1
THE BOOK
PROPHET MALACHI
Chronological Notes relative to this Book
-Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3607.
-Year from the vocation of Abram, 1524.
-Year since the destruction of Troy, 787.
-Year since the commencement of the kingdom of Israel by the
Divine appointment of Saul to the regal dignity, 698.
-Year from the division of Solomon's monarchy into the kingdoms
of Israel and Judah, 578.
-Fourth year of the ninety-fifth Olympiad.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to the Varronian
computation, 356.
-Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 397.
-Cycle of the Sun, 5.
-Cycle of the Moon, 4.
CHAPTER I
This chapter begins with showing the great and free favour
which God had manifested to the Israelites, above what he had
done to the Edomites, who are threatened with farther marks of
the Divine displeasure; alluding, perhaps, to the calamities
which they suffered from Judas Maccabeus and John Hyrcanus,
(see 1Macc 5:65, and Joseph. Antiq. xiii. 9,) 1-5.
God then reproaches his people, and especially their priests,
for their ungrateful returns to his distinguished goodness, 6.
They are particularly charged with sacrificing the refuse of
beasts, 7-9,
for which God threatens to reject them, 10,
and choose other nations who will show more reverence to his
name and worship, 11-14.
NOTES ON CHAP. I
Verse 1.
The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.] This prophet is undoubtedly the
last of the Jewish
prophets. He lived after Zechariah and Haggai; for we find that
the
temple, which was begun in their time, was standing complete
in his. See
Mal 3:10. Some have thought that he was contemporary
with Nehemiah; indeed, several have supposed that
Malachi, is no
other than
Ezra under the feigned name of
angel of the Lord, or
my angel. John the Baptist was the link that connected Malachi with
Christ. According to Abp.
Usher he flourished B.C. 416, but the
authorized version, which we have followed in the margin, states
this event to have happened
nineteen years later. Both the Hebrew
language and poetry had declined in his days.
Israel.-Here means the Jewish people in general.