Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are reading Malachi 4:4-6, Malachi’s epilogue, a short summation of his whole message.
Four hundred years of silence separate the close of Malachi from the coming of Jesus. The famine of God’s words, as predicted by the prophet Amos, was close at hand. Amos foretold, “people will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it” (Amos 8:11-12). Both Jewish and Christian traditions refer to Malachi as the “seal of the prophets.” For that reason, his closing statements deserve their own episode as the prophet’s last words, even if they comprise a mere three verses.
God, still speaking in first person as he does all throughout Malachi, offers an exhortation: “Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel” (4:4). When God commands the people to “remember” the teachings of Moses, he uses the Hebrew word zakar. Zakar is not a passive type of remembering like recollection. The imperative zakar is active, a call to remember by doing and obeying.
Certain textual critics argue that the last verses of Malachi were added by a late editor keen to emphasize Torah observance. However, Malachi’s exhortation is not an odd fit in the book. More than almost any other minor prophet, Malachi concerns himself with obedience to the laws of Moses. The Mosaic law was given at Mount Sinai as a blessing to the people, a way to honor God and serve each other. Instead, they had repeatedly treated it as a burden.
The disputations make evident that Malachi believes God has delayed his blessing for the restored community because of their disobedience. With the punishment of exile fresh in his mind, he insists the people not repeat the mistakes of the previous generations.
Malachi is the only prophet to refer to Horeb. Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai are two names for the same mountain, the place where God spoke to Moses from a burning bush and where Moses received the commandments. It was also the mountain where Elijah heard the gentle whisper of Yahweh. The mountain is a place of both personal and national revelation.
After commanding Torah obedience, God offers one final promise before the writing prophets go quiet: “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse” (4:5-6).
In his last three verses, Malachi manages to reach back nine hundred years to Moses and forward four hundred years to the coming Elijah. By using these two heroes of the Jewish faith, Malachi ties together the entire scope of the Hebrew Bible. Moses represents the law and Elijah represents the prophets. Moses called for obedience and Elijah preached repentance. This is the summation of Malachi’s whole message: remember the covenant and look forward to the Day of the Lord. While Malachi seals the Old Testament, he opens a doorway to the New. Malachi’s prophecy of the coming Elijah furnishes a portal to the New Testament story of the Transfiguration.
Included in all three synoptic gospels (Mark 9:2-13; Matt. 17:1-13; Luke 9:28-36), the Transfiguration is a key moment in the life of Jesus. In the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appear together not just in word, like in Malachi, but in person. The Transfiguration is also one of those critical moments that the Bible is having a conversation within itself and across testaments through profound symbolism. The believer’s job is to pay close attention.
In the gospel story, Jesus was trying to get a moment alone to pray with three disciples—Peter, James, and John. They ascended one of the mountains in the lower Galilee region. Suddenly and without warning to the disciples, Jesus was transfigured: “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light” (Matt. 17:2). By some miracle, Moses and Elijah appeared alongside Jesus and the disciples watched as the three spoke with one another. Peter was so transfixed by the gloriousness of the moment, he offered to build tents so they could stay on the mountain for the night. Instead, a cloud enveloped Jesus and God’s voice was heard saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” (Matt. 17:5). Moses and Elijah disappeared and the disciples fell to the ground in fear. They had just witnessed the meeting of heaven and earth with Jesus as the center point.
Not surprisingly, the disciples longed for an explanation of what they witnessed. Six days before Jesus foretold his own death. The disciples were slowly understanding the identity of Jesus as the Messiah long foretold, but they were still trying to reconcile their expectations with his explanations. Interestingly, their first question to Jesus after this dramatic heavenly endorsement was about the fulfilment of Malachi’s prophecy of the coming Elijah. The disciples asked Jesus, “why then, do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” (Matt. 17:11). Apparently, even by the first century CE Jews faithful to God’s word still clung to the prophetic hope of the reappearance of the historical Elijah.
For the last four hundred years the Jewish people were expecting the return of the prophet who never died. Because Elijah escaped death, whisked away on a chariot of fire, it was easy to imagine the ultimate prophet returning to earth in the same chariot that transported him to heaven (2 Kings 2:11). With the Transfiguration, the disciples caught a glimpse of the historical Elijah, but they were surely confused why he did not stay on earth to initiate the mission.
Jesus spelled out what God was doing to his disciples. Jesus said, “Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things, but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased” (Matt. 17:12). Matthew explains that the disciples understood that Jesus was speaking about John the Baptist.
Consider the parallels between the ministry of Elijah in the ninth century BCE and John in the first century CE. Both men preached repentance to a wayward generation (1 Kings 18:37; Luke 1:17). Both faced down wicked kings. Elijah was relentless in confronting Ahab (1 Kings 21:17-24) and John was unafraid in calling out Herod Antipas (Matt. 14:1-12). They were both lone voices, even each retreating to the wilderness (1 Kings 17:2-6; Matt. 3:1). And both had a very pious-forward fashion sense (2 Kings 1:8; Matt. 3:4).
John the Baptist was an Elijah figure, and not the historical prophet reappeared. In fact, when a delegation of priests and Levites went out to the desert to see who John claimed to be, John said bluntly he was not the Messiah and he was not Elijah (John 1:19-21). Instead, John referenced a passage from Isaiah saying he was “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’” (John 1:23; Isa. 40:3).
