Malachi: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary

Trinity Journal, Fall 2000 by Collins, C John

Andrew E. Hill. Malachi: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 25D. New York: Doubleday, 1998. xliii 436. $37.95.

The Anchor Bible (AB) was originally intended to be "aimed at the general reader" but "written with the most exacting standards of scholarship" (according to the frontispiece); but after a number of quirky initial volumes, it has become much more oriented to the academic user. This volume follows the more recent trend.

The author, Andrew Hill, teaches at Wheaton College and took his Ph.D. under David Freedman (General Editor of the AB) at the University of Michigan; his 1981 dissertation dealt with linguistic features of Malachi that he thinks point to a fairly precise date for the book. Freedman's invitation to write "another dissertation" (p. xv) was no doubt attractive to Hill for the opportunity to produce a volume for this series that reflects his "conservative" or "evangelical" stance. Hill describes this stance himself:

By "conservative," I mean that approach to the study of the Biblical documents that recognizes among other things the tradition of the divine origin of the Scriptures .... a decided reluctance to emend the Masoretic Text (MT) apart from convincing evidence to the contrary (and hence a tendency to downplay speculation concerning the multiple redactional levels detected in the MT), and a preference for "substantiating" rather than "reconstructing" biblical history. (pp. xii-xiii)

The number of AB contributors who share this stance is small (one thinks of Francis Andersen and Paul Raabe in the OT), so this presents an enticing opportunity: what effect will such a stance have on the way he draws his conclusions? I shall come back to this question after surveying the book.

We have here a very thorough commentary: in its prefatory pages it includes a glossary of terms (helpful, since there is no standard terminology); thematic and rhetorical outlines of Malachi; an outline of what he calls the "Haggai-Zechariah-Malachi corpus"; and a fairly literal translation of Malachi.

The introduction covers the usual subjects and brings the reader up-todate on academic discussion: text, canonicity, literary matters (authorship, unity, genre, structure, literary features, message, theology), historical background of the Persian period, dating the oracles of Malachi, and a section on the "study" of Malachi.

Significant conclusions from this section include Hill's case for a date of Malachi of around 500 B.C., with a special leaning toward 490, under the impact of the battle of Marathon, in which the Greeks defeated the Persian army (p. 55). However, there is no direct textual evidence for this connection: it is instead an historically significant event that lies within the time frame that his study of the language allows. I would have liked to see Hill qualify his position with due reserve.

Hill agrees with many in declaring the closing verses of the book (ET 4:4-6) to be "editorial addition" (p. 45, cf. pp. 364-66); he calls them the "appendix." This is the reason, I suppose, for the surprising statement that "Malachi does not use the expression 'day of Yahweh"' (p. 49; cf. Mal 4:5). His reasons for this literary analysis include: the shift in style from disputation in the "genuine" oracles to admonition in the appendix; the discontinuity between the oracles and the appendix in message, theme, and tone; and various features of the textual tradition of these final verses. In my judgment, none of these is a good reason for supposing that, whatever may be the literary relationship of the appendix to the main body, Malachi himself could not have added the verses in question. Unfortunately, Hill never really allows counterarguments to be considered.

Hill summarizes the contemporary application of Malachi's message:

God's love for his children (especially as an exhortation of reassurance to the jaded, cynical, confused, and disillusioned ... ), worship renewal. . . , social justice . . . , pedagogy and curriculum in religious education . . . , theodicy . . . , stewardship . . . , interpersonal relationships . . . , contemporary preaching. . . , and ethical issues. (pp. 50-51; ellipses are of references to secondary literature)

(To his entry on "social justice," he appends a curious footnote that "Malachi's cry for justice on behalf of the socially disadvantaged does not suggest a liberation theology, but a theology of pacifism and nonviolent resistance." I call it curious because he does not tell us what he means by such terms, and how they would apply today.)

The section on the "Study of Malachi" is misnamed-it is rather a survey of how Malachi has been cited and used in public documents, particularly the NT and the liturgies. Not all the claimed NT allusions are equally compelling, nor is his NT exegesis very insightful. For example, he opposes Malachi's meaning in 1:2-3 with Paul's use in Rom 9:13 (the question is, does Malachi treat Jacob and Esau as nations or as individuals?), and in the exegesis section (p. 166), he relies on the two ICC commentaries on Romans, and never considers the possibility that there might be a third way-as Keil puts it, Malachi speaks of "this attitude on the part of God towards Jacob and Esau, and towards the nations springing from them." The material on liturgical uses of the book is fascinating and refreshing, of a sort not usually found in commentaries.