Malachi 1:1

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 Malachi 1:1. 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 Malachi 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.