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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.
– Malachi (“My Angel”) 4:2
This book of the Hebrew Bible (and the Christian Old Testament) is the beginning of Messianic Judaism.
Primarily because of its messianic promise, the book of Malachi is frequently referred to in the Christian New Testament.
What follows is a brief comparison between the book of Malachi and the New Testament texts which refer to it (as suggested in Hill 84-88).
Left: In Greek mythology the sun was personified as Helios. Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod (Theogony 371) and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia (Hesiod) or Euryphaessa (Homeric Hymn) and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. The names of these three were also the common Greek words for sun, moon and dawn. As time passed, Helios was increasingly identified with the god of light, Apollo. The equivalent of Helios in Roman mythology was Sol, specifically Sol Invictus.
The general scholarly consensus is that the book of Malachi was written in the period of the Persian Empire – the Achaemenid dynasty overthrown by Alexander the Great. Alexander invaded Persian-ruled Asia Minor, and began a series of campaigns lasting ten years. Alexander repeatedly defeated the Persians in battle; marched through Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Bactria; and in the process he overthrew the Persian king Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire.
This assumption is based on the word pehâ in 1:8, understood to be the Persian-era term for governor.
| Malachi | New Testament |
|---|---|
| “Yet I have loved Jacob but I have hated Esau” (1:2-3) | “‘I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.’” (Romans 9:13) |
| “And if I am a master, where is the respect due me?” (1:6) | “Why do you call me “Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46) |
| “the Lord’s table” (1:7, 12) | “the table of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 10:21) |
| “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations,” (1:11) | “so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you” (2 Thessalonians 1:12) |
| “Lord, who will not fear and glorify your name?” (Revelation15:4) | |
| “For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. But you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts,” (2:7-8) | “therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach” (Matthew 23:3) |
| “Have we not all one father?” (2:10) | “yet for us there is one God, the Father,” (1 Corinthians 8:6) |
| “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me,” (3:1) | “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way;” (Mark 1:2) |
| “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you” (Matthew 11:10, Luke 7:27) | |
| “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” (3:2) | “for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Revelation 6:17) |
| “and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver,” (3:3) | “so that the genuineness of your faith . . . being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire . . .” (1 Peter 1:7) |
| “against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages,” (3:5) | “Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud,” (James 5:4) |
| “For I the LORD do not change;” (3:6) | “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) |
| “Return to me, and I will return to you,” (3:7) | “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James4:8) |
| “But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise,” (3:20, 4:2) | “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,” (Luke 1:78) |
| “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” (3:23, 4:5) | “he is Elijah who is to come.” (Matthew 11:14) |
| “Elijah has already come,” (Matthew 17:12) | |
| “Elijah has come,” (Mark 9:13) | |
| “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents,” (3:23-24, 4:5-6) | “With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous,” (Luke 1:17) |
Left: Hyspaosines or Aspasine (born c. 209 BCE, died 124 BCE) was a satrap installed by Antiochus IV Epiphanes and later the first king (before 127-124 BCE) of Characene or Mesene (Meshun) mainly known from coins, but also appears in texts of cuneiform script (in the ‘astronomical diaries’).
That the term phh is used for a Persian satrap is certain:
Coins of the Philisto-Arabian Attic type and standard were minted in Palestine during the Persian era, but Gaza no longer appears to be the center for the issues. The discovery, since the 1960s, of hundreds of new coins from Judea and Samaria have substantially expanded the existing numismatic corpus of the Persian period. One coin even mentions Yehezqiyah, a governor (phh) of Judea and a Yohanan the priest (hkwhn) of Judah. The legends are mainly in Paleo-Hebrew script and mention the name yhd or, less frequently, yhwd.
– Palestine Under the Persians 539-332 BCE by Dr David F. Graf
As certain is that the book was apparently known to the author of Ecclesiasticus early in the Second Century BCE. This is the Seleucid – Greek – period of Persian history, when Greeks tried to force Hellenisation upon Judea, which led to major changes and conflicts within Judean society and faith: the rise of Messianic Judaism, the coming to power of the Hasmonaean dynasty, the rise of the Essenes and the three Jewish-Roman wars of the first and second centuries of this era.
How certain can we be that Malachi is of the early 5th century BCE, as supposed generally?
