Malachi or Malachias (; ) is the name used by the author of the

Book of Malachi The Book of Malachi () is the last book of the Nevi'im in the Tanakh and canonically the final book of the Twelve Minor Prophets. In most Christian traditions, the prophetic books form the last section of the Old Testament, making Malachi the las ...

, the last book of the

Nevi'im The (; ) is the second major division of the Hebrew Bible (the ''Tanakh''), lying between the () and (). The Nevi'im are divided into two groups. The Former Prophets ( ) consists of the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings ...

(Prophets) section of the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''

proper name A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa''; ''Jupiter''; ''Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, pl ...

, because it means "messenger"; it has been assumed to be a

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

. According to Jewish tradition, the real identity of Malachi is Ezra the scribe. Some scholars argue that the Book of Malachi is the result of multiple stages of redaction; most of its text originated in the Persian period, with the oldest stratum from around 500 BCE and redactions into the

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

period.

Identity

The editors of the 1906 ''

Jewish Encyclopedia ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on the ...

'' implied that Malachi, also known as Malachias, prophesied after Haggai and Zechariah and speculated that he delivered his prophecies about 420 BC, after the second return of

Nehemiah Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...

from Persia, or possibly before his return. The

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

and the Aramaic

Targum A targum (, ''interpretation'', ''translation'', ''version''; plural: targumim) was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ) that a professional translator ( ''mǝṯurgǝmān'') would give in the common language o ...

of Yonathan ben Uzziel identify Ezra as the same person as Malachi. This is the traditional view held by most Jews and some Christians, including

Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...

. This identification is plausible, because "Malachi" reprimands the people for the same things Ezra did, such as marrying foreign pagan women. Malachi also focuses extensively on

corrupt Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...

priests who Ezra, a priest himself who exhorted the people to follow the law, despised. According to

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

, Ezra died and was buried "in a magnificent manner in Jerusalem". If the tradition that Ezra wrote under the name "Malachi" is correct, then Josephus meant that he was buried in the Tomb of the Prophets, the traditional resting place of Malachi. This would also explain why Ezra does not refer to a prophet named Malachi, while he did refer to other prophets such as Haggai and Zechariah. Other potential identities includes

Zerubbabel Zerubbabel ( from ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a governor of the Achaemenid Empire's province of Yehud Medinata and the grandson of Jeconiah, penultimate king of Judah. He is not documented in extra-biblical documents, and is considered ...

and Nehemiah; others suggest that Malachi was a separate person altogether, possibly a

Levite Levites ( ; ) or Levi are Jewish males who claim patrilineal descent from the Tribe of Levi. The Tribe of Levi descended from Levi, the third son of Jacob and Leah. The surname ''Halevi'', which consists of the Hebrew definite article "" ''Ha-' ...

and a member of the Great Assembly.Bergstein, A.
Who Was the Prophet Malachi?
,

Chabad.org Chabad.org is the flagship website of the Chabad, Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Judaism, Hasidic movement. It was one of the first Jewish internet sites. History In 1988, Yosef Yitzchak Kazen, a Chabad rabbi, began creating a Chabad-Lubavitch prese ...

Name

Because the name ''Malachi'' does not occur elsewhere in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' malakh''") signifies "my messenger"; it occurs in Malachi 3:1 (compare to Malachi 2:7, but this form would hardly be appropriate as a proper name without some additional syllable such as Yah, whence ''mal'akhiah'', i.e. "messenger of Yah". In the Book of Haggai, Haggai is designated the "messenger of the ." The

non-canonical The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean 'according to the canon' the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, ''canonical exampl ...

superscriptions prefixed to the book, in both the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

and the

Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...

, warrant the supposition that Malachi's full name ended with the syllable -yah. The Septuagint translates the last clause of Malachi 1:1, "by the hand of his messenger", and the

reads, "by the hand of my angel, whose name is called Ezra the scribe". G.G. Cameron suggests that the termination of the word "Malachi" is adjectival, and equivalent to the Latin ''angelicus'', signifying "one charged with a message or mission" (a missionary).

Date

Opinions vary as to the prophet's exact date, but nearly all scholars agree that Malachi prophesied during the Persian period, and after the reconstruction and dedication of the

Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

in 516 BC. More specifically, Malachi probably lived and labored during the times of Ezra and Nehemiah. The abuses which Malachi mentions in his writings correspond so exactly with those which Nehemiah found on his second visit to Jerusalem in 432 BC that it seems reasonably certain that he prophesied concurrently with Nehemiah or shortly after. Bergstein suggests that he died in 312 BC.

Message

According to W. Gunther Plaut:

References

Sources

External links

Holy Prophet Malachi
from the

Orthodox Church in America The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is an Eastern Orthodox Christian church based in North America. The OCA consists of more than 700 parishes, missions, communities, monasteries and institutions in the United States, Canada and Mexico. In ...

{{Authority control Book of Malachi people Ezra Levites