THE LAST WORD OF PROPHECY

’Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me:  and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in:  behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. 2.  But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:  3.  And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver:  and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. 4.  Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years. 5.  And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift Witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not Me, saith the Lord of Hosts. 6.  For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. 7.  Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them.  Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of Hosts.  But ye said, Wherein
 shall we return? 8.  Will a man rob God?  Yet ye have robbed Me. 
But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee?  In tithes and offerings. 9.  Ye are cursed with a curse:  for ye have robbed Me, even this whole nation. 10.  Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. 11.  And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of Hosts. 12.  And all nations shall call you blessed:  for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of Hosts.’—­MALACHI iii. 1-12.

Deep obscurity surrounds the person of this last of the prophets.  It is questioned whether Malachi is a proper name at all.  It is the Hebrew word rendered in verse 1 of our passage ‘My messenger,’ and this has led many authorities to contend that the prophecy is in fact anonymous, the name being only a designation of office.  Whether this is so or not, the name, if it is a name, is all that we know about him.  The tenor of his prophecy shows that he lived after the restoration of the Temple and its worship, and the sins which he castigates are substantially those with which Ezra and Nehemiah had to fight.  One ancient Jewish authority asserts that he was Ezra; but the statement has no confirmation, and if it had been correct, we should not have expected