Languages of the peoples in this region tend to be related; maybe the language for this term was Hebrew and maybe it was Aramaic – that is, the author could have used a Hebrew word for a Persian term, or an Aramaic word for the Persian – and there are other possibilities. As this is not my territory, I leafed through some recent scholarly papers to see how the term is regarded. Here is one:
…the Hebrew and Aramaic word phh (from Akkadian…) has a broad range of meaning; within Biblical texts referring to the Achaemenid period alone it can refer to a satrap (Ezra 5:3) as well as a provincial governor (e.g. Neh. 5: l4b), whilst as we have noted Alt maintained that it could also be used for those commissioned to a specific task, such as Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel. Further afield, the occurrence of the plural form… in the Migdol Papyrus I 4 appears to refer to junior officials acting in a judicial capacity. This ambiguity is exploited in a general way by McEvenue and rather specifically by Naveh and Greenfield to cast doubt on the translation ‘the governor’ as a title for Elnathan in the Avigad collection and for Yehoezer and Ahzai in the seal impressions from Ramat Rahelf. Their argument is that the Aramaic word for governor is peha, which in the emphatic state should be pahta. Our pahwa, therefore, they take to be a backformation specifically from the plural pahwata of the Migdol Papyrus and therefore to mean not a governor but a lower governmental official. They conclude:
These texts were clearly from an archive which belonged to Shlomit who was the maidservant/concubine of Elnathan. The sealings belonged either to the participants in the affairs recorded in the papyri or to the witnesses. The yhwd sealings reflect the interest of the government in these proceedings and therefore we find among the participants Elnathan ‘the official’. There is no need to assume that this was an official archive (123 f.). `
In the course of a recent publication of some Hebrew pre-exilic bullae, Avigad has made a partial response to these arguments by emphasizing again the evidence that this was indeed an official archive, and adding the further considerations that it is unlikely that the ‘maidservant’ of a low-ranking official would have a formal seal or be the owner of so large an archive. Furthermore, in his original publication he had sought to dismiss the relevance of the Migdol Papyrus by suggesting that the word in question should not be vocalized as the emphatic plural of phh, but rather as an otherwise unattested abstract noun pahuta meaning ‘prefecture’. This is quite unconvincing, however, for the word occurs in a well-attested fixed legal formula in which in every other case a personal title is to be expected at this point. There can be no serious doubt that in this case, at least, the plural of phh is used for officials lower than the rank of governor.
Acceptance of this point, however, by no means involves agreement with Naveh and Greenfield over the meaning of phw’. First, for their argument to work, they would have to establish that the plural pahwata’ was only ever used of junior officials so that a backformation from it to the singular pahwa could be used somewhat artificially to mean ‘the (junior) official’ in distinction to the regular emphatic pahta meaning ‘the govemor’. This, however, is manifestly not the case; the Aramaic plural paahwata’ at Dan. 3:2, 3 and 27 must refer to senior officials on the basis of their position in the list, and the same is probably true for Dan. 6:8. The Hebrew plural forms pahot and pahawot are of relevance as showing that in a closely related language the plural form with the meaning ‘governors’ was well-known; cf. especially Ezra 8:36 and Neh. 2:7, 9 (and further Est. 3:12; 8:9; 9:3). There can thus be no objection in principle to phw’ being a backformation from the plural with the meaning governor.
– Studies in Persian period history and historiography, by Hugh Godfrey Maturin Williamson; Volume 38 of Forschungen zum Alten Testament, Mohr Siebeck, 2004
My feeling is that the assumption for Malachi using a Persian-era term for governor is uncertain and that this book is of the same period as Daniel. As Malachi – as I noted, above – is the start of Messianic Judaism, this context seems to me to be more appropriate.
Messianism originated in the Old Testament. The Hebrew term mashiach is rarely used as a technical term for the Davidic ruler promised by the prophets. It is used in Daniel 9:25 to refer to Messiah the Prince.
Modern critical biblical scholarship dates the Book of Daniel to the 2nd century BCE (ca.165). (The meaning of the Dead Sea scrolls: their significance for understanding, James C. VanderKam, Peter Flint)
There is general agreement among scholars that Daniel’s revelations are actually vaticinia ex eventu or prophecies after the event. (Vision and persuasion: rhetorical dimensions of apocalyptic discourse, L. Gregory Bloomquist, Greg Carey)
Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrated and looted the Jerusalem Temple around 167 BCE, outlawed the Jewish religion, massacred observant Jews and precipitated a national crisis that is commemorated to this day in the Feast of Hanukkah (which recalls the rededication of the temple). The Book of Daniel (in its final form) is written, according to the mainstream view, in response to that crisis.
Coin of Antiochus IV. Reverse shows Apollo enthroned on an omphalos. “Of Antiochus, God Manifest, Bearer of Victory”
While Antiochus was busy in Egypt, a false rumour spread that he had been killed. The deposed High Priest Jason gathered a force of 1,000 soldiers and made a surprise attack on the city of Jerusalem. An official Antiochus appointed as High Priest, Menelaus, was forced to flee Jerusalem during a riot. On the King’s return from Egypt in 167 BCE enraged by his defeat, he attacked Jerusalem and restored Menelaus, then executed many Jews.