If Jesus claimed John was the Elijah, why did John deny he was the Elijah? There are two common interpretations. Possibly, John was attending to his divine calling, without overanalyzing how his mission to call people to repent was a fulfillment of prophecy. If so, there is a certain humility in his reply that he is not the Elijah but rather an obedient servant to the Lord. The other possibility is that John knew the priests and Levites were looking for the actual Elijah and John was correcting their expectation that Elijah had returned.
John came in the spirit and power of Elijah, just as the angel Gabriel announced to John’s father Zechariah before he was born. Gabriel told Zechariah that his son’s purpose was to “bring many people in Israel back to the Lord their God” and “he will go ahead of the Lord with the spirit and power that Elijah had” (Luke 1:16). Luke’s gospel narratively connects Malachi’s closer to Luke’s opener. The coming Elijah would not be beamed from heaven but rather born of earthly parents. Malachi’s final statement was that the coming Elijah would “turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents” (4:6).
Gabriel implicitly cites Malachi, telling the stunned Zechariah that his son-to-be will reconcile the generations, changing “parents’ attitudes toward their children” (Luke 1:17).
John fulfilled his destiny by calling the people back to God and thereby preparing the way for the Messiah. He did so in the spirit of Elijah and not as the actual Elijah. When Herod Antipas arrested John and threw him in jail, the crowds wanted to hear from Jesus. What did Jesus think about the identity of John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11-15). Jesus told them, “all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.” Then Jesus added key wording. He said, “if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.” He added, as he always did when he was teaching difficult concepts, “whoever has ears, let them hear.”
For those who heard John’s preaching and responded to his call to repentance, baptizing themselves and their family members, John was the Elijah to come. For those who rejected John as a crazy man of the desert or even worse saw him as politically dangerous, like Herod Antipas, John did not belong to them.
By preaching repentance and baptizing the masses, John inaugurated the restoration era. Even though John denied being the historical Elijah, he understood his role in preparing the way for the Messiah as his forerunner. Before the baptism of Jesus, John told the crowds coming out to the desert to confess their sins, “I baptize you withwater. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:16).
As we close out the minor prophets, I want to remind you that the Hebrew scriptures slowly and over time built up a robust profile for the coming Messiah. He would be the scepter of Judah (Gen. 49:10), the last prophet (Deut. 18:18), the star of Jacob (Num. 24:7), the coming king (Zech. 9:9), the one to defeat Satan (Gen. 3:15), the healing shepherd (Ezek. 34), prince of peace (Isa. 9:6), the one whom they pierced (Zech. 12:10), the anointed one (Dan. 9:25), and the sign of Jonah (Matt. 12:39). The narratives, laws, and prophets provided hints, predictions, and prototypes for the Messiah—leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that lead to the cross.
After a year of studying the minor prophets, we have come to the end not just of Malachi but of the Book of the Twelve. And like the end of any good book club, the question we as readers must answer is how did our author, or authors in this case, resolve the principal conflict?
For hundreds of years, God spoke through the prophets in delivering his clarion call: “return to me, and I will return to you.” The conflict is God reconciling his creation to himself. The prophets each point to a day when the reconciliation will happen. Hosea spoke of a “door of hope” (2:14). Joel envisioned a day when even the soil and animals would praise Yahweh (2:21-22). Amos promised all those who seek Yahweh will live (5:6). Obadiah added that those who opposed Yahweh would gulp down the cup of his wrath (16).
Jonah illustrated how God graciously offers second chances to the rebellious, be they prophets or pagans (3:10). Micah gave the marching orders for restoring the covenant relationship: “do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God” (6:8). Yet, the nations and the people of God continued to exhaust his mercy. Prophets like Nahum were God’s megaphone, reminding the people that though the Lord is slow to anger, he is great in power (1:3). Habakkuk, sick of the cycle of violence in human affairs, begged God to let justice come forth (1:2-4). Zephaniah knew that the day of judgement was near at hand and exhorted the people to gather, repent, and seek the Lord (2:1-3).
After the exile, Haggai encouraged the community to take courage, obey, and let God’s spirit once again abide among them (2:4-5). Once the Temple was rebuilt, the people awaited the transformation of their ruined lands. When that day tarried, Zechariah, through visions, dreams, and sign acts, explained that full restoration would only come when God recognized “a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David” (Zech. 12:10). Finally, Malachi (3:1) promises a messenger will come and launch that revival to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.
Then the prophetic voice went silent as the famine of God’s word settled over the earth. Granted, Jewish life and Torah study flourished in this time, becoming the Second Temple Judaism famous for its strict purity rituals, regular Temple sacrifices, and proliferation of schools teaching Jewish law. But the prophets, as an institution, were no longer.
Until, one night in Bethlehem, the sound of a baby crying broke the divine silence. The God who had always spoke through human agents became the God who sent the human agent. God’s self-revelation reached a climax when the word became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14). For this reason, John the Baptist leaped for joy even in the womb when Mary gave Elizabeth the news that she was carrying the promise of the ancestors (Luke 1:55).
The writer of Hebrews explains the end of prophecy as the beginning of the incarnation: “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word” (Heb. 1:1-3).
With the arrival of Jesus, the Son of Man and the Son of God, on earth, the conflict that permeated the prophets was settled. God suffered, God paid the price, and God reconciled creation to himself through the saving work of his son Jesus Christ on the cross and his victory over death. For those who believe, we are baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire, just as John the Baptist predicted. We are living in the fullness and light of the ultimate revelation in Jesus Christ, like Malachi’s leaping calves celebrating the arrival of a new day.
I hope and pray that reading the prophets over this last year has given you the chance to see that God had a plan, a purpose, and a path to redemption.