Malachi ?????? Matthew

[gmik]

I have read about the 400 years in between the testaments.  But that is all physical and history.

Is there any significance to this silence spiritually??

Historically, judaism slides farther & farther down the tubes till it becomes pharasaical(word?).

[skydreamers]

Wow, that's an interesting question...I've never thought about that before or heard it asked....I'm excited to see what others have to say!

Gena, is that a dog and a cat in your avatar?  Are they like, just hanging out together on a hot summer day???  How precious is that!!  Too cute.

Peace to ya,
Diana

[gmik]

Hi Diana.  Yes, Jackee & Sunny are friends.  That is our yard.  Sunny belongs next door but loves us and when we are out she scoots over and hangs out.

I am glad you think it an interesting question.  I wasn't sure if anyone would.

30 people have checked already!!!

[josh]

Gena,

First comes the physical then the spiritual.

AMOS 8:11-14

11 "The time is surely coming," says the Sovereign Lord,
      "when I will send a famine on the land—
   not a famine of bread or water
      but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
      and wander from border to border
   searching for the word of the Lord,
      but they will not find it.
13 Beautiful girls and strong young men
      will grow faint in that day,
      thirsting for the Lord's word.
14 And those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria—
      who take oaths in the name of the god of Dan
      and make vows in the name of the god of Beersheba—
   they will all fall down,
      never to rise again."

While there may have been 400+ years of silence/famine from the physical word of God through a physical prophet, the world today is experiencing a much greater spiritual silence/famine from the word of God.

This spiritual famine of the Word of God that has overtake the world around us, is the same famine we are coming out of daily.

God's Peace.
Josh

[Kat]

Hi Gena,

I checked in the commentaries and here's a few things I thought would be helpful to understand this last of the prophets.


Malachi forms the transition link between the two dispensations, the Old and the New, "the skirt and boundary of Christianity" [Tertullian], to which perhaps is due the abrupt earnestness which characterizes his prophecies. (by A.R. Faussett)


Malachi was the last of the prophets, and is supposed to have prophesied B.C. 420. He reproves the priests and the people for the evil practices into which they had fallen, and invites them to repentance and reformation, with promises of the blessings to be bestowed at the coming of the Messiah. And now that prophecy was to cease, he speaks clearly of the Messiah, as nigh at hand, and directs the people of God to keep in remembrance the law of Moses, while they were in expectation of the gospel of Christ.
(MHCC)

The general design of it is to reprove the Jews for their ingratitude to the Lord, their neglect and contempt of His worship, and breach of His laws; and to raise in the minds of the truly Godly an expectation of the Messiah, and His forerunner, John the Baptist. (GILL)

Malachi, is like a late evening, which brings a long day to a close; but he is also the morning dawn, which bears a glorious day in its womb (Herzog's Cyclopaedia).



mercy, peace, and love
Kat

[gmik]

Josh, I love that passage in Amos.  And you are right- we do have a famine in the land.  It is still hard for me to imagine that there weren't any prophets out and about.  It is an interesting part of Jewish history w/ the Maccabbees etc. I would think some of the prophecies of the OT were fulfilled during that time of Israels fight for survival.

Kat.  Great stuff.  I love that "late evening to glorious day" image.  I guess Israel did not listen to his plea's to reform & repent.

Thanks you two for the legwork.  I find it interesting.