It is only the beginning and the first causes of such a state of things which are to be found in Malachi. The conflicting ideas seem to struggle in his mind. He can write of J" as receiving an accept- able worship beyond the limits of the holy land, and so can forecast the worship ‘in spirit and in truth.’ But already the people are no longer thought of as the children of J": only a select class among them dare so to think of themselves (1°-). And, though that class ought to be moral and spiritual guides to the people, it is not this qualification but their being descendants of Levi which gives them that position. Now the more that idea gained on men’s minds, the more also would the ritual be thought of as able of itself to maintain divine favour. The grace of J’ which men need, and the covenant which is life and peace, must be mediated to them through a system which was wholly outside of them, and which based its validity less on its appeal to their spiritual nature, and more on its being an arbi- trary regulation from which they did not dare to deviate. Again, it was only when this conception of the relation between God and man formed the medium through which men approached it, that the command to remember the law of Moses (4 grew dangerous. The living word of prophecy, with its underlying conviction of God’s presence in and with the soul of man, was delivered from literalism. One great prophet could and did criti- cize the doctrine of another, and in the interests of the spirit could dare to touch the letter of the word. Micah could urge how the temper of the people of Jerusalem made them grossly abuse Isaiah’s promise of the security of Mount Zion.
A prophet could base his appeal on the witness of the spirit in those to whom he spoke. But, when the soul of man was thought of as wholly alienated fiom God, with no essential relation to Him, and only brought into relation with divine truth by an outward mediation, there grew up a hard theory of inspiration. The revelation from God was a deposit of faith and a rule of practice which could not change. The law of Moses became the medi- ator between God and man; and the prophet was transformed into the scribe. An especial interest must always attach to the Book of Malachi; be- cause both conceptions of God and His dealing with man are there, and the prophet seems hardly conscious of their antagonism. But the less spiritual one was the sier to hold, and was favoured by many circumstances. Despite several protests from Judaism itself, of which the Book of Jonah is the most beautiful example, it triumphed over the higher. And Malachi stands at the be- ginning of that long and swift decline, which finally separated J" and His people by so wide a gulf thit official Judaism ended by rejecting the very idea of the Incarnation as blasphemy against God.
The literary style of the book is peculiar to itself among the prophetic literature. Malachi does not attempt the rhetorical development of a great principle, in the way which is so characteristic of Deutero-Isaiah. In part this is caused by the difference in subject and in aim. The writer is applying principles to the details of life. But the style is strictly dialectic. The writer states his thesis, a principle or an accusation, Over against that he sets an objection, which he may have heard urged against it, or which from his knowledge of the people he believes to be present in their minds. After this he proves and elaborates the truth of what he began by asserting. If these addresses were ever delivered in public, the audi- ences must have been very dissimilar to those which faced the herdsman of Tekoa. On the ground that the style seems that of a man who developed his ideas in writing, several editors of the book have concluded that the author from the first circulated his message to his people by writing. A more accurate description would be to name it the style of the schools, and to see in it the beginning of the method of exposition, which afterwards became universal in the schools and synagogues of Judaism.
v. ANALYSIS OF THE CoNTENTS.—The book is divided into four chapters in the English version, which in this respect follows the printed editions of the LXX, Peshitta, and Vulgate; the Hebrew text unites the third and fourth chapters into one. According to its subject-matter it falls into the following seven sections :—
(1) 1%. Men are asking for the proof of the reality of ΤΠ ΤᾺ love toward their nation, Malachi finds the proof in history, and especially in the differing histories of Edom and Judah. Because Jehovah hated Edom that nation has suffered and will suffer more in the immediate future, so that Judah through seeing their fate will learn to acknowledge the sovereign love of their God.*
(2) 1%-2°. J” had a right to expect a return for His love (1°), Instead, those who were nearest Him among the people, the priests, offer a scant and weary worship. the perfunctoriness of which proves their indifference to His claim (11:9. !°6). The result is that the laity are offering their worst at the altar instead of their best (1. The whole ritual has grown value- less; but, thongh it should cease, a worship acceptable to J” will not come to an end (1%), For their neglect punishment will fall on the priesthood ; it has already begun to fall f (2 Their indifference to ritual was at once sign and cause of a moral corruption. The priests were appointed to be examples of righteous life, and so guides tothe people. But they have abused their position, tothe ruinof many. And their office has already become contemptible (2**).