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- For the Northern Irish singer songwriter, see Malachi Cush.
- See also Book of Malachi
Malachi or Mal'achi (מַלְאָכִי "My messenger/angel", Standard Hebrew Malʾaḫi, Tiberian Hebrew Malʾāḵî) was a prophet in the Bible Old Testament and Jewish Tanakh.
He was the last of the minor prophets, and the writer of the Book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament canon (Mal. 4:4, 5, 6) Christian editions, and is the last book of the Neviim (prophets) section in the Jewish editions. No allusion is made to him by Ezra, however, and he does not mention the restoration of the temple, and hence it is inferred that he prophesied after Haggai and Zechariah (Mal. 1:10; 3:1, 10). It is probable that he delivered his prophecies about 420 BCE, after the second return of Nehemiah from Persia (Neh. 13:6), or possibly before his return. Compare Mal. 2:8 with Neh. 13:15; Mal. 2:10-16 with Neh. 13:23).
Rabbinical view
Malachi is identified with Mordecai by Rav Nachman and with Ezra by Joshua b. Karcha (Meg. 15a). Jerome, in his preface to the commentary on Malachi, mentions that in his day the belief was current that Malachi was identical with Ezra ("Malachi Hebræi Esdram Existimant"). The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel to the words "By the hand of Malachi" (i. 1) gives the gloss "Whose name is called Ezra the scribe." According to Soṭah 48b, when Malachi died the Holy Spirit departed from Israel. According to R. H. 19b, he was one of the three prophets concerning whom there are certain traditions with regard to the fixing of the Jewish almanac. A tradition preserved in pseudo-Epiphanius ("De Vitis Proph.") relates that Malachi was of the tribe of Zebulun, and was born after the Captivity. According to the same apocryphal story he died young, and was buried in his own country with his fathers
Critical view
The name is not a "nomen proprium"; it is generally assumed to be an abbreviation of ("messenger of Yhwh"), which conforms to the Μαλαχίας of the Septuagint and the "Malachias" of the Vulgate. The Septuagint superscription is ὲν χειρὶ ἀγγήλου αὐτοῦ, for .
Wellhausen, Abraham Kuenen, and Wilhelm Gustav Hermann Nowack consider ch. i. 1 a late addition, pointing to Zech. ix. 1, xii. 1. Carl Heinrich Cornill states that Zech. ix.-xiv. and Malachi are anonymous, and were, therefore, placed at the end of the prophetical books. Mal. iii. 1 shows almost conclusively that the term was misunderstood, and that the proper name originated in a misconception of the word. The consensus of opinion seems to point to 432-424 BCE as the time of the composition of the book. This was the time between the first and second visits of Nehemiah to Jerusalem. Some assert that the book was written before 458 BCE, that is, before the arrival of Ezra in Jerusalem.
"Malachi"