The Temple has been finished,[961] and years enough have elapsed to disappoint those fervid hopes with which about 518 Zechariah expected its completion. The congregation has grown worldly and careless. In particular the priests are corrupt and partial in the administration of the Law.[962] There have been many marriages with the heathen women of the land;[963] and the laity have failed to pay the tithes and other dues to the Temple.[964] These are the evils against which we find strenuous measures directed by Ezra, who returned from Babylon in 458,[965] and by Nehemiah, who visited Jerusalem as its governor for the first time in 445 and for the second time in 433. Besides, “the religious spirit of the book is that of the prayers of Ezra and Nehemiah. A strong sense of the unique privileges of the children of Jacob, the objects of electing love,[966] the children of the Divine Father,[967] is combined with an equally strong assurance of Jehovah’s righteousness amidst the many miseries that pressed on the unhappy inhabitants of Judæa.... Obedience to the Law is the sure path to blessedness.”[968] But the question still remains whether the Book of “Malachi” prepared for, assisted or followed up the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah. An ancient tradition already alluded to[969] assigned the authorship to Ezra himself.
Recent criticism has been divided among the years immediately before Ezra’s arrival in 458, those immediately before Nehemiah’s first visit in 445, those between his first government and his second, and those after Nehemiah’s disappearance from Jerusalem. But the years in which Nehemiah held office may be excluded, because the Jews are represented as bringing gifts to the governor, which Nehemiah tells us he did not allow to be brought to him.[970] The whole question depends upon what Law was in practice in Israel when the book was written. In 445 Ezra and Nehemiah, by solemn covenant between the people and Jehovah, instituted the code which we now know as the Priestly Code of the Pentateuch. Before that year the ritual and social life of the Jews appear to have been directed by the Deuteronomic Code. Now the Book of “Malachi” enforces a practice with regard to the tithes, which agrees more closely with the Priestly Code than it does with Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy commands that every third year the whole tithe is to be given to the Levites and the poor who reside _within the gates_ of the giver, and is there to be eaten by them. “Malachi” commands that the whole tithe be brought into the storehouse of the Temple for the Levites in service there; and so does the Priestly Code.[971] On this ground many date the Book of “Malachi” after 445.[972] But “Malachi’s” divergence from Deuteronomy on this point may be explained by the fact that in his time there were practically no Levites outside Jerusalem; and it is to be noticed that he joins the tithe with the tĕrûmah or heave-offering exactly as Deuteronomy does.[973] On other points of the Law he agrees rather with Deuteronomy than with the Priestly Code. He follows Deuteronomy in calling the priests _sons of Levi_,[974] while the Priestly Code limits the priesthood to the sons of Aaron. He seems to quote Deuteronomy when forbidding the oblation of blind, lame and sick beasts;[975] appears to differ from the Priestly Code which allows the sacrificial beast to be male or female, when he assumes that it is a male;[976] follows the expressions of Deuteronomy and not those of the Priestly Code in detailing the sins of the people;[977] and uses the Deuteronomic phrases _the Law of Moses_, _My servant Moses_, _statutes and judgments_, and _Horeb_ for the Mount of the Law.[978] For the rest, he echoes or implies only Ezekiel and that part of the Priestly Code[979] which is regarded as earlier than the rest, and probably from the first years of exile. Moreover he describes the Torah as not yet fully codified.[980] The priests still deliver it in a way improbable after 445. The trouble of the heathen marriages with which he deals (if indeed the verses on this subject be authentic and not a later intrusion[981]) was that which engaged Ezra’s attention on his arrival in 458, but Ezra found that it had already for some time been vexing the heads of the community. While, therefore, we are obliged to date the Book of “Malachi” before 445 B.C., it is uncertain whether it preceded or followed Ezra’s attempts at reform in 458. Most critics now think that it preceded them.[982]