared to the Major Prophets but rather referred only
to the books’ shorter length. The person Malachai was a Jew who returned
from Babylon under the leadership of Zerubbabel according to the Jewish
Talmud. He, along with Haggai and Zechariah, are called Second Temple
Prophets because of their association with the reconstruction of the Temple in
Jerusalem and the restoration of the Hebrew faith in the land of Judah (which
at that time, was a province of Persia called Yehud). Haggai, Zechariah and
Malachai are often seen as sort of a trilogy and very likely the authors of these
books not only knew of one another but possibly collaborated to some small
level.

Dating Malachi is a bit dicey because the only historical event mentioned in it
that can be reasonably dated is the destruction of Edom. But even that is
problematic, because there were a couple of different destructions of Edom,
the first in the 6
th
century B.C. that happened at the hand of Babylon. The 2
nd

and more complete destruction were by the Nabatean Arabs that came later in
the 5
th
century. The closest thing to a consensus for dating Malachai is that the
Prophet prophesied somewhere in between Ezra and Nehemiah (that is,
between 458 and 445 B.C.). Some do argue for an earlier date (around 500
B.C.), and others think that Malachai prophesied after Nehemiah, which would
place him around 435 B.C. I don’t find it particularly critical which of these
dates might be the most precise; Malachai’s message remains true, and it
remains the same regardless where within that time frame it was written. That
said, I see Malachai as having more resemblance to the concerns of Nehemiah

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than of Ezra. We find Malachai and Nehemiah both speaking about the
problem of general wrongs within the Jewish society of the returning exiles, as
well as the corruption of the newly reinstituted Priesthood. Apparently, due to
the influence of 7 decades in Babylon, intermarriage between Jews and other
ethnicities had also begun to run rampant, which of course naturally
introduced the problem of bringing pagan, non-biblical morals, ethics, and
god-worship into the newly formed families.

Because the Persian emperors had agreed to help financially with the
rebuilding of the Temple complex and parts of the city of Jerusalem, and
because there was no tithing occurring during the 70-year exile period, the
paying of tithes to the Priesthood by the returned Jews had not revived. And,
because of the exile and the relatively new return, observing Sabbath properly
had also become an afterthought. Nehemiah and Malachai both addressed
these issues as well.

I have stated on numerous occasions that the lives of the Israelites were not
lived in a bubble. They were part of a multi-cultural, interconnected, and
vibrant world. They knew their neighbors, and their neighbors knew them, and
there was much communication and interaction. Especially as concerns the
broader Middle East and Mesopotamia, what happened to one nation usually
had an effect upon others in the region. And since nations are nothing but
collections of individuals, then world events of course helped shape the
background, context, thoughts, and decisions of everyday Israelites as well as
those of their Prophets, Priests, and civil leaders. There were national moods
then, as now. People could feel confident about the future, or pessimistic. All
of this and more shaped conversations and what concerned people day by day.
It even had an effect on their vocabulary.

The most dominant background context for Malachai was the Persian Empire,
because the place the Jews now lived… the former Judah… was but a
backwater Persian province named Yehud. And Yehud provided Persia with
only a single significant reason for the King and Emperor to pay any attention
to them at all: geographically, it was the land bridge between their much more
important province of Egypt (to the south) which connected it to the rest of
their Empire (to the north and east). Therefore, despite the often-stated

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teaching that somehow Kings Cyrus, Darius, and later kings of Persia showed
great deference to Yehud by sending money to rebuild their Temple, and even
appointing a Jew to be their governor, this is simply not so. Providing these
funds and encouragement were merely standard Persian governing policies
carried out throughout their empire. In reality, they paid little attention to
Yehud because the place just didn’t matter much to them. It brought them no
wealth or resources of any kind, nor was it highly populated such that it
provided soldiers for their army; things which were always the higher priority
for conquerors. All they wanted in Yehud was for a peace, calm, and loyalty to
the king of Persia.

Very likely either Xerxes or Artaxerxes was in power when Malachai wrote; or
perhaps he even wrote under the transition of the one to the next. Darius who
came before Xerxes had died around 485 B.C. at age 64. Darius spent the
greater part of his reign in a power struggle with both the Greeks and the
Egyptians. This matters because it effected Yehud and its Jewish residents.
Was this constant warring all around them the prophetically foretold “shaking
of the nations” that would lead to Jewish independence? What was the people
of Yehud to think when the Persians were surprisingly trounced in battle by the
Greeks at Marathon? And, depending on the earlier or the later date that one
accepts as when Malachai wrote (and I think it was the later date, following
Nehemiah), then we have these wars and battles of the Persians, and the rise
of the Greeks and the rebellions of Egypt, that did NOT lead to what they
thought and hoped it would: freedom and restoration of Judah as a sovereign
nation under a Davidic King. This meant to most Jews that Haggai’s prophecies
had failed. Their living conditions were not only not improving, if anything they
had deteriorated. Crop yields had NOT risen. More Diaspora Jews were NOT
pouring back home. Their economic circumstances had NOT improved. And
while their present governor was a Jew, he was not from the line of David. The
favor they had expected from Persia, and their change of fortune, had not
come about. So, how were they going to accept Malachai’s divine messages
from God? This is the milieu into which Malachai’s prophecies were delivered.

