Companion to the Bible

by E. P. Barrows

In Matt. 27:9, 10, there is a quotation for substance of the words of Zechariah 11:13, but they are ascribed to "Jeremiah the prophet." Of this discrepancy various explanations have been proposed. Some have suspected an early error in the manuscript of Matthew's gospel; but of this there is no satisfactory proof. Others have thought that the part of our present book of Zechariah which contains the prophecy in question actually belongs to Jeremiah; but upon this hypothesis it remains a mystery how it should have been attached to the writings of Zechariah.

Upon the ground of diversity of style and other alleged internal marks, it has been maintained by some biblical scholars that the whole of the last part of Zechariah belongs to an earlier age; but the validity of this conclusion is denied by others. To give even a summary of the opposing arguments would exceed the limits of the present work. The internal proofs being very nearly balanced against each other, the fact that these chapters have always been connected with the writings of Zechariah ought to be allowed a decisive influence in favor of their genuineness.

XII. MALACHI.

23. In Hebrew Malachi signifies my messenger, being the very word employed in chap. 3:1. Hence some have supposed that this is not the prophet's name, but a description of his office. Such a supposition, however, is contrary to scriptural usage, which in every other case prefixes to each of the prophetical books the author's proper name. Malachi has not given the date of his prophecies, but it can be determined with a good degree of certainty from their contents. The people had been reinstated in the land, the temple rebuilt, and its regular services reëstablished. Yet they were in a depressed condition, dispirited, and disposed to complain of the severity of God's dealings towards them. Their ardently cherished expectation of seeing the Theocracy restored to its former glory was not realized. Instead of driving their enemies before them sword in hand, as in the days of Joshua, or reigning triumphantly over them in peace, as in the days of Solomon, they found themselves a handful of weak colonists under the dominion of foreigners, and returning to the land of their fathers solely by their permission. All this was extremely humiliating to their worldly pride, and a bitter disappointment of their worldly hopes. Hence they had fallen into a desponding and complaining state of mind. While rendering to God a service that was not cheerful but grudging, complaining of its wearisomeness, withholding the tithes required by the law of Moses, and offering in sacrifice the lame and the blind, they yet complained that he did not notice and requite these heartless services, and talked as if he favored the proud and wicked. "Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and walked mournfully before him? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered" (3:14, 15). To these sins they had added that of putting away their Hebrew wives, that they might marry foreign women (2:10-16). All these circumstances point to the administration of Nehemiah, probably the latter part of it; for after his visit to Babylon in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes (Neh. 13:6), he found upon his return, and has described in the last chapter of his book precisely the same state of affairs. Malachi is thus the last of all the prophets.

24. He opens his prophecies by reminding the people of God's great and distinguishing love towards them and their fathers, which they were so slow to acknowledge. He then reproves them sharply for the sins above referred to, and forewarns them that the Lord, of whose delay they complain, will suddenly come to his temple to sit in judgment there—an advent which they will not be able to endure; for it will consume the wicked root and branch, while it brings salvation to the righteous (3:1-5; 4:1-3). In view of the fact that the revelations of the Old Testament are now closing, he admonishes the people to remember the law of Moses, and closes with a promise of the mission of "Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord" (4:5, 6). This promise, with that contained in chap. 3:1, is repeatedly referred to in the New Testament, and applied to the coming of John the Baptist as our Lord's forerunner. The opening words of the prophecy, chap. 1:2, are quoted by the apostle Paul (Rom. 9:13).

APPENDIX.

THE APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

1. The Greek word Apocrypha, hidden, that is, hidden or secret books, was early applied by the fathers of the Christian church to anonymous or spurious books that falsely laid claim to be a part of the inspired word. By some, as Jerome, the term was extended to all the books incorporated by the Alexandrine Jews, in their Greek version, into the proper canon of the Old Testament, a few of which books, though not inspired, are undoubtedly genuine. Another designation of the books in question was ecclesiastical, books to be read in the churches for edification, but not as possessing authority in matters of faith. But at the era of the Reformation, when these books were separated by the Protestant churches from the true canon, and placed by themselves between the books of the Old and the New Testament, Jerome's old epithet Apocrypha, or the Apocryphal books, was applied to the entire collection.

How the term Apocrypha, hidden, became associated with the idea of spurious or anonymous is doubtful. According to Augustine, it was because the origin of these books was not clear to the church fathers. A later conjecture, expressed by the translators of the English Bible, is "because they were wont to be read not openly and in common, but as it were in secret and apart." Still more probable is the opinion that they were so called from their close relation to the secret books containing the mysteries—secret doctrines—of certain heretical sects.