mh_parser/vol_split/39 - Malachi/0 - Introduction.xml
2023-12-17 21:11:28 -05:00

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<div2 id="Mal.i" n="i" next="Mal.ii" prev="Mal" progress="97.91%" title="Introduction">
<h2 id="Mal.i-p0.1">Malachi</h2>
<hr/>
<pb id="Mal.i-Page_1475" n="1475"/>
<div class="Center" id="Mal.i-p0.3">
<p id="Mal.i-p1" shownumber="no"><b>AN</b></p>
<h3 id="Mal.i-p1.1">EXPOSITION,</h3>
<h4 id="Mal.i-p1.2">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,</h4>
<h5 id="Mal.i-p1.3">OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET</h5>
<h2 id="Mal.i-p1.4">M A L A C H I.</h2>
<hr style="width:2in"/>
</div>
<p class="indent" id="Mal.i-p2" shownumber="no"><span class="smallcaps" id="Mal.i-p2.1">God's</span>
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 <i>seal of prophecy,</i> 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, <i>Malachi,</i> and no account of his country
or parentage. <i>Malachi</i> signifies <i>my angel,</i> which has
given occasion for a conjecture that this prophet was indeed an
angel from heaven and not a man, as that <scripRef id="Mal.i-p2.2" osisRef="Bible:Judg.2.1" parsed="|Judg|2|1|0|0" passage="Jdg 2:1">Judges ii. 1</scripRef>. 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 (<scripRef id="Mal.i-p2.3" osisRef="Bible:Mal.3.1" parsed="|Mal|3|1|0|0" passage="Mal 3:1"><i>ch.</i> iii.
1</scripRef>) for <i>my messenger;</i> and perhaps from that word
he might (though, probably, he had another name) be called
<i>Malachi.</i> 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.</p>
</div2>