Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 62:1 (Mar 2019)
Article: “Messenger Of The Covenant” In Malachi 3:1 Once Again
Author: E. Ray Clendenen

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JETS 62:1 (March 2019) p. 81

“Messenger Of The Covenant”
In Malachi 3:1 Once Again

E. Ray Clendenen*

* E. Ray Clendenen is senior editor of Bible and Reference Publishing, Lifeway Christian Resources, Nashville, TN 37234. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: This essay reviews work already done on identifying the agents in Malachi 3:1, especially “the messenger/angel of the covenant,” and presents seven arguments for the traditional messianic view that the figure is somehow identified with Yahweh and yet at the same time distinct from Yahweh, a figure who could only be the Messiah. Thus the New Testament identification of this figure in Malachi with Jesus as the Sent One is entirely appropriate according to standard exegesis. Although comparison is made to “the angel of Yahweh,” no argument is made that they are the same. Special attention is given to refuting the view that the two “messengers” in Malachi 3:1 refer to the same person.

Key words: inner-biblical exegesis, Malachi, messianic expectation in the Old Testament, angel of the Lord, use of הִנֵּה clauses.

Although an argument could be made that this topic has been beaten to death, I hope a summary of the discussion thus far might be helpful, and I hope that I might be able to press the discussion ahead a bit.1 The TV show “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” aired from 1955 to 1965. It always began with a life-sized line drawing of a man in profile, into which the rotund Alfred Hitchcock walked, to the tune of “Funeral March of a Marionette” by Charles Gounod. The drawing fit him perfectly. The NT writers and (according to them) even Jesus himself declared that Jesus is found in the OT (cf. Luke 24:27; John 1:45; 5:39, 46; Acts 3:24; 10:43; 26:22). Christians disagree over how to describe the nature of that discovery and how certain “messianic passages” in the OT are to be interpreted, and the literature on that topic is vast.2 But Jesus’s statement that Moses “wrote about me” (John 5:46; see

JETS 62:1 (March 2019) p. 82

also Heb. 11:26

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