When the approximately 50,000 Jews returned home from Babylon following
their 70 years of exile, it had been to a much-diminished province, which
consisted of only around half the territory of the former Judah they had left.

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This was during Haggai’s prophesying period. They encountered a mixed
population of mostly non-Jews… with a high percentage of Samaritans… that
opposed them and resented they’re presence. There was but minimal
economic activity occurring because as God had promised, when His people
weren’t in the Land, the Land would not prosper. So, the returnees
experienced a long period of economic hardship, something Haggai said would
change. By Malachai’s time it had not… at least it had not for the better. Even
more, the Persian kings heavily taxed them, and the overlord of the Persian
satrapy of which they were part (called Eber-Nahara) levied his own heavy tax
upon them in addition. So, what Ezekiel and Haggai seemed to promise… the
return of a Davidic king to rule over a prosperous Judah… hadn’t come about
by the time Malachai brought God’s latest Word to the people.

Now, ask yourselves: what happens when a state or territory goes through
seemingly never-ending poverty conditions and you have lost all confidence
and hope for positive change? You seek who to blame. So, who failed the
people more? The Prophets? Their Jewish governor? The Priesthood? God? In
Malachai’s time it was the Levitical Priesthood that held the most local power
over their lives and fortunes because the High Priest had been given new and
more authority by the Persians that went beyond his former authority granted
by God that was primarily over the religious institution of the Temple. The
High Priest of Yehud held more sway than the civil governor. No doubt this had
something to do with Malachai’s message being aimed squarely (or at least
mostly) at the Priesthood. In the end, those Jews who still held onto their faith
in Ezekiel’s and Haggai’s prophecies now believed that the predictions were for
an undetermined future time. That is, the expected apocalyptic Day of
Yehoveh was delayed. Therefore, so was the arrival of a Davidic king delayed.
The result is doubt and uncertainty, of course, and it brought on the greatest
disappointment.

On another front, we must remember that Israel’s previous Prophets (for the
most part) delivered their messages to certain people or to an Israelite king.
Beginning with Haggai, then Zechariah, and finally Malachai, this changed.
Now the emphasis was directed to the Jewish people in general and to the
Priesthood specifically. Why the Priesthood? Because (as we just discussed)
the Priesthood had a position of more political and religious and social power

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at this time than the primary civil leader (the governor) of the province. And,
God found the Priesthood to be more than lacking; they had perverted their
God-given roles, and become corrupt. They suddenly found themselves in
God’s crosshairs… at least according to Malachai’s message.

We’ve just come from studying a prophetic book (Zechariah) that had the
greatest mention in the New Testament of any Old Testament Prophet.
Malachai falls at the other end of the scale: there is no mention of Malachai.
That said, there are a number of quotes or paraphrases from Malachai’s book,
and some pretty obvious allusions to the words and thoughts used by
Malachai. For example: in Romans 9:13 we read “Jacob I have loved, but
Esau I have hated”. In Malachai 1:2-3 we read: “Yet I loved Jacob, but
Esau I hated”. Then there are allusions that are likely to have come from
Malachai at least in spirit, such as Luke 6:46: “Why do you call me ‘Lord,
Lord’, and refuse to do what I say?” In Malachai 1:6 we read: “A son
honors his father and a servant his master… if I'm a master, where is
the respect due me?” There are at least a dozen other statements in the
New Testament that fall within that range. So, despite not hearing his name,
we can hear the echoes of Malachai in the New Testament, even if sometimes
they are a bit faint.

In Judaism, there are standard occasions when Malachai is read in Synagogue
services. For instance, in the Torah portion cycle, when reading Genesis 25:19
– 28:9, it is read with Malachai 1:1 – 2:6 as the Haftorah. Another is in the
reading of Malachai 3:4 – 24 as the Haftorah when read together with the
Torah Portion assigned for the Sabbath that occurs at the time of Passover.
For those who might not know, Tradition has divided the Torah (the first 5
books of the Bible) into 54 parashot or “portions”, read in order, with one
read every weekly Sabbath beginning with Genesis. A supplement to that
Torah reading is what is what called Haftorah, which are excerpts from the
various Prophets, both Major and Minor. It is especially interesting to me that
on the Sabbath that is nearest to Passover when Malachai is read we
encounter 3:22 which reads: “Remember the Torah of Moshe my servant,
which I enjoined on him at Horev, laws and rulings for all Isra'el.”

