MALACHI: Q & A

The frustrations and struggles that are dealt with in the Remnant, especially those spoken to in Haggai and Zechariah, eventually boil over and find their fruition in the decades that follow the restoration of Jerusalem. To put it simply, the people are disappointed that things didn’t turn out like they had dreamed. They didn’t come back and restore a glorious kingdom. God didn’t give them all of their land and sovereignty back. In fact, their experience was quite the opposite.

What appeared to be a turning of the tables with the kingdom of Persia happened to become a simple reshuffling of the items on the table. Some of the earlier oppression got better, only to be replaced by a much more subtle oppression that is harder to identify and fight. Instead of being physically persecuted and militarily dominated, they find themselves being enticed into a system that controls you from the inside out. Instead of being forced into physical servitude, you are forced into a cultural servitude that destroys your will to subvert the idolatry all around you. Instead of being robbed of your material possessions, you are robbed of your identity as partners of God.

This brave new world isn’t all it was cracked up to be — it rarely is.

The people mourn this loss and their situation. They begin to lose hope and lose the determination and inspiration that’s needed to subvert the ways of empire all around them. And so their struggles to walk the path well continue.

Ever been there? Have you ever found yourself longing for “the good ol’ days”? Do you ever get caught up in a wave of nostalgia and find yourself wishing that things could go back to the way they were?

Well, they can’t. They never can. Time only moves forward; you can never go backward. Instead, you have to think about all the possibilities that might lie before you in a new reality. If God is for us… if we trust the story… if we’re people of the Resurrection and new tomorrows and the Repairer of Broken Walls… then our best days must lie out in front of us, never behind us.

Rabbi David Fohrman recently gave a parsha teaching on the importance of what happens when we begin to lose hope. Is hope really irrational? In it, he brought up an amazing point:

“Do we imagine new tomorrows or do we lie to ourselves about a better past?”

I have realized that I have often lied to myself about a past that never was. I begin to think that “the good ol’ days” were far better than they actually were. And I’ve noticed that when I begin to believe this, I start to live much more poorly in the present. I begin to fall into bad attitudes and bad habits. Quite frankly, I find myself beginning to fall into the sins of the past, as well.

I believe this is what is happening to God’s people in the time of Malachi. And Malachi has been sent (or somebody has; malachi literally means “my messenger.” Some have argued that it isn’t even a name, but a reference to some nameless prophet) to shake the people out of their foolish nostalgia. Malachi does this by painting the picture of a dialogue between God and His people. They have a thorough Q&A interview process:

“A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the LORD Almighty.

“It is you priests who show contempt for my name.

“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’

“By offering defiled food on my altar.

“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’

“By saying that the LORD’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the LORD Almighty.

Or later:

Another thing you do: You flood the LORD’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.

Or even later:

“I the LORD do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty.

“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’

“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the LORD Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.

“You have spoken arrogantly against me,” says the LORD.

“Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’

“You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.’ ”

But this time, God’s people hear the message of God’s messenger. We are told that there WERE people who belonged to a faithful remnant. They marked the moment by writing a scroll of remembrance and God marked the moment with a promise that extends through the final chapter of the prophet:

Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name.

“On the day when I act,” says the LORD Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”

That day, God once again found a partner. Sometimes it’s simply 7,000 people who haven’t bowed the knee to Baal in the midst of a nation corrupted with idolatry. Sometimes it’s a small group of twenty people who could save a city like Sodom and Gomorrah. Sometimes it’s just a few people, serving in the presence of a frustrated people who are losing hope, who put their names on a scroll and set out to become people of the promise.
I wonder what it would take for us to be a part of a faithful remnant.

ZECHARIAH: Apocalyptic Literature

One of Haggai’s contemporaries (maybe even a well-known acquaintance) was the prophet Zechariah. When one does the dating of the return of Ezra-Nehemiah and considers that they are referred to as “young men” in their prophecies, it stands to reason that Haggai and Zechariah were toddlers when the first few waves of returnees hit the ground in Jerusalem. To give these prophets some “real life context,” these two boys grew up in the mess and struggle that was the Remnant.

While Haggai’s ministry is short and sweet, Zechariah’s ministry spans a few decades. Zechariah gives consistent images that are meant to inspire the people to push forward into the future God has ahead of them. Zechariah is another prophet who will employ very heavy and intentional use of apocalyptic literature. As we’ve mentioned before, apocalyptic literature utilizes symbols and images to convey hope to their present day. And at the risk of repeating myself from our Ezekiel discussion (it’s worth it; this is important), apocalyptic literature is not trying to map out visions of the “end times” and lay out blueprints for the future. That is simply not how apocalyptic literature functions. Whether God decides to do things in the future in a way that lines up with these prophesies (something God loves to do — He loves to reference His own book) is up to Him, but the inspired prophecy of Zechariah is not primarily about our future world.

On the contrary, Zechariah is a prophecy about the remnant that has returned and the need for them to persevere in the face of imperial rule. Trying to rebuild the glory of “the good ol’ days” while you sit under the control of a Persian government begins to weigh on a person’s psyche. Zechariah tells them to hold on, and he does it by employing metaphors, visions, and images.