To consolidate his empire and strengthen his hold over the region, Antiochus decided to side with the Hellenized Jews by outlawing Jewish religious rites and traditions observed by more orthodox Jews and by ordering the worship of Zeus as the supreme god. This was anathema to the Jews and when they refused, Antiochus sent an army to enforce his decree. Because of the resistance, the city was destroyed, many were slaughtered, and a military Greek citadel called the Acra was established.
Not long after this the king sent an Athenian senator to force the Jews to abandon the customs of their ancestors and live no longer by the laws of God; also to profane the temple in Jerusalem and dedicate it to Olympian Zeus, and that on Mount Gerizim to Zeus the Hospitable, as the inhabitants of the place requested…They also brought into the temple things that were forbidden, so that the altar was covered with abominable offerings prohibited by the laws. A man could not keep the sabbath or celebrate the traditional feasts, nor even admit that he was a Jew. At the suggestion of the citizens of Ptolemais, a decree was issued ordering the neighbouring Greek cities to act in the same way against the Jews: oblige them to partake of the sacrifices, and put to death those who would not consent to adopt the customs of the Greeks. It was obvious, therefore, that disaster impended. Thus, two women who were arrested for having circumcised their children were publicly paraded about the city with their babies hanging at their breasts and then thrown down from the top of the city wall. Others, who had assembled in nearby caves to observe the sabbath in secret, were betrayed to Philip and all burned to death.
— 2 Maccabees 6:1-11
2 Maccabees is a Greek abridgment of an earlier history in Hebrew, relating the history of the Maccabees down to 161 BCE, focusing on Judas Maccabaeus.
According to Joseph P. Schultz, modern scholarship “considers the Maccabean revolt less as an uprising against foreign oppression than as a civil war between the orthodox and reformist parties in the Jewish camp.” In the conflict over the office of High Priest, traditionalists with Hebrew/Aramaic names like Onias contested with Hellenizers with Greek names like Jason and Menelaus. What began as a civil war took on the character of an invasion when the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria sided with the Hellenising Jews against the traditionalists.
The Hellenisers were supported by Demetrius I Soter, who opposed Rome. The Onias party was allied to Rome.
Left: Demetrius I Soter (161-150 BCE) Silver Tetradrachm/ Demetrius was a ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire. He had been sent to Rome as a hostage during the reign of his father, Seleucus IV Philopator. After his father’s death in 175 BCE, Antiochus IV Epiphanes took advantage of Demetrius’ captivity to seize the throne. Demetrius escaped from confinement and established himself on the Syrian throne after overthrowing and murdering King Antiochus V Eupator, his cousin. Demetrius is famous in Jewish history for his victory over the Maccabees.
Menelaus was High Priest in Jerusalem from 171 BCE to about 161 BCE. He was the successor of Jason, the brother of Onias III.
The sources are divided as to his origin.
Menelaus left his brother Lysimachus as acting High Priest, while Sostratus left the fort under the command of Crates, the commander of the mercenary troops from Cyprus.
– 2 Maccabees 4:29
Menelaus plundered the treasures of the Temple until violence ensued, in which his brother Lysimachus met his death.
According to II Maccabees, it was Menelaus who persuaded Antiochus to Hellenise the Jewish worship, and thereby brought about the uprising of the Judeans under the guidance of the Maccabees. During the first years of the restoration of the Jewish worship Menelaus still remained (though only nominally) high priest.
Onias IV – son of Onias III – who enjoyed the favour of the Ptolemaic court in Egypt, succeeded in elevating Egyptian Judaism to a position of dignity and importance. A large number of able-bodied Judeans had accompanied Onias to Egypt.
About 154 BCE, with the permission of Ptolemy VI (Philometor), he built at Leontopolis a temple which, though comparatively small, was modelled on that of Jerusalem. The district inhabited by them lay between Memphis and Pelusium, and was long called the “land of Onias.” Chelkias ben Onias and Ananias ben Onias, the sons of Onias, performed military service and acted as generals under Cleopatra III (r.117-81).
The Onias family was granted by the Ptolemies the position of Alabarch, a title also held in the first century of this era by Julius Alexander Lysimachus.
In their book “Archaeology of the Hidden Qumran, The New Paradigm” archaeologists Minna Lonnqvist and Kenneth Lonnqvist, who had carried out a survey in situ at Qumran, argued that the scrolls and the settlement are associated to an Essene-type of group which, however, finds the closest parallels in the contemporary Jewish Therapeutic group known to have lived in Egypt.
Now this class of persons may be met with in many places, for it was fitting that both Greece and the country of the barbarians should partake of whatever is perfectly good; and there is the greatest number of such men in Egypt, in every one of the districts, or nomes, as they are called, and especially around Alexandria; and from all quarters those who are the best of these therapeutae proceed on their pilgrimage to some most suitable place as if it were their country, which is beyond the Maereotic lake.
