What Is the Book of Malachi About? The Last Book, Written as an Argument

Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament. After it comes roughly four hundred years without a prophet.

And its structure is rare in scripture: the whole book is an argument.

The seven questions

The format is fixed: God states something → the people answer with a question → God responds. The question comes seven times:

"Wherein hast thou loved us?" (1:2)
"Wherein have we despised thy name?" (1:6)
"Wherein have we polluted thee?" (1:7)
"Wherein have we wearied him?" (2:17)
"Wherein shall we return?" (3:7)
"Wherein have we robbed thee?" (3:8)
"What have we spoken so much against thee?" (3:13)

Seven questions, one posture: no sense of having done anything.

That is what Malachi is actually about — not open defiance but not seeing it. Every charge is met with "what do you mean?"

Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person?Malachi 1:8 (KJV)

The very practical test

1:8 concerns offering blind, lame and sick animals. The test God gives is entirely concrete:

"Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person?"

The standard is not theological. It is: would you hand this to a human official?

The test still works, and needs no explanation.

"Prove me now herewith"

3:10 is the book's most quoted verse: "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse… and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

Note the verb: "prove me". Scripture generally forbids testing God (Deut 6:16). This is one of the very few exceptions, and God proposes it himself.

The book of remembrance

3:16 is easy to read past: "Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name."

In a book made entirely of argument, someone is listening. And writing it down.

The verse is interesting for gratitude: what gets recorded is not an achievement but people speaking to one another.

The last two verses

The Old Testament's closing words (4:5-6): "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers."

Then four hundred years of nothing. What breaks the silence is a man preaching in a wilderness, and Jesus says he is that Elijah (Matt 11:14).

How to read it

Four chapters, twenty minutes. Watch specifically for the seven questions — they are the skeleton of the book.

Read Malachi 3 in the BiblePro app. And do look for a local church to read alongside others.