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This injunction found late in the Book of Malachai was there for the reason that
the failure to read the Torah and to teach the Torah fell squarely upon the
Levitical Priesthood. I mentioned early in our introduction that of the themes
of Malachai that stand out, what grabs my attention is the severe
chastisement of the Priesthood for their laxity and for directing the people in
tradition and doctrine rather than in God’s Word. It is with sadness and
trepidation that the words of Kierkegaard come flooding out of their pages in
regard to the leadership failures of Christendom that have turned it into
something unrecognizable as a biblical faith that claims it gets its marching
orders from Jesus. Kierkegaard’s thoughts can be directly associated to
Malachai’s 3:22 injunction to read and follow the ways of the Torah as given
on Mt Horeb. Do you remember his stinging words that I spoke to you but
minutes ago? “The Christianity of Christendom… transforms Christianity
into something entirely different from what it is in the New Testament,
yea, into exactly the opposite...” If the shoe was on the other foot and
Malachai had spoken Kierkegaard’s words in his day, he would have said
something like: “the Hebrew faith of the Levite Priesthood transforms the
Hebrew faith into something entirely different from what is in the Torah and
the Prophets, yea, into exactly the opposite”. Kierkegaard’s statement and
Malachai’s message echo the same sentiment and warning to God’s people.
The Priesthood in general didn’t listen, and neither has Constantinian
Christianity. It is critical that the Hebrew Roots and Messianic communities…
and especially our leadership… don’t find ourselves deserving of this same
accusation because we neglect obeying the Word of God and instead embrace
and highlight traditions and customs in their place.

Malachi’s little book is but 3 chapters long (some Bibles divide it up to make
4). Perhaps its brevity and straightforward statements make it a bit easier to
read and understand. Yet, just like the other 11 Minor Prophets, longer or
shorter doesn’t matter if we don’t look at them carefully, study them in their
Hebrew context, and take their words to heart. We are blessed in that we have
the record of hindsight (something most Jews didn’t have in ancient times) to
realize the accuracy of the Prophets admonitions and predictions. Finally, by
our day, so much of what the ancient Prophets prophesied has come true,
historians have recorded it, and now remaining Redemption history has set

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itself into motion for the few remaining prophesies to come about… likely
sooner than later.

There is much contained within the book that leads us to imply that almost
certainly Malachai was a priest… probably a lesser priest. At least, that is my
personal conclusion. That is not a unique or new conclusion; it can be traced
back to early Judaism among some of the Sages who suspect this (as do I) for
no other reason than he seems so intimately familiar with the failings of the
Priesthood and so knowledgeable of the covenant; something that the average
Israelite in his era would have known little of. After all, the ONLY access
people in his era had to the Holy Scriptures was whatever the priests
determined to orally teach them. So, the people had no means to fact-check
the priests and no way to hold them accountable, which is so unlike Believers
in our time can do because God’s Word is readily available. Yes, these words
of Malachai are God’s message. But, they came from the mouth and hand of a
human being. Thus, the human perspective always gets intertwined in
prophecies to some degree.

One profound thing God has taught me in my nearly 8 decades of life is that I
can speak of something better and more authentically to others, if I have first
experienced it myself. I can speak of sin, because I have sinned. I can speak
of redemption, because I have been redeemed. I can speak of loss and failure,
because I have experienced both. I can speak as a layperson in a congregation
because I have been one. And I can speak as a faith leader and Bible teacher,
because God has allowed me to have that experience as well.

In Malachai’s words, my life experience makes me sense his personal
acceptance of the failures of his own assigned duties as a priest, likely
sometime earlier in his life (and maybe not all that much earlier because he
seemed have been a Prophet for but a very short time). He seems to
understand that he was made a Prophet for a single purpose: to relay a very
focused message from The Father. But now as a Prophet and a former priest,
he has the opportunity to speak from life knowledge and experience the
authentic truth that God has shown him as one who was culpable and
recognizes it.

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Malachai speaks from a covenant perspective. His moral stance is objective,
based on the Law of Moses. His message is primarily one of rebuke and
condemnation (rather typical for Prophets) for disobeying the covenant. The
moral and spiritual condition of the returned exiles and their religious
leadership are nearly identical to that of our Christian institutions of our day.
So, just as I am regularly characterized by many Christians as nothing but a
Church-basher, so was Malachai looked upon as little more than a Judaism-
basher by the religious leadership and the bulk of the common public.
Therefore, some listened to him, but the majority did not.

And yet, despite the strong words of divine rebuke, the first words of God’s
message to Israel through Malachai were: “I love you”. And, in the 21
st

century that message and truth still applies to the gone-astray Christianity,
and to every strain and segment of Believers faith in the God of Israel and His
Son, Yeshua, no matter what we might call ourselves. Next week we’ll begin
chapter 1.