— Philo, Ascetics III
Philo is a primary source for the Therapeutae. How he managed to avoid all mention of Leontopolis has no explanation. His brother is Julius Alexander Lysimachus, the Alabarch.
Josephus says that the area was called Heliopolis:
But Onias, the high priest, fled to Ptolemy, and received a place from him in the Nomus of Heliopolis, where he built a city resembling Jerusalem, and a temple that was like its temple (1) concerning which we shall speak more in its proper place hereafter.
– War, Josephus, 1.1.1
Heliopolis was well known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, being noted by most major geographers of the period, including: Ptolemy, iv. 5. § 54; Herodotus, ii. 3, 7, 59; Strabo, xvii. p. 805; Diodorus, i. 84, v. 57; Arrian, Exp. Alex. iii. 1; Aelian, H. A. vi. 58, xii. 7; Plutarch, Solon. 26, Is. et Osir. 33; Diogenes Laertius, xviii. 8. § 6; Josephus, Ant. Jud. xiii. 3, C. Apion. i. 26; Cicero, De Natura Deorum iii. 21; Pliny the Elder, v. 9. § 11; Tacitus, Ann. vi. 28; Pomponius Mela, iii. 8. The city also merits attention by the Byzantine geographer Stephanus of Byzantium.
Alexander the Great, on his march from Pelusium to Memphis, halted at this city (Arrian, iii. 1); and, according to Macrobius (Saturn. i. 23), Baalbek, or the Syrian Heliopolis, was a priest-colony from its Egyptian namesake.
Heliopolis – sun-city – literally “Eye of the Sun or Centre of the Sun” in Arabic, was one of the most ancient cities of Egypt.
Left: Ra-Horakhte: Re (sun disk) and Horus (falcon-head). The major cult center of Ra the ancient Egyptian sun god was Heliopolis.
Heliopolis flourished as a seat of learning during the Greek period; the schools of philosophy and astronomy are claimed to have been frequented by Orpheus, Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, Solon, and other Greek philosophers.
During the Amarna Period, Akhenaten suppressed the cult of Ra in favour of another solar deity the Aton, the deified solar disc, but after the death of Akhenaten the cult of Ra was restored.
The cult of the Mnevis bull, an embodiment of Ra, had its centre in Heliopolis and there was a formal burial ground for the sacrificed bulls north of the city.
All forms of life were believed to have been created by Ra, who called each of them into existence by speaking their secret names.
To the Egyptians, the sun represented light, warmth, and growth. This made the sun deity very important and the sun was seen as the ruler of all that he created. The sun disk was either seen as the body or eye of Ra.
In later Egyptian mythology, Ra-Horakhty was more of a title or manifestation than a composite deity. It translates as “Ra (who is) Horus of the Horizons”. It was intended to link Horakhty (as a sunrise-oriented aspect of Horus) to Ra. It has been suggested that Ra-Horakhty simply refers to the sun’s journey from horizon to horizon as Ra, or that it means to show Ra as a symbolic deity of hope and rebirth.
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
– Matthew 13:43 (King James Version)
Iam, Christe, sol iustitiaeNow Christ, Thou Sun of RighteousnessFrom the 10th century, though some feel it is Ambrosian from the 6th century. This hymn is traditionally used for the ferial offices for Lauds during the weeks of Lent before Holy Week. The revsion of 1632 altered the hymn extensively with the title of the hymn becoming O Sol salutis, initimis. |
| IAM, Christe, sol iustitiae, mentis dehiscant tenebrae, virtutum ut lux redeat, terris diem cum reparas. |
NOW Christ, Thou Sun of righteousness, let dawn our darkened spirits bless: the light of grace to us restore while day to earth returns once more. |
| Dans tempus acceptabile et paenitens cor tribue, convertat ut benignitas quos longa suffert pietas. |
Thou who dost give the accepted time, give, too, a heart that mourns for crime, let those by mercy now be cured whom loving – kindness long endured. |
| Quiddamque paenitentiae da ferre, quo fit demptio, maiore tuo munere, culparum quamvis grandium. |
Spare not, we pray, to send us here some penance kindly but severe, so let Thy gift of pardoning grace our grievous sinfulness efface. |
| Dies venit, dies tua, per quam reflorent omnia; laetemur in hac ut tuae per hanc reducti gratiae. |
Soon will that day, Thy day, appear and all things with its brightness cheer: we will rejoice in it, as we return thereby to grace, and Thee. |
| Te rerum universitas, clemens, adoret, Trinitas, et nos novi per veniam novum canamus canticum. Amen. |
Let all the world from shore to shore Thee, gracious Trinity, adore; right soon Thy loving pardon grant, that we our new-made song may chant. Amen. |
From the Liturgia Horarum. Translation from the Primer of 1706 and ascribed to John Dryden (1631 – 1701).
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