Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary

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Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1712)

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Malachi

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

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AN

EXPOSITION,

W I T H   P R A C T I C A L   O B S E R V A T I O N S,

OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET

M A L A C H I.

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GOD’S

prophets were his witnesses to his church, each in his day, for several

ages, witnesses for him and his authority, witnesses against sin and

sinners, attesting the true intents of God’s providences in his

dealings with his people then and the kind intentions of his grace

concerning his church in the days of the Messiah, to whom all the

prophets bore witness, for they all agreed in their testimony; and now

we have only one witness more to call, and we have done with our

evidence; and though he be the last, and in him prophecy ceased, yet

the Spirit of prophecy shines as clearly, as strongly, as brightly in

him as in any that went before, and his testimony challenges an equal

regard. The Jews say, Prophecy continued forty years under the second

temple, and this prophet they call the seal of prophecy, because

in him the series or succession of prophets broke off and came to a

period. God wisely ordered it so that divine inspiration should cease

for some ages before the coming of the Messiah, that that great prophet

might appear the more conspicuous and distinguishable and be the more

welcome. Let us consider,

I. The person of the prophet. We have only his name, Malachi,

and no account of his country or parentage. Malachi signifies

my angel, which has given occasion for a conjecture that this

prophet was indeed an angel from heaven and not a man, as that

Judges ii. 1.

But there is no just ground for the conjecture. Prophets were

messengers, God’s messengers; this prophet was so; his name is the very

same with that which we find in the original

(ch. iii. 1)

for my messenger; and perhaps from that word he might (though,

probably, he had another name) be called Malachi. The Chaldee

paraphrase, and some of the Jews, suggest that Malachi was the same

with Ezra; but that also is groundless. Ezra was a scribe, but we never

read that he was a prophet. Others, yet further from probability, make

him to be Mordecai. But we have reason to conclude he was a person

whose proper name was that by which he is here called; the tradition of

some of the ancients is that he was of the tribe of Zebulun, and that

he died young.

II. The scope of the prophecy. Haggai and Zechariah were sent to

reprove the people for delaying to build the temple; Malachi was sent

to reprove them for the neglect of it when it was built, and for their

profanation of the temple-service (for from idolatry and superstition

they ran into the other extreme of impiety and irreligion), and the

sins he witnesses against are the same that we find complained of in

Nehemiah’s time, with whom, it is probable, he was contemporary. And

now that prophecy was to cease he speaks more clearly of the Messiah,

as nigh at hand, than any other of the prophets had done, and concludes

with a direction to the people of God to keep in remembrance the law of

Moses, while they were in expectation of the gospel of Christ.

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Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1712)

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