Malachi 3:1 - He Was to Enter the Temple

 First, let's look at Matthew 21:12 which claims a fulfillment of Malachi 3:1:

"And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all of them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves."

The claim is that this fulfills Malachi 3:1 which had YHVH saying:

"Behold! I am sending my angel to clear the way before Me, and the Lord that you seek will come to the temple suddenly. As for the angel of the covenant that you desire, behold! It is coming" says YHVH of Hosts.

Now, like most of these "fulfilled prophecies", this particular source is also not messianic.

Certainly, one can interpret the half of a verse as referring to the coming of the messiah, but only if one doesn't read the other verses around it and knows little of Malachi.

So unlike the other prophets, which were written during a time of oppression, Malachi wasn't. So let's look at the book in order to better understand what Malachi 3:1 actually means...in context!

THE BOOK OF MALACHI

Malachi (pronounced “MAH LAH KHEE”) means “my messenger” Whether that was his actual name, or is a bit of word-play based on the book assigned to his name is uncertain. He lived during the time of the second Temple and is considered to be the last of the prophets (sorry Muhammed and John the Baptist!)  His book is chronologically not only the last of the books, but takes place after the redemption from Babylon was long over, the Temple had been rebuilt, and the Jews were trying to figure out how to use the Temple, and were disappointed in it. Mainly, based on this book, they didn’t see God in the Temple and considered all of the rituals to be a bother.

In this book, the Problem of Evil (basically, “Why do the righteous suffer and the evil ones prosper?”) is invoked more than once, and while nobody is taking this very seriously, there are those who hope that there is something to it, even though God doesn’t seem to be in the Temple like the legends concerning the first one, which the Babylonians had destroyed a long time ago.

CHAPTER ONE

And so, this is where the book opens up, with Malachi explaining that YHVH does love them, and that He had chosen them over the descendants of Esau (the Edomites being symbolic of God’s disfavor by their destined fall, again and again). The is the theme of the first five verses of the first chapter.

Verses 6-14, the remaining verses of the first chapter is basically saying, “It’s not working. Not because God doesn’t care, but because YOU haven’t cared enough in your offerings, you cheap bastards!” And so, the first of the three chapters is chastising the Jews for not taking this whole Temple thing seriously enough.

It should be noted that Malachi is not concerned with any Messianic declaration, as in “the messiah will come and save you” as did the other prophets who were concerned with the Assyrian, Edomite, and Babylonian threats. Here, the Prophet is only concerned with getting the Temple activities to be taken seriously so that God can dwell in there once more, rather than being a whimsical bit of cosplay by the people involved.

Which slides nicely into the second chapter that addresses exactly that.

CHAPTER TWO

The first 10 of the 17 verses of chapter two is chastising the priesthood, complaining that they are not taking their job seriously, the see this entire ritual thing as a burden, and aren’t serious about being Temple or societal priests. They are an embarrassment to their priestly ancestors, and they are despised by the people because God despises their attitude concerning their priestly duties.

The last 7 verses of chapter two are where the prophet turns his attention to the non-priestly element of the Jewish people, complaining that they have married out, taking as wives from other nations, marrying women who worshipped other Gods (verse 11). Such men who marry gentile women will have no more descendants (verse 12), given that, after the Greek occupation, for one to be a Jew, one’s mother needed to be Jewish as a result of “droit du seigneur”.

Verses 13-16 is addressing the act where Jewish men who had Jewish wives would take on a pagan wife later on, causing the Jewish wives to cry, bringing offerings of their tears to God, tears that have no effect, and the men would then divorce (literally “sent away”) their first wife, the wife of their youth (verse 15), and God hates that. (Some Christians use this verse to explain why God hates divorce without seeing that it means divorcing the wrong woman – the Jewish one).

Chapter 2 then ends with the people, seeing how God doesn’t intervene in such cases of evil, obviously prefers the evil over the good. The people then says that God wearies of hearing that nonsense, since it’s a justification of blaming God for their own acts.

This then slides in nicely to the third chapter (Christians have divided this last chapter into two chapters, but that’s not important here), which is, “God is absent from His Temple because you aren’t doing it right, and isn’t making His presence known because you aren’t living your lives right.

So, chapter three is about getting God back into the Temple and their lives.

CHAPTER THREE

As I mentioned before, the Jews don’t have any problems with enemies, and so the focus here is not about having a messiah come to save them, as in the case of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and so forth. Rather, the focus is on having God reside in His Temple, and be an active part of the lives of the Jews, and to be taken seriously. While Christins see Malachi 3:1 as messianic, of a messiah coming to the Temple, it’s really about God. That becomes apparent when one looks at all of chapter three.

Before we start, notice that the name of the prophet is “Malachi” which means “my messenger” or “my angel”. And this first verse contains that name and its root as part of the verse. This could be a bit of word-play.

Verse 3:1

               “I am here and have sent My angel to clear the way before Me, and instantly afterwards the Lord, that you-all are requesting for, will come to His Temple. And an angel of the covenant that you-all desire, behold! He comes, says YHVH of hosts.”

This “angel of the covenant” is a literary element representing the purification process needed for God to reside among the people. So, YHVH sends this angel, later referred to as the “angel of the covenant”, who has the power to purify, to clean away impurities, before God will reside in His Temple. “Fire” and “lye” are used as expressions of purification when it speaks of purifying a people.

The first group, as referred to in the first part of chapter two, are the priestly cast. They need to be purified (3:3) so that they can present the right offerings and do so in righteousness. The next group referred to in the second part of chapter two are the non-priestly Judeans.

But just before the angel can do his cleaning, God steps forth (3:5) and makes accusations about the people, that they haven’t been acting as they should have, that they were doing some of the worst things possible that would normally have demanded their lives for doing so. And then God says that they have also been cheating Him out of what is due to them – the priestly tithing. (3:10). And promises to bless them all if they bring the required tithes to the Temple storehouse. And if they do so, they will also benefit, prosper, and be happy (3:11-12). Verses 13-21 has God chastising them for believing that God doesn’t care about who does good or evil, and that none of it matters. God then corrects them and tells them that one day they will certainly see a distinction.

The book ends with the last three verses of the third chapter telling people that they should keep the teachings of Moses, with all of his laws and commandments, and if they do so, one day, YHVH will send Elijah (there is a legend that he never died and travels around to attend every circumcision and every Passover meal), to summon the end of days (“the great and fearsome day of YHVH”), where all will be gathered together.

SUMMARY

The book of Malachi is not messianic. Verse 3:1 speaks of YHVH coming to reside in His Temple, not a messiah coming into a temple to kick over tables and knock over chairs and hit people with his homemade whip.

The entire intent of this book was about taking God seriously and His works. There was no need for getting freed from the other nations, or to be saved from them. Nor does it speak of any king (other than, perhaps implied, YHVH, as “the Lord”).

So, did Jesus fulfill Malachi 3:1 by entering the Temple during an angry moment?

No. It was possible fulfilled during the lifetime of Malachi, indicating that the Jews took their lot seriously. But Jesus certainly didn’t accomplish God dwelling in His House, which was the focus of the Book of Malachi.

And that’s Malachi in a nutshell!

Style: “non-messianic, was already fulfilled, and Jesus didn’t fulfill it”