Malachi's phone call was accessible in the form of a negotiate amid the soothsayer and the individuals. Malachi cast-off this approach in order to illustrate God's phone call to a demanding and no-nonsense individuals. Malachi proclaimed that the individuals had regularly disobeyed the Lord's decrees, that they had maltreated their duties to God. The soir of the individuals to Malachi's phone call showed a insubordinate manage which reflected their discord and their abjuration of the law of Moses. The individuals argued with the soothsayer in order to relieve their behavior.
Time was the individuals returned from Babylon, prompted by the preaching of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, they rebuilt the temple. The individuals were reliable then that the modernization of the temple would bring blessings and prosperity. But with the brief of the being, zip happened and the individuals became upset
At the time Malachi began his ministry, the individuals were under Persian tame. The productive state was very arduous for persons who had returned to Palestine. A few being to come Malachi, the soothsayer Zechariah assumed that because of lack of work, near "were wages neither for individuals nor for plants" (Zechariah 8:10). Time was manager than a half-a-century of want, the individuals lost their presume in God and the hope for the topmost time proclaimed by Haggai and Zechariah gave place to doubts and distrust. The individuals began to riddle whether God cherished them (Malachi 1:2).
The phone call of Malachi want be alleged in light of the covenantal association that existed amid YHWH and the individuals of Israel. In the negotiate amid Malachi, who speaks on behalf of God, and the individuals, the soothsayer decried the grassroots and the priests' infidelity to God.
In his statement against the community's infidelity to God, Malachi addressed the tons abuses that had crept appearing in the priestly and social life of the community. Malachi spoken his exert yourself about the way individuals were making their help to God (Malachi 1:6-14), the infidelity of the priests in their have to to teach the Law (Malachi 2:1-9), the open of the marriage transact business (Malachi 2:10-16), the grassroots censure of God's honesty (Malachi 2:17-3:5), and the conservation of the temple and the temple recruits (Malachi 3:6-12).
According to Malachi, the priests and the individuals were neglecting the Brow and their priestly duties. The individuals began to intermarry with non-Jews, in so doing abandoning their actual profile as God's transact business individuals. In luxury, the enjoyable and place principles of the community had declined. The individuals began practicing sorcery. They steadfast deceitfulness and perjury. Quite a few were oppressing laborers by impoverished them of their wages, for instance others were oppressing the widows and the orphans, and impoverished the aliens of their nationality (Malachi 3:5). The individuals began to notion whether near was a God of honesty (Malachi 2:17). The individuals as well complained that it was in inane that they served God (Malachi 3:14).
Therefore, the whole influence of Malachi's phone call was about the grassroots open of their priestly and enjoyable obligations to God and to each other. In their negotiate with Malachi, the individuals became manager and manager insubordinate against God. In the end, the Lady assumed to the people: "You hold close assumed earsplitting matter about me" (Malachi 3:13 NLT).
Despite the fact that, in the midst of the grassroots discord and their demanding behavior in the direction of God, near was a small group of stop individuals who regarded the disorganized manage of the community to be precluded. These were the God-fearers, individuals who feared the Lady, the stop individuals who unmarried themselves from persons members of the community who had lost presume in God's goodness. This group came together to space the Lord's goodness and to endow with have space for to each other.
This stop remains was the individuals "who feared the Lady" (Malachi 3:16). They were the stop believers all through whom God's work in the world was to be conclude. The disorganized and mistrustful individuals were the ones who did not angst the Lady (Malachi 3:5). Because these individuals met together to strike the Lady (Malachi 2:17; 3:13-15), the individuals who feared the Lady as well met. They came together to speak about the Lord's loyalty and to know for certain one choice of the Lord's goodness.
The Lady did not allow the goings-on of this stop group of individuals to go out of sight. According to Malachi, "the Lady took indicator and listened" (Malachi 3:16). As a go well, "a book of memorial was on paper to come Him for persons who feared Yahweh and had high regard for His name" (Malachi 3:16 HCSB).
This book of memorial is familiar to imperial books found in the Cloudy Regarding East where the goings-on of individuals were recorded (Esther 6:1) so that they possibly will arise community compromise and a price (see Esther 6:2-3).
Offer are tons references in the Hebrew Bible to books in illusion in which God keeps a supreme of grassroots goings-on. In Exodus 32:32 Moses mentioned the book that God has on paper. In Psalm 56:8 the psalmist assumed that God has standoffish a supreme of his action in his (God's) book. In Psalm 69:28, the psalmist mentions the "book of life."
Daniel speaks about the majority of the nations and the solution pain to come the appealing court: "Hence the wise was convened, and the books were opened" (Daniel 7:10). The opening of God's books in Daniel is familiar to the opening of the books in Startle 20:12 on the day subsequent to individuals specter impart an worn out to God for their goings-on.
Ever since the God-fearers remained stop to God in the midst of the disorganized manage of the community, the Lady promised to litter them as his respected tenancy in the day of judgment: "They shall be expectation, says the Lady of hosts, my special tenancy on the day subsequent to I act, and I specter litter them as a man spares his son who serves him. Hence when manager you shall recount amid the honorable and the mean, amid one who serves God and one who does not send him" (Malachi 3:17-1).
Ever since God had noticed what the God-fearers assumed to each other, this book of memorial was on paper for them: "So a book of memorial was on paper to come Him for persons who feared Yahweh and had high regard for His name" (Malachi 3:16). The book was not on paper for God; it was on paper for the God-fearers. This book of memorial was on paper to come God (see Isaiah 65:6), most likely in the temple.
Beginning the book of memorial was on paper for persons who feared the Lady and admired his name, then, this book does not domination what the individuals promised to do for the Lady, but what the Lady promised to do for persons who public figure him. Therefore, the book of memorial teaches us that God is expressive of the impenetrability believers superficial in continuation stop to him. Gone believers remain stop to God in the midst of ungodliness and distrust, God takes indicator.
In the midst of an unfaithful daytime near are individuals who ask: "Where is the God of justice?" (Malachi 2:17). Others may even say that "near is no topmost in portion God" (Malachi 3:14). But one day a variance specter be through "amid honorable individuals and mean individuals, amid the one who serves God and the one who doesn't send him" (Malachi 3:18) because the names of persons who angst God and what they hold close done specter be on paper in a book of memorial.
Claude Mariottini
Tutor of Old Testimonial
Northern Baptist University
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Tags: Hebrew Bible, Visionary, Malachi, Item of Temperament, Item of Remembrace
