Background and Author Introduction to the Book of Malachi

The Hebrew name for the Book of Malachi is “Malachi” (מלאכי / Mal’akhi), and it is the last book in the Book of the Twelve Prophets (תרי עשר / Trei Asar). In the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, Malachi is placed after the Book of Zechariah. Through Zechariah, God declared how He would prepare the environment for building the Temple and how He would bring this Temple into glory. Through Malachi, God demanded that both priests and the people correctly respond to His love, preparing themselves and awaiting the Messiah’s arrival on “the great and awesome day of the LORD.”

The name “Malachi” means “My messenger.” Tradition holds that the author of the Book of Malachi is the prophet Malachi, who was the last prophet of the Old Testament era. Malachi’s ministry likely occurred after the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, and was contemporary with Nehemiah. This book does not mention the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls, but it does highlight the corruption of the priests at the time. This situation aligns perfectly with Jerusalem’s condition when Nehemiah returned to Babylon for his report in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, around 434 BC (Nehemiah 13:6). This period was shortly after the Greco-Persian Wars (499-449 BC), as Greek civilization began its rise and the Persian Empire gradually declined.

Most prophets served in turbulent times, but Malachi’s era was a relatively calm period of waiting. By this time, 105 years had passed since the exiles returned, 83 years since the Temple was rebuilt, and even Jerusalem’s city walls had been completed for 12 years. Yet, God seemed to have forgotten His people, allowing them to remain under Persian rule for a long time, enduring life’s hardships and social injustice. The age of miracles seemed to have passed with Elijah and Elisha, and there was no sign that God would “return to Zion” (Zechariah 8:3) or fill the Temple with His glory (Ezekiel 43:4). The revival prophesied by Haggai and Zechariah had not come, and the people’s fervor had gradually cooled. Although the returning people no longer worshipped idols, the sacrifices in the new Temple had become a habitual, cyclical routine, and their hearts no longer held the former zeal, but were instead filled with doubts. Once the covenant relationship between humanity and God was broken, marital covenants and social relationships—including husband-wife and father-son relationships—all teetered on the brink of collapse. At this point, God sent a prophet to remind His people: they should correctly respond to the love of the covenant-keeping God, “keeping themselves in the love of God” (Jude 21), faithfully upholding their covenant duties while waiting, ready for the Lord they seek to “suddenly come to his temple” (Malachi 3:1) and refine His people.

This book serves as a bridge from the Old Testament era to the New Testament era, allowing God’s waiting people to glimpse the dawn over four hundred years in the future. Today, every believer’s life includes many seasons of waiting. God also wants us to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18), to understand and count God’s blessings so that we can correctly respond to His love, faithfully uphold our duties, and “await the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30).