Introduction to Malachi

Finally, I have settled down to doing a proper study of Malachi. As mentioned previously, I decided on Malachi because it was the last book of the Old Testament, and I wanted to go from the last book to the first book Genesis in that order. (Yeah, I know that's quite illogical but I wanted my bible study to be different and unusual.)

I'm using Matthew Henry's and John Calvin's commentaries for my study of Malachi.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc.i.html
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom30.html

Just a brief introduction to Malachi:
Malachi (whose name meant My Angel or My Messenger) was the last of the prophets. After him, there was a lapse of 400 years in which God didn't speak through prophets until Christ was revealed.

During the time that he spoke, the Jews had recently returned to their own country but they had reverted to their old ways. They had forgotten God's favour on them, and had relapsed into many sins and many vices.

Hence Malachi was actually delivering a very stern rebuke from God to His chosen people but he reserved his harshest comments for the priests, who were anointed by God to be teachers of the law and of uprighteousness, but who had actually committed a great deal of the sins of that time.

I wanted to start off this entry with my reflections and thoughts on Malachi 1, but I realised that the two commentaries that I'm using offer a very detailed study of the book, including longish notes on each verse so I've decided to go through the notes on Malachi 1 before penning my thoughts on the first chapter.

John Calvin's notes on Malachi's chapter 1, for instance, runs into 28 printed A4-sized pages, and his entire commentary for the book (only four chapters) runs into 93 pages.

So I now need to decide how I want to distill both the commentaries into a series on Reflections of Malachi. Following that, then I will pick up on Malachi 1 and post my thoughts.

PS: I caught the biblical origin of the song "From the rising of the sun to the going down, the Lord's name is to be praised, is to be praised". It's in Malachi! :-)

Malachi 1: 11

For from the rising of the sun,
even to its going down,
My name shall be great among the Gentiles;
In every place incense shall be offered to My name,
And a pure offering;
For My name shall be great among the nations,"
Says the LORD of hosts.