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النشر الإلكتروني

MALACHI.

CHAPTER I.

Ver. 1. The burden of the word of the LORD to
Israel by Malachi.

The prophecy is here called "burden," a term which frequently occurs elsewhere, and which is usually understood as equivalent to "burdensome prophecy," or such as denounced heavy and grievous things. But from the following passage of Jeremiah, it would seem that that interpretation does not universally hold: "And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, that shall say, The burden of the Lord, I will even punish that man and his house. Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother, What hath the Lord answered? and, What hath the Lord spoken? And the burden of the Lord shall he mention no more: for every man's word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God. Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, What hath the Lord answered thee? and, What hath the Lord spoken? But since ye say, The burden of the Lord; therefore thus saith the Lord, Because you say this word, The burden of the Lord, and I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of the Lord." (Jer. xxiii. 34–38.) This has evidently the air of a prohibition against taking the word in that unfavourable sense. The original term massa, from a root signifying to bear, carry, take up, is of doubtful import, and sometimes signifies a burden, and sometimes what was borne, carried, or delivered from one to another, whether a thing or a word, and so was used for a prophecy or message from God, or other speech or doctrine. The Jews, therefore, regarding the messages received from God, and delivered to them by the prophets, as things grievous and burdensome, called the word thus spoken, a burden, by way of reproach, meaning that it always portended evil, and never good, or in other words, a calamitous prophecy. But God, seeing the wickedness of their hearts, charges them with perverting his word, and forbids them any more so to abuse it. We infer that the term does not originally and exclusively imply a grievous and heavy burden, but simply a message, whether its import were joyous or afflictive. This is confirmed by Zech. xii. 1, where it is prefixed to the promise of good things.-BUSH.

Ver. 4. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever.

See on Jer. 49. 15-17, and Joel 3. 19.

Astonishment, for which language can scarcely find utterance, is the sentiment expressed by every traveller who has been able to explore the magnificent ruins of the once proud metropolis of Idumea or Edom. A narrow and circuitous defile, surrounded on each side by lofty and precipitous or perpendicular rocks, forms the approach to the desolate yet magnificent scene delineated in our engraving. The ruins of the city here burst upon the view in their full grandeur, shut in on the opposite side by barren craggy precipices, from which numerous ravines and valleys branch out in all directions; the sides of the mountains, covered with an endless variety of excavated tombs and private dwellings, present altogether the most singular scene that can well be conceived. In further confirmation of the identity of the site, and the accuracy of the application of the prophecy of Jeremiah, it may be added, that

the name of this capital, in all the various languages in which it occurs, implies ▲ ROCK.

The theatre, which is seen on the left of our view, is the first object which presents itself to the traveller on entering PETRA from the eastward. Captains Irby and Mangles state that it was entirely hewn out of the live rock. The scene was unfortunately built, and not excavated. Frag ments of columns are strewed on the ground in front. This theatre is surrounded by sepulchres. Every avenue leading to it is full of them; and it may be safely affirmed, that one hundred of the largest dimensions are visible from it. Indeed, throughout almost every quarter of this metropolis, the depositories of the dead must have presented themselves constantly to the eyes of the inhabitants, and have almost outnumbered the inhabitants of the living. There is a long line of them, not far from the theatre, at such an angle as not to be comprehended from the view of it, but which must have formed a principal object for the city itself.

"The largest of the sepulchres had originally three stories, of which the lowest presented four portals, with large columns set between them; and the second and third, a row of eighteen Ionic columns each, attached to the façade: the live rock being insufficient for the total elevation, a part of the story was grafted on in masonry, and is for the most part fallen away. The four portals of the basement open into as many chambers, but all sepulchral, and without any communication between them. In one were three recesses, which seem to have been ornamented with marble, or some other extraneous material.

"Of all the ruins of PETRA, the mausoleums and sepulchres are among the most remarkable; and they give the clearest indication of ancient and long-continued royalty, and of courtly grandeur. Their immense number corrob orates the accounts given of their successive kings and princes by Moses and Strabo, though a period of eighteen hundred years intervened between the dates of their respective records concerning them. The structure of the sepulchres also shows that many of them are of a more recent date. Great must have been the opulence of a city which could dedicate such monuments to the memory of its rulers. But the long line of the kings and nobles of Idumea has for ages been cut off: they are without any representative now, without any memorial but the multitude and magnificence of their unvisited sepulchres. No more shall they boast of the renown of the kingdom; and all her princes shall utterly fail.' (Bp. Lowth's translation of Isa. xxxiv. 12.)

