jiarrjv ippaip<^^i]Kaaiv, k. t. X.). The current opinion of the Jews is that of the Talmud, in which this ques- tion is mooted, and which decides, it seems to us right- ly, that this prophet is not the same with Mordecai, or Ezra, or Zerubbabel, or Nehemiah, whose claims had all been advocated by diiferent parties, but a distinct person named Malachi {Bub. Megillah, xv, 1). Another He- brew tradition associates Malachi with Haggai and Zechariah as the companions of Daniel when he saw the vision recorded in Dan. x, 7 (Smith's Select Discourses, p. 214; A.D. 1660), and as among the first members of the Great Synagogue, which consisted of 120 elders (Is- idore, De Vita et Morte Sanct. ch. li). For a notice of prophecy of the succession of the Roman pontiffs at- tribixted to him, see the Studien u. Kritiken, 1857, p. 555 sq.). See Malachy, St.
II. Date of his Prophecies. — Although there has been a faint disposition to regard Zechariah as the last of the prophets (Lactant. De Vera Sapent. iv, 5), the received opinion decides for Malachi. Accordingly Aben-Ezra calls him " the end of the prophets ;" Kimchi, " the last of them;" and not seldom he is distinguished by the rabbins as " the seal of the prophets." Cyril makes him contemporary with Haggai and Zechariah, or a little later. Syncellus (p. 240 B) places these three prophets under Joshua the son of Josedec. That INIalachi was contemporary with Nehemiah is rendered probable by a comparison of ii, 8 with Neh. xiii, 15; ii, 10-16 with Neh. xiii, 23, etc. ; and iii, 7-12 with Neh. xiii, 10, etc. That he prophesied after the times of Haggai and Zech- ariah is inferred from his omitting to mention the res- toration of the Temple, and from no allusion being made to him by Ezra. The captivitj' was already a thing of the long ]5ast, and is not referred to. The existence of the Temple-service is presupposed in i, 10; iii, 1, 10. The Jewish nation had still a political chief (i, 8"), dis- tinguished by the same title as that borne by Nehe- miah (Neh. xii, 26), to which Gesenius assigns a Per- sian origin. Hence Vitruiga concludes that Malachi delivered his prophecies after the second return of Ne- hemiah from Persia (Neh. xiii, 6), and subsequently to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes Longimanus (B.C. cir. 420), which is the date adopted by Kennicott and Hales, and approved bj' Davidson {Introd. p. 985). The date B.C. 410 cannot be far from correct. It may be mentioned that in the Seder 01am Rabba (p. 55, ed. JMeyer) the date of IVIalachi's prophecy is assigned, with that of Haggai and Zechariah, to the second year of Darius ; and his death in the Seder 01am Zuta (p. 105)' is placed, with that of the same two prophets, in the fifty -second year of the Medes and Persians. The prin- cipal reasons adduced by Yitringa, and which appear conclusively to fix the time of Malachi's prophecy as contemporary with Nehemiah, are the following : The offences denounced by Malachi as prevailing among the people, and especially the corruption of the priests by marrying foreign wives, correspond with the actual abuses with which Nehemiah had to contend in his ef- forts to bring about a reformation (comp. Mai. ii, 8 with Neh. xiii, 29). The alliance of the high-priest's family with Tobiah the Ammonite (Neh. xiii, 4, 28) and San- ballat the Horonite had introduced neglect of the cus- tomary Temple-service, and the offerings and tithes due to the Levites and priests, ur consequence of which the Temple was forsaken (Neh. xiii, 4-13) and the Sabbath openly pirofaned (ver. 15-21). The short interval of Nehemiah's absence from Jerusalem had been sufficient for the growth of these corruptions, and on his return he found it necessary to put them down with a strong hand, and to do over again the work that Ezra had done a few years before. From the striking parallelism be- tween the state of things indicated in Malachi's proph- ecies and that actually existing on Nehemiah's return from the court of Artaxerxes, it is on all accounts highly probable that the efforts of the secular governor were on this occasion seconded by the preaching of " Jehovah's messenger," and that 31alachi occupied the same podt-
MALACHI
674
MALACHI
tion with regard to the reformation under Xehemiah as Isaiah held in the time of Hczekiah, and Jeremiah in that of Josiah. The last chapter of canonical Jew- ish history is the key to the last chapter of its proph- ec}-. See Noel Alexander, De Malachia Prophcta, in his Hist. Eccles. iii, G-12 sq. ; Vitringa, idem, in his Oh- servationes Sodw, vol. ii; Hebenstreit, Disp. in Mai. (Lips. 1731 sq.).
III. Contents of the Booh. — The prophecies of Malachi are comprised in four chapters iii our version, as in the Sept., Vulgate, and Peshito-Syriac. In the Hebrew the 3d and 4th form but one chapter. The whole prophecy naturally divides itself into three sections, in the first of which Jehovah is represented as the loving father and ruler of his people (i, 2-ii, 9) ; in the second, as the supreme God and father of all (ii, 10-16); and in the third, as their righteous and tinal judge (ii, 17-end). These mav be again subdivided into smaller sections, each of which follows a certain order : first, a short sen- tence; then the sceptical questions which might be raised by the people ; and, finally, their full and trium- phant refutation. The formal and almost scholastic manner of the prophecy seemed to Ewald to mdicate that it was rather delivered in writing than spoken pub- licly. But though this may be true of the prophecy in its present shape, which probably presents the substance of oral discourses, there is no reason for supposing that it was not also pronounced orally in public, like the warn- ings and denunciations of the older prophets, however it may diifer from them in vigor of conception and high poetic diction.