Excursus - Malachi and the Messengers
The ESV footnote at Malachi 1:1 says that the Hebrew name Malachi means “my messenger.” What it doesn’t say is that Malachi also means “my angel.”
he astounded the nation and was called Malachi, i.e., an angel."
Excursus
For those unfamiliar with the term, excursus is a Latin word meaning a “running out,” a “running forth,” or, as the Anglicised version of the word makes clear, an “excursion.”1 In works of scholarship, the term is used to denote a parenthetical departure from the subject under examination.
Excursus. n. A detailed discussion of a particular topic or point that is included in a book as a digression inserted in the text or appended at the end.2
The excursus below is a stand-alone digression from the previous Prolegomenon of our critical study on the meaning and purpose of baptism within Covenant Eschatology called, Baptism at the End of the Mosaic Covenant. The particular topic of this excursus is the Malachi prophecy of Jesus and John the Baptist. Its aim is to bring to light several interesting, and significant, features of this prophecy that are too tangential to be included in the main study.
Messenger and Angel
Malachi 1:1 (ESV)
The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
Malachi 1:1 (LXX3)
The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by the hand of his messenger.
In my copy of the ESV, there is a footnote at the end of Malachi 1:1 that tells the reader that the Hebrew name Malachi (mǎl·ʾā·ḵî) means “my messenger.”4 This note helps to explain why the Septuagint (LXX) translators opted for the Greek phrase “his messenger,” rather than Malaxias, the Greek form of the Hebrew proper name. Clearly, they believed that the book was written by an anonymous, albeit inspired, functionary, rather than a prophet named Malachi.5
What the ESV footnote does not tell the reader, however, is that in the original languages of the Old and New Testaments the common word for “messenger” is the same word for “angel” (Heb. mǎl·ʾāḵ; Grk. angelos), which means that the name Malachi also means “my angel,” and the Greek phrase “his messenger” can also be rendered “his angel.”6
On the ESV translator’s part, this is a perfectly understandable omission. There is, after all, no reason to give an exhaustive list of definitions for every word in any given text, especially when the primary meaning is the likeliest one in view, as in the case of Malachi 1:1. Yet, as the English LXX text above shows, despite having the correct definition of a word, one might still be led astray by a faulty presupposition regarding the composition history of the text.
Nonetheless, given the very real differences between the English terms “messenger,” and “angel,” I think it is important for English-speaking Christians to be aware of the distinction being made by the translators of our Bibles when they decide which of these two terms to use. Yes, both kinds of envoy, that is, a generic one, or a supernatural one, can legitimately be inferred from either mǎl·ʾāḵ, or angelos, but whereas the English term “messenger” can refer to any of those two kinds, the English term “angel” can only refer to the supernatural kind. Therefore, whenever the English translators use “angel,” the possibility always exists that the distinction being made does not reflect the intention of the biblical author when he used his word for “messenger.”
As a matter of fact, there are plenty of times in Scripture where one’s insistence on the supernatural interpretation of mǎl·ʾāḵ and angelos is highly problematic. An obvious example would be the “angels of the churches” to whom John is to write in Chapter 2 of Revelation. How exactly does one write a letter to an angelic being? And where would one send it if he did? Personally, I would prefer if editors of English Bibles translated every occurrence of mǎl·ʾāḵ or angelos as “messenger,” with perhaps a footnote reading “or angel” in the less ambiguous instances, as that would allow the English-only reader to decide for himself whether a heavenly, a demonic, or a human messenger is meant.
Messengers, Prophets, and Servants
Malachi, Book Of
The prophet’s references to the messenger who prepares the Day of the Lord, along with the Lord’s sudden appearance in his temple (Mal 3:1) and the coming of the prophet Elijah, build a natural bridge to the NT (Mal 4:5; cf. Mt 11:10, 14; 17:10–12; Mk 1:2; 9:11–13; Lk 7:27).7
Introduction
Malachi predicted the coming of both John the Baptist and Jesus, referring to each as a “messenger” of God (3:1).8
Malachi 3:1 (ESV)
Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
Malachi 4:4–6
4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
As the ESV introduction above suggests, along with the snippet from Hill’s DOT:P entry, scholars more or less unanimously conclude that Malachi 3:1, and 4:4–6, prophesy the appearance of John the Baptist, prior to the appearance of Jesus. The messenger who will prepare the way in 3:1 is taken to be the prophet Elijah in 4:5. As well, the sought-after Lord who comes suddenly to his temple in 3:1 is the same Lord in verse 4:5 who, after Elijah, comes to his people in judgement on his great and awesome day. As Hill notes above, and as we established in our Prolegomenon, the Gospel writers prove incontrovertibly that Malachi’s coming Elijah is John the Baptist, and the Lord whom this Elijah is to precede is Jesus.
Where there is far less unanimity among scholars is in the identification of “the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight” (3:1). Read any random commentary on Malachi and you will get a plethora of possibilities, from “the titular or guardian angel of Israel,”9 to a messenger like those who carried out “ancient Near Eastern covenant negotiations.”10 Most of these theories are unsatisfying, for one reason or another, which no doubt helps to ensure an endless supply of alternatives to come.
In that vein, allow me to proffer a novel theory of my own, which I believe has a moderate degree of merit, and that I have yet to encounter in any of the literature I have looked through so far. It seems possible to me that, just as “my messenger,” and “the Lord,” of 3:1 each finds their echo in 4:5, the “messenger of the covenant” finds its twin in 4:4. That is, the second messenger of 3:1 becomes “my servant Moses”, and his “covenant in whom you delight” is now Moses’ “law [of] statutes and rules.”
Of course, this suggestion begs the question, “Where in the New Testament does Moses appear after Elijah, and before the Lord’s great and terrible day?”11 Well, to make a long theory short, I’m convinced that, along with prophesying the coming of John the Baptist, and Jesus, individually, Malachi is also prophesying the Transfiguration collectively (Mt 17:1–13; Mk 9:2–13; Lk 9:28–36; cp. 2Pe 1:16–18); an event which is itself a prophetic picture of the earthly messengers of the beginning and end of the temporal Mosaic Covenant being superseded by the heavenly messenger of the eternal New Covenant.
Matthew 17:1–817 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.
3 And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 5 He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” 8 And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.
2. Matthew S. DeMoss, Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2001), 54.
3. Rick Brannan, et al., eds. The Lexham English Septuagint (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).
4. See fn. 1 at Malachi 1:1, The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016). Mǎl·ʾā·ḵî is made up of the noun mǎl·ʾāḵ, “messenger,” and the first common singular pronominal suffix î, which, when indicating possession, as here, means “my.”
5. Richard A. Taylor, and E. Ray Clendenen, Haggai, Malachi, Vol. 21A NAC (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2004), 204.
6. The Greek “by the hand of his messenger” is ἐν χειρὶ ἀγγέλου αὐτοῦ (en cheiri angelou autou). We get our word angel from the Greek angelos, via the Latin angelus.
7. A. E. Hill, “Malachi, Book of.” Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; IVP, 2012), 525.
8. “Introduction” to the Book of Malachi from the ESV.
9. James Pohlig, An Exegetical Summary of Malachi (Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1998), 136.
10. Taylor and Clendenen, Haggai, Malachi, 386.
11. Regarding the order of appearances, interestingly enough, the LXX places the Moses text at the end of Chapter 4, that is, after the Elijah and the Lord texts.
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