FYI – Malachi’s Messages

The book of Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament. It is not only last in order. It is also perhaps the last book written in time though sections of Nehemiah may have been written after Malachi. There is a lot of discussion about the exact timing of Malachi, but most place it between 450-433 B.C.

Malachi’s outline is fairly easy to see. It is made up of six messages, or “disputations”—confrontational speeches that attempt to convince another party of the speaker’s position. In this, Malachi is attempting to convince the descendants of the people who returned from Babylonian captivity that they are engaging in the same type of rebellion that led to the captivity to begin with. Therefore, they must repent and turn back to God and await the coming of the Day of the Lord.

Each disputation, or message, has an assertion made by God, a objection posed by a question, and a response demonstrating the truth of the assertion. Two of the disputations have two assertions and questions (#2 and 5). The following chart shows the outline of the book.

	Unit	Assertion	Objection(s)	Response
1.	1:2–5	1:2a	1:2b	1:2c–5
2.	1:6–2:9	1:6a, 7a	1:6b, 7b	1:7c–2:9
3.	2:10–16	2:10–13	2:14a	2:14b–16
4.	2:17–3:5	2:17a	2:17b	2:17c–3:5
5.	3:6–12	3:6–7b, 8a	3:7c, 8b	3:8c–12
6.	3:13–4:3	3:13a	3:13b	3:14–4:3

Next time you read Malachi, look for the messages (and realize that they cross chapter boundaries). It will help to make sense of the message.

A later post will talk about the messages themselves.

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(The chart is taken from Dr. Robert V. McCabe.)