"Amid the mausoleums and sepulchres, the remains of temples or palaces, and the multiplicity of tombs,-which all form, as it were, the grave of Idumea, where its ancient splendour is interred, there are edifices, the Greek and Roman architecture of which decides that they were built long posterior to the era of the prophets."-" They shall build, but I will throw down." (Mal. i. 4.)—HORNE,

Ver. 7. Ye offer polluted bread upon my altar and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the LORD is contemptible.

"In that ye say." They said, in effect, that the altar of Jehovah was vile and contemptible, by offering on it torn, blind, lame, and sick victims.-NEWCOMB.

Ver. 8. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy per son? saith the LORD of hosts.

Though things of very little value are sometimes offered as presents, those to whom presents are made do not think themselves always obliged graciously to accept every thing that is brought, or even to dissemble their dislike; they frequently reject the present, and refuse the favour sought, The behaviour of an aga in Egypt to Dr. Pococke, demonstrates this; as does also this passage of Capt. Norden: "The cashef of Esna was encamped in this place. He made us come ashore. I waited immediately upon him, with some small presents. He received me very civilly, and ordered coffee to be served me. But he refused absolutely what I offered him as a present, and let me know by the interpreter, that in the places from whence we were come, we had given things of greater value, and that we ought not to show less respect to him." Something of the like nature appears in many other passages in travels.

If a present was not somewhat proportionate to the quality of the person applied to, the circumstances of him that offered it, and the value of the favour asked, it was rejected. Lambs and sheep were often given as presents. So the cashef I have been speaking of, made Norden and his company a present the next day of two very fat sheep, together with a great basket of bread. The reys, or boatmen, that had carried them up the Nile, we are told, in like manner, came to see them three days before, and made them a present of an excellent sheep, together with a basket of Easter bread. Perhaps we may be ready to imagine presents of this kind were only made to travellers that wanted provisions; but this would be a mistake. Sir John Chardin, in his MS. expressly tells us, "it is the custom of the East for poor people, and especially those that live in the country, to make presents to their lords of lambs and sheep, as an offering, tribute, or succession. Presents to men, like offerings to God, expiate offences." So D'Arvieux mentions lambs among the things offered to him as presents, when he officiated as secretary to the great emir of the Arabs. The Jewish people were in a low state in the time of Malachi, and almost entirely engaged in country business.

How energetic, if we assemble these circumstances together, is the expostulation of the prophet! "If ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if ye offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor, will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person?" Mal. i. 8. When they made presents of lambs or sheep, they brought those that were very fat: would a Jewish governor have accepted one that was blind, and consequently half starved? or pining with lameness or sickness?-HARMER.

Ver. 13. Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the LORD of hosts: and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the LORD.

The margin has, instead of " and ye have snuffed at it," "or whereas ye might have blown it away." The marginal reading is, I doubt not, the best. The Jews had complained of the "WEARINESS" of their duties: they were tired of making offerings, and those they did offer were "polluted," or "lame," or "blind;" whereas, instead of those duties being burdensome, they were so LIGHT that they might have BLOWN them away. Does a person complain of his numerous labours or duties, another will ask; "What are they? why, a breath will blow them away." "Alas! I have many things to attend to."-" Fy on you for talking so; if you BLOW on them they will go."--ROB

ERTS.

CHAPTER II.

Ver. 3. Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts, and one shall take you away with it.

In the 11th verse of this chapter, allusion is again made to the heathenism of Judah: they had "married the daughter of a strange god." "Dung upon your faces." What can

this refer to? Probably to the custom of the IDOLATERS, of spreading the ashes of Cow-DUNG on their FACES, and to the marginal reference of Deut. xxix. 17, "dungy gods," on which see the remarks.-ROBERTS.

Ver. 12. The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts.

