MALACHI AND THE
RESTORATION OF ISRAEL
The Rev. Harold Shepherd, CD, M.A., LL.B., S.T.M., LL.M.,
Ph.D.
Sermon from February 2, 2003
Thus says the Lord, See, I am sending
my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord
whom you seek will suddenly come to his Temple. The
messenger of the covenant in whom you delight- indeed, he
is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the
day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?.. and
he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like
gold and silver, until they present offering to the LORD in
righteousness. Malachi 3:1-4
After years of exile in Babylonia, King Cyrus issued an
edict permitting the Jews to return home. Some were living
comfortable lives in Babylon and refused to go back.
Others, however, caught the vision of a restored nation
worshiping God once again in Jerusalem. Those who made the
long trek over through the fertile crescent to Palestine
arrived at a ruined city. The Temple and the city walls had
been destroyed by King Nabuchadnezzar in 587 B.C. Most of
the population had been deported in order to eliminate
opposition to Babylonian rule. Today, the would be
classified as a crime against humanity. As a matter of
fact, deportation is listed as one of the prohibited forms
of conduct listed in the Canadian Crimes against Humanity
and War Crimes Act. The results of deportation were evident
to those who returned. The infrastructure of the nation had
been destroyed. Those living in the area were not Jewish.
Reconstruction of the nation would be hard and take time.
To assist in the task, the Persian king sent a Jewish
administrator named Nehemiah to act as governor. With the
help of armed guards, they were able to rebuild the walls
and begin to reconstruct the city. A rather modest Temple
was constructed and sacrifices were re-established. The
problem was that the intelligentsia remained back in
Babylon. Those who came back to rebuild were not, generally
speaking, learned in the Law and devout. As a result,
intermarriage with the local populations was common.
Knowledge of the Jewish Torah was less so. The situation in
Jerusalem is not dissimilar to what is now going on in
Afghanistan. After years of civil war and undemocratic
tyranny, the nation is struggling to rebuild itself. The
economy is in ruins and civil and governmental institutions
need to be reconstructed. Help from the outside is needed
to put the nation back on its feet. Another example is
Somali.
The prophet Malachi likely wrote in the context of the
early post-exilic period when Jerusalem was struggling to
re-establish itself. Returnees were not renowned from their
piety. The prophet harshly criticized practices pertaining
to Temple sacrifices. In particular, blind and lame animals
were being offered as sacrifices, offerings were being
withheld, and inter-marriage with those worshiping other
gods was widely practiced. Malachi called for repentance
and affirmed that God would sent a messenger of the
covenant to purify the priests and restore proper worship
to the Temple. Some scholars suggest that he may have been
referring to Ezra who returned to Jerusalem from Babylonia
to bring religious reform and respect for the Torah to the
nation. Disrespect for the Temple, as God’s house,
reflects disrespect for God himself. One cannot divorce
aspirations of piety from actions in daily life. Israel
needed to integrate faith, Torah, sacrifice, core ethical
beliefs and nation-building into a unified world view and
motivation for action. Maslow refers to this as
“self-actualization” and Karl Jung calls it
“individuation.” This jargon is used to
describe the bringing together of conflicting personae
within ourselves so that we become one person, whatever the
context. Our decision-making comes out of core beliefs and
values that do not change depending on context. The New
Testament interprets Malachi’s messenger of the
covenant as John the Baptist. He preached repentance and
national renewal as a forerunner of Jesus, the Messiah. In
Christ, we find new life by being grounded in the values of
the Kingdom of God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be
the new Israel, brought back from exile and established in
the new Jerusalem.