As is true with much apocalyptic literature, the pictures are often full of symbols that represent God and His people, the trials of the audience, and the eventual triumph of God’s good agenda. Also typical of apocalyptic literature, the prophecy begins with images that encourage faithfulness and endurance, and then moves to close the prophecy with the assuring proclamation that a new kingdom, a new reality, and a new ruler is on the way. Zechariah is quite insistent that if God’s people will persevere, their future king will come to them. But for now, they must walk obediently the path that lies before them — the path through Persia.

Having a grasp on apocalyptic literature and the movement of the prophet allows us to read books like Zechariah and understand them. We love to cherry-pick passages from Zechariah that fit our needs for a good proof text, but we rarely find these passages used in context. For example, one of the most famous passages from Zechariah is the humble king who comes riding on a donkey:

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
    Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
    righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
    and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
    and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
    His rule will extend from sea to sea
    and from the River to the ends of the earth.

The sun has not set on too many Palm Sundays without that verse being quoted at least once — and for good reason. However, what we often fail to understand is what Zechariah’s original intent was when he prophesied those words. Zechariah was insisting that if God’s people would find a way to live obediently within empire, God would send them rescue. And this rescue wouldn’t come through armies and military might, but by God’s divine providence.

They would see their king rise to power through humility.

Sound familiar? And no, I’m not talking about Jesus. We will certainly address this later, but at this point in the story, Jesus isn’t here yet. We have to hear this story in its original context in order to appreciate what Jesus will do with it.

And if the people of God will walk in obedience — even in the midst of Persia — God will do something in the world that will destroy the weapons of war and the chariots of oppression.

One final note before we’re done: It’s worth noting that almost all the images of Zechariah will show up later in the book of Revelation. John will end up taking the apocalyptic images of the Tanakh and use them to craft his own message to the early church.

Zechariah’s prophecy starts with a man walking among the myrtle trees; Revelation starts with a man walking among the lampstands.

Zechariah speaks of the horns that were sounded to scatter Israel; Revelation speaks of trumpets that are sounded to usher in destruction and rescue.

Zechariah speaks of a measuring line used to measure Jerusalem; the same image is employed in Revelation at the end of the vision.

Zechariah talks about clean garments of the high priests; John tells us about a multitude in clean, white robes.

Zechariah tells us about scrolls; so does John.

Zechariah speaks of a woman in a basket; Revelation speaks of a woman on a beast.

Zechariah contains the vision of four horses drawing chariots; so does Revelation.

And yet, we stand around and wring our hands and moan about how the book of Revelation is so vague and complex and hard to understand. Everything in Revelation has already been said centuries before. Maybe it would help if we became familiar with the Hebrew scriptures that John is quoting — just a thought.

I think it’s time to get in the Text.

HAGGAI: Build!

As the people of God struggle to rebuild under the pressures we talked about in the last post, Zerubbabel gets some help from some prophetic friends, Haggai and Zechariah. Haggai’s ministry appears to kick things off and lasts for only a short period of time. The entire prophecy of Haggai spans about nine months according to the specific dates given in the book. The prophecy of Haggai is very brief and easy to read; it’s about the length of a blog post (I thought about just copying and pasting the Text and calling it good) and I recommend taking a moment either before, during, or after this post to read the whole book yourself. It’s one of the prophets that I find many people have never read. You should change that!

Haggai’s message is quite simple: It’s time to get off your butts and build God’s house!

Now, this may seem to run a little contrary to some of the things we saw earlier, where the author seems to suggest that everyone was getting distracted with the building project that God didn’t want. If God didn’t want a house in the first place, why is He so passionate about this one? I think the answer lies in beginning of the prophet:

This is what the LORD Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the LORD’s house.’ ”

Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”

The issue doesn’t appear to be the status of a house made with cedar and gold. It STILL appears to be the state of the people’s hearts. God seems to be a little concerned with where their priorities lie. They’ve had no problem returning home and building their own paneled homes. But for some reason, it’s still “not time” to build the LORD’s house.

Haggai clearly tells them: The time has come. Let’s get moving.

But Haggai is also interested in dealing with the emotional state that is hamstringing the process. Haggai is well aware that part of the problem with this building project is that the Temple being restored is no match for the glory of the Temple that Solomon established in all of his wealth and imperial might. Haggai tells them that the magnificence of the building is not where the significance lies. Instead, it is the Glory that dwells within it. And that Glory is not going to be harnessed or diminished by the level of opulence they install.

On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: “Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask them, ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? But now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ declares the LORD. ‘Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the LORD, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the LORD Almighty. ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’

“This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the LORD Almighty. ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”

Haggai closes his prophecy by reminding the people how important it will be to stay pure at this stage of rebuilding their homeland. It is much more difficult to spread goodness and light than it is to spread darkness and trouble. After utilizing a metaphor built around clean and unclean articles and temple worship, Haggai assures the people that if they will persevere in the project that God has for them, they will find everything they truly need in Him.

The message of Haggai is yet another prophet that continues to speak to us today. He speaks about priorities and whether or not we happen to be more concerned with our own agendas than with God’s. He speaks to us about what truly matters: the opulence of our church buildings? The impressive nature of our Bible knowledge? The academic credentials we place after our names?

God is able to dwell in the humblest of temples.


In fact, He seems to prefer it.