Malachi 1:4-7To: Malachi Main MenuTo: Grace Notes Home Page Malachi 1:4"Edom may say, 'Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.' But this is what the Lord Almighty says: 'They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called The Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the Lord.'"The concept of verse four is found in the action of the verbs: RASHASH, SHUB, CHARAS. RASHASH means "to defeat," and in the context refers to the presumptuously arrogant thoughts of the Edomites after God has defeated them, namely, "we have been defeated in principle only." In fact and in action, they think SHUB, which means "to return again," "we will return, we are all-powerful and cannot be kept down." And the truth of SHUB from God's viewpoint is that they will never believe in Him, in His power, in His righteousness; thus He must permanently destroy them. Their arrogance is such that they cannot learn from Divine Discipline, they believe in their hearts that, if there is a God, they are more powerful than He. Consequently, God's reality, the reality of absolute truth is found in the Qal imperfect of the verb, CHARAS, which means "to thrown down or destroy utterly." God will decimate them, and as He does so the Edomites will acknowledge only their own pomposity. For this reason, they will be called "a territory of wickedness,". "a people against whom the Lord has indignation forever." Malachi 1:5"You will see it with your own eyes and say, 'Great is the Lord --even beyond the borders of Israel!"Not only will the priests and the people of Judah see the destruction of Edom, but they will see something else: the warning omen of Divine Discipline to Judah herself. The "eyes" are the eyes of the Jewish religious leaders of the future, i.e., in 30 AD. And the warning sign that they will see refers to the gift of tongues in the year 30 AD. This sign is also mentioned in Isaiah 28:11, which says, "Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to his people." Gentile languages will be used to warn the Jews of coming chastisement in 30 AD. And the result of this warning sign? "They will say, 'Great is the Lord!" So the atheistic priests in Malachi's day, and the atheistic and apostate priests and religious leaders in 30 AD, will both come to the same conclusion: Great is the Lord! The narrative of the gift of tongues is found in Acts 2:1ff. Because the Jews failed to evangelize the Gentiles, God sent the Gentiles' languages to evangelize the Jews. And note, that the gift of tongues involved the articulation of a legitimate foreign language that the speaker did not know, not the speaking of gibberish that was incomprehensible. The demonstration of this is found in Acts 2:5-11, "Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: 'Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans (the Galileans were uneducated and uni-lingual)? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs -- we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!'" Thus the gift of tongues had a specific purpose, which was the warning and evangelizing of the Jews. The gift was extant from the Day of Pentecost in 30 AD, up till the fall of Jerusalem in August of 70 AD. Indeed, all in all the Jews, as a nation, were the recipients of Seven Signs from God. Seven Omens To The Jews From God1. The gift of tongues, which was prophesied in Isaiah 28:11, and Malachi 1:5. 6. Forty years of miraculous evangelism through the gift of tongues, recorded in the Book of Acts. Luke 21:22 reads, "For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written." Where was it written? In Leviticus 26:27-45. [9] Malachi 1:6"'A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?' says the Lord Almighty. 'It is you, O priests, who despise my name. But you ask, 'How have we despised your name?'"In verse six, the prophet Malachi introduces the idea of relationship and output or production to the unbelieving priests of his day. The two relationships are found in the phrases "father and son," and "master and respect," "a son regularly honors a father, a slave his lord." Therefore, Malachi is declaring to the unsaved priests that prior to representing God to man, they must have a relationship with God as believers, as in the father-son analogy. Then, and only then, can they generate results or fruit for God, as in the slave-lord analogy. And these unsaved priests have no love for God and no respect (reverence) for God because they have no relationship with God. And God asks, "Where is my honor" as to a father from a son? There is none because these priests are unbelievers and thus are not 'sons.' And then God asks, "If I be Lord(s), where is my reverence (worship)" as to a master from a slave? There is none because to worship these priests would