"The master and the scholar." This should rather be rendered, "the watchman and the answerer," as Arias Montanus has it, vigilantem et respondentem. The true explanation is probably to be brought from the temple service, in which there was appointed a constant watch, day and night, by the Levites; and among them this seems to have belonged particularly to the singers, 1 Chron. ix. 33. Now the watches in the East are, to this day, performed by a loud cry from time to time, by the watchmen, one after another, to mark the hour, and that very frequently, in order to show that they are constantly attentive to their duty. Tavernier remarks, that "the watchmen in the camps go their rounds, crying one after another, "God is one, He is merciful;" and often add," Take heed to yourselves." The hundred and thirty-fourth Psalm gives us an example of the temple-watch. The whole Psalm is nothing more than the alternate cry of the two different divisions of the watch. The allusion is similar in the passage before us. (See Lowth on Is. lxii. 6.)-BUSH.

Ver. 14. Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. 15. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the Spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed

to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

"And did not he make one?" This, Madan contends, (Thelypthora, vol. 1, p. 135,) should be rendered, "and did not one make?" The mass of commentators, he remarks, misled by translators, understand the words as signifying that in the beginning God made but one woman; He had the residue of the spirit, i. e. of power, and therefore could have made more women for Adam, if he had seen fit. To this interpretation he objects, that the original word A cannot signify one woman, inasmuch as it is not of the feminine, but of the masculine gender. Besides which, to read it in this manner requires an unnatural transposition of the words. He prefers, therefore, the rendering, "Did not one make ?" as v. 10, "Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Did not one, or The one, make both you and your Jewish wives? Did he not form both of you naturally of the same seed of Abraham, and spiritually by the same holy dispensation and ordinances? And he hath (or, hath he not) the residue of the spirit? i. e. Hath he not the same power he ever had? Is his hand shortened at all so that he cannot complete your restoration if he pleases, or punish you still more severely if ye continue disobedient to his will? And wherefore one? God, a holy seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, What did he seek? A godly seed; or, Heb. a seed of i. e. to your temper, your affections. Curb your irregular passions, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth, by putting her away, and taking these idolatresses; for I the Lord hate putting away."

The consideration of the relation in which they stood to Jehovah; he their common Father, they his professing children; was one argument against their separating. Another was, that as the Lord sought a godly seed in their offspring, by their being devoted to him in their earliest infancy, then brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, this design would be defeated by their taking idolatrous women, who, instead of devoting the children to Jehovah, would be apt to bring them up to the worship of their idols, and an ungodly seed would be the conse

quence. Lastly, he had forbidden divorce from the beginning, for he hateth putting away at any rate; but how much more to see his own professing daughters put away, that his own professing sons might marry the daughters of a strange god. This was indeed doing an abominable thing, which God hated.-BUSH.

CHAPTER III.

Ver. 14. Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts?

The margin, for "mournfully," has, " in black." Here we have another instance of the base ingratitude of the people: "It is vain to serve God."-" In black." "My friend, why has your face become so black ?" "Alas! my sorrow, my sorrow; therefore my face is full of blackness." "Yes, my sorrows are chased away, like dew before the sun, and my face no longer gathers blackness."-ROBERTS, CHAPTER IV.

Ver. 2. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall.

The late Mr. Robinson, of Cambridge, called upon a friend just as he had received a letter from his son, who was surgeon on board a vessel then dying off Smyrna. The son mentioned to his father, that every morning about sunrise a fresh gale of air blew from the sea across the land, and from its wholesomeness and utility in clearing the

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infected air, this wind is always called the Doctor. "Now," says Mr. Robinson, "it strikes me that the prophet Malachi, who lived in that quarter of the world, might allude to this circumstance, when he says, The Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings. The Psalmist mentions the wings of the wind, and it appears to me that this salubrious breeze, which attends the rising of the sun, may be properly enough considered as the wings of the sun, which contain such healing influences, rather than the beams of the sun, as the passage has been commonly understood."BURDER.

Ver. 3. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet, in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.

See on Is. 41. 25.

One sort of mortar made in the East is composed of one part of sand, two of wood-ashes, and three of lime, wel. mixed together, and beaten for three days and nights incessantly with wooden mallets. (Shaw.) Chardin mentions this circumstance, and applies it to this passage of the the making of mortar in the East, with ashes collected from prophet, supposing there is an allusion in these words to their baths. Some learned men have supposed the wicked here are compared to ashes, because the prophet had been speaking of their destruction under the notion of burning, ver. 1; but the sacred writers do not always keep close to those figures which they first propose; the paragraph of Malachi is a proof of this assertion, and if they had, he would not have spoken of treading on the wicked like ashes if it had not been customary in these times to tread ashes which it seems was done to make mortar.-HARMER.

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