Traces of the old heathenism still remained in Judah, and the dependent, oppressed classes received little pity from the selfish, heartless rulers.  In the face of these evils the prophet declared that Jehovah would surely send a messenger to punish and to reform priest and people.  The prophecy was evidently based on a clear recognition that Jehovah was ever working to train and uplift his people, and that a period of degeneration must surely be followed by a period of reform.  In the work of Nehemiah the prophet’s hopes were in part fulfilled, but the larger fulfilment of the underlying principle was realized in the thorough-going reformatory work of John the Baptist and in that of the Great Teacher.  In a later appendix to the prophecy of Malachi this theme is still further developed.  The promise is made that another prophet, with the zeal of the great reformer Elijah, would come and prepare the way for a new and nobler era.

IV.  The Lot of the Faithful.  In the prophecy of Malachi is first voiced the despairing cries and doubts of those of the faithful who failed to rise above the effect of the existing social and religious evils.  They are the righteous or afflicted who also speak through certain of the earlier psalms of the Psalter (e.g., 10-17, 22).  It was a period when the man who did right and was faithful to the demands of the law was thereby condemned to poverty and persecution at the hands of the corrupt priests and rulers.  Worse than that, their poverty and wretchedness were interpreted, According to the current belief of the day, as convincing evidence of Jehovah’s displeasure because of their sins.  It was a time when wickedness triumphed and innocence suffered, and when the question whether or not a righteous God ruled the universe rose persistently in the minds of the faithful.  The author of Malachi recognizes and seeks to meet these doubts: 

Ye have said, It is useless to serve God,
And what gain is it to us to have kept his charge,
And that we have walked in funeral garb before him? 
Even now we call the proud happy,
Verily those who work iniquity thrive,
Yea, they tempt God and escape.

Here the problem is the same as that of the book of Job.  To these doubts the prophet could only reply that Jehovah will keep a record of the faithful and in his good time will reward them.

V. The Problem of Suffering in the Literature of the Period.  As was natural, this problem of innocent suffering was prominent in the literature of the period.  It became especially insistent at this time, because it had ceased to be the problem of the community, and had become that of individuals or of a class.  While the nation rested under the shadow of misfortune, a solution of the problem was found in the consciousness of national guilt and in the hope that the affliction would be but temporary.  The old dogma that virtue was always rewarded and wickedness punished continued to satisfy Israel’s leaders.  When, however,