have to be believers. There exists neither 'honor' or 'worship' because these priests "despise God's name." And the word for 'despise' means "to do that which implies contempt; to treat contemptuously and proudly." [10] And Robert Thieme states that BAZA "implies thinking then doing; they despise God in their minds before they commit despicable acts." [11] Additionally, the verb BAZA is presented by Malachi in the Qal active participle, which means that these priests 'constantly despise God.' They never stop despising God. And then the priests ask, "In what one way do we despise you?" And the question is posed in the Qal perfect, which means that they deny constantly despising God, and more, they impudently ask Him to name just one past act of hatred. The arrogance of this statement is monumental. And God answers in verse 7. The term utilized by Malachi for the priests, , COHEN, recommends itself to further explanation: The Levitical PriesthoodAccording to Numbers 16:5 the Levitical priests were commissioned by God, separated unto God, and were allowed to approach God. "Then he said to Korah and all his followers: 'In the morning the Lord will show who belongs to him and who is holy, and he will have that person come near him. The man he chooses he will cause to come near him." The Levitical priesthood began with the tribe of Levi and proceeded through the sons of the family of Aaron, according to Numbers 18:1,8 and Exodus 28:1, which says, "Have Aaron you brother brought to you from among the Israelites, along with his sons Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, so they may serve me as priests." However, physical blemishes disqualified any male descendant of Aaron, according to Leviticus 21:17-23, from which 21:17 is presented: "The Lord said to Moses, 'Say to Aaron: 'For the generations to come non of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God.'" The duties of the Levitical priesthood included: the teaching of the Law, Leviticus 10:11; offering the sacrifices, Leviticus chapter 9; maintaining the Tabernacle and the Temple, Numbers 18:3; officiating in the Holy Place, Exodus 30:7-10; inspecting ceremonially unclean persons, Leviticus chapters 13 and 14; they adjudicated disputes, Deuteronomy 17:8-13; they functioned as tax collectors, Numbers 18:21,26; Hebrews 7:5. Sustenance of the priesthood occurred through the following vehicles: prescribed portions of the sacrificial offerings, Numbers 18:8-14; one habitual tithe from which tithe a tenth part was assigned to the priests, Numbers 18:21-24, cf. Lev. 27:30-33, cf. Numbers 18:26-28; along with thirteen assigned cities, Joshua 21:13-19, which provided a special tithe every third year, Deuteronomy 14:27-29; 26:12; the redemption money for the firstborn in Israel, Leviticus chapter 27; an assigned portion of the spoils of war, Numbers 31:25-27; along with the shewbread, Leviticus 24:5-9. And so that the priests would not be overworked, they were assigned assistants who were called the Levites, II Chronicles 29:34. The Levites were selected by God to aid in the sacrificial offerings and in the administration of holy things, according to Numbers 3:5ff., 8:14-19. The Levites also preserved and transmitted the written Law, Lev. 10:11; Deut. 17:18; 33:10; Nehemiah 8:9, Ezekiel 44:23. They attended the priests, Numbers 18:4; the Levites also were responsible for assembling, dismantling, and transporting the Tabernacle, Numbers chapter 4; 10:17,21. And they also taught the Torah (the word) and administered justice, Deut. 33:10a. Levitical priests served for 25 years, from age 25 to age 50, according to Numbers 8:24,25. Other than the family of Aaron, there were three other family lines in the tribe of Levi (Numbers chapter 4): the kohathites, who maintained the furniture, vessels and veil of the Tabernacle; the gershonites, who maintained the coverings, hangings and doors of the Tabernacle; the merarites, who maintained the supports, including the planks bars and cords, of the Tabernacle. Initially, God had selected the entire nation of Israel to be his priests, according to Exodus 19:5,6; however, after the nation proved to be inadequate as priests, Exodus 32:7-10, the Levites who supported Moses in Exodus chapters 26-28 were selected as God's priests, Numbers 3:5-9. The apparel of the high priest is cited in Exodus chapter 28. Both the priests and the high priest, except for ceremonial events, dressed as other Jews. At ceremonial events, however, the high priest wore white linen shorts, a white linen coat that came to the hips, a ceremonial belt colored in correspondence to the curtains of the Tabernacle -- white, blue, scarlet, and purple; he also wore a turban-like cap with a golden crown, upon which was inscribed: 'holy to Jehovah.' Additionally, the high priest wore an ephod of blue, beautifully embroidered in the colors cited above; also a breast-plate of gold and cloth, with the urim and the thummim on the shoulders, and twelve stones, each stone representing one of the twelve tribes; each stone was engraved with their names and fastened with a golden clasp. The sanctification of the high priest and the priests is found in Exodus chapter 29. And the principal duty of the high priest was to officiate on the Day of Atonement, according to Leviticus chapter 16. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest, caparisoned in his ceremonial garments, 'drew near to God;' he entered the Tabernacle (or later the Temple), and sprinkled over the top of the mercy seat the blood of the bullock of the sin offering for himself, Leviticus 16:6,14. After he came forth from the Holy of Holies, he again entered and sprinkled the blood of the goat of the sin offering for the people. Both times he emerged from the Holy of Holies after sprinkling the blood had hamartiological (sin) ramifications: pardon for his personal sins, and pardon for the sins of the people; and in each instance the pardon was based solely upon the 'blood of the sin offering,' which represented Christ on the Cross, Leviticus 16:30. According to I Chronicles chapter 15, 16:4-6, 37-43, David rearranged the Levitical priesthood into 24 courses (orders); he assigned 16 courses to Eleazer, and 8 courses to Ithamar. This rearrangement was chartered because of a population explosion in David's reign. According to Numbers 20:28, the office of the high priest was transmitted upon death to the oldest living son of the high priest: "Moses removed Aaron's garments and put them on his son Eleazar. And Aaron died there on top of the mountain. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain." And according to Numbers 25:10-13, God made a covenant with Phinehas, the eldest son of Eleazar, which guaranteed a lasting priesthood with the Aaronic line. The line switched during Saul ben-Kish's reign; Eli, a descendant of Ithamar, assumed the office of high-priest, however, he functioned only de facto and not de jure (legally). In fact, his descendants were removed from the priesthood because of Eli's failure to censure his sons, I Samuel 2:23-25; 3:13. Solomon restored the Aaronic line to the high-priesthood; he replaced Abiathar, Eli's descendant, with Zadok, from the line of Eleazar, I Kings 2:26,27,35. During the ministry of the prophet Jeremiah, Seraiah was the high-priest; he was taken prisoner and executed by Nebuzar-adan, II Kings 25:18-21. Seraiah's son, Josedech, was not allowed to function as high-priest. Instead, he lived and died as a prisoner in Babylon, Haggai 1:1,14. Josedech's son, Joshua, functioned as the high-priest during the ministry of Zechariah, Zech. 3:1. The high-priests that followed Joshua were: Joiakim, Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan and Jaddua, who was the high-priest in the epoch of Alexander the Great. Tradition holds that Jaddua met the advancing armies of Alexander with the scroll of the book of Daniel, whereupon he read Alexander those passages in Daniel referring to Alexander. Alexander was impressed and, tradition maintains, favorably disposed toward the Jews from then on. Jaddua's successors were: Onias I, Simon the Just; Onias II/Eleazar, and Alcimus. The latter two, Onias II and Alcimus, were notorious for their malfunction; indeed, Onias II was also known as Menelaus. Then, according to I Chronicles 9:10; 24:7; Nehemiah 11:10, the high-priestly line passed over to the Asmonaean family, the course of Joiarib. It stayed in the Asmonean family until Herod the Great decimated the Asmoneaen family, and his brother-in-law, Herod, executed the final Asmonean high-priest, Aristobulus, in 35 BC. At length, the two high priests associated with the death of our Lord were Caiaphas and Annas. [12] Malachi 1:7"You placed defiled food on my altar. But you ask, 'How have we defiled you?' 'By saying that the Lord's table is contemptible."The phrase "defiled food" is LECHERM MEGO'AL, which is "polluted bread," and is a specific reference to the shewbread. In other words, the unsaved priests of Malachi's day are using leavened bread. And to God, this is an abhorrence; why? Because the bread is analogous to the Person of Christ in the Christology of the Tabernacle/Temple, and leaven corresponds to sin, just as the oven in which the bread was cooked corresponds to the Cross. So the priests, by placing leavened bread on the altar, are saying that Christ was imperfect, and a sinner as He hung on the Cross. In other words, the priests are saying Christ was just another man, just another criminal who was to be crucified by the Romans. This is blasphemy! And in verse 8 of Malachi 1, the priests are also guilty of sacrificing blind, lame and diseased animals. The animals are flawed. And in the Christology of the Temple the animals are analogous to the Work of Christ on the Cross; thus the priests are stating that the Work of Christ was not efficacious, that it did not provide salvation. Again, this is blasphemy! And these two execrations demand the presentation of 'leaven' as it relates to the Person of Christ, and 'redemption' as it relates to the Work of Christ. Leaven In both the Old Testament and the New Testament leaven is a "type of evil teachings, evil doctrines and evil practices. It is always to be put away and cast out as an unclean thing. The gospel is never called leaven. Nothing good is ever compared to leaven. Nothing good is ever said about leaven. In every place it is mentioned, leaven is defiling and is to be put away. (See Ex. 12:15; Lev. 2:11; I Cor. 5:6; Matt. 13:33)." [13] In Scripture, leaven denotes any substance used to induce fermentation in either meals, dough or liquids. "For fermentation is the result of the divine curse upon the material universe because of sin." [14] And Genesis 19:3 is the first use of the term 'unleavened;' "But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate." Here, Lot is serving unleavened bread to his angelic visitors. And Exodus 12:8, 15-20, first utilizes the term in connection with a feast day -- Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In these verses leaven is presented as being totally rejected and symbolic of evil; whereas unleavened bread is a pattern or type of Christ and symbolic of his sinless perfection. In Matthew 13:33, leaven portrays religious apostasy during the Tribulation. "He told them still another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough." " The woman is the apostate church, the meal is the Word of God, the leaven is evil and apostate teachings concerning the Word of God. In other words, the woman mixes false doctrines with true doctrines and thus poisons those who eat it." [15] In Matthew 16:6, leaven represents the sophistry (false arguments) of the Sadduccees, which sophistry resulted in apostasy. "'Be careful,' Jesus said to them. 'Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.'" And the leaven of the Pharisees was the evil of legalism and ritualism (Mark 8:15; Luke 12:1). Note that the Sadducees refused to accept any doctrine that could not be validated by reason, i.e., they claimed the right of private interpretation of the Torah. This rationalistic approach resulted in the following heresies: the denial of the resurrection and recompense in hell for unbelievers, since the Sadducees claimed that the soul expired with the body; the denial of angelic beings; and the acceptance of fatalism. Mark 8:15 alludes to the leaven of Herod, which is the sin of lust for power. "'Be careful,' Jesus warned them. 'Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.'" While the leaven of the Corinthians refers to the sin of antinomianism (Christian sect that held that faith ruled out the need for morality), sexual lewdness (fornication, homosexuality, incest, etc.), and phallic apostasy, I Corinthians 5:1,2,6,7. "Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast -- as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed." (I Cor. 5:6,7). In contrast to the Corinthians, the leaven of the Galatians relates to the sin of legalism (gaining salvation through good works), and in this particular instance designates salvation by means of circumcision, Galatians 5:9, "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough." [16] Notes: [9] Thieme, Robert. Seven Signs; originally compiled by Robert Thieme; from notes on Malachi, 1968; altered and appended by R. E. Radic. [10] Wilson, William. Old Testament Word Studies; page 119. [11] Thieme, Robert. Paraphrase of Robert Thieme's words; notes on Malachi, 1968. [12] Thieme, Robert. Levitical Offerings; pages 103-104. This categorization was originally compiled by Robert Thieme, altered and appended by R. E. Radic. [13] Wilson, Walter Lewis. Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types; page 286. [14] Wuest, Kenneth S. Mark in the Greek New Testament; page 162. [15] Wilson, Walter Lewis. Ibid. [16] Thieme, Robert. Ibid. First catalogued by Robert Thieme; altered and appended by R. E. Radic. There is no charge for Grace Notes Materials. You can help further this work by your prayer and by sending a contribution to: Grace Notes 1705 Aggie Lane Austin, Texas 78757 wdoud@bga.com Grace Notes Web site: http://www.realtime.net/~wdoud/ Anonymous FTP site: ftp://ftp.bga.com/vendors/wdoud/ Grace Notes is a ministry of Village Missions International. |
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