Malachi the Prophet מלאכי הנביא

The name Malachi means "My messenger," and for that reason alone it was asked whether it is a name or an office. The Talmud records the view that Malachi is Ezra the Scribe; it also records another identification, which is rejected, while a third opinion holds Malachi to be a man in his own right. In this base he stands as a separate prophet, with that noted.

The book is built unusually: nearly every section is an argument. A statement is made, the listener's objection is quoted ("yet you say: in what?"), and an answer is given. So it treats the carelessness of priests who bring the blind and the lame to the altar, and divorce, and cheating a labourer of his wages, and the words of those who say, "it is futile to serve God; what profit is it that we kept His charge?"

It also holds the line often cited as the ground of Jewish brotherhood: "have we not all one father? has not one God created us? why then do we deal treacherously with one another?"

Malachi's last two verses are the last two verses of the whole of the Prophets in the Jewish canon: "behold, I send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the day of the LORD, the great and terrible one; and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers." From that point prophecy ends and waiting begins.

With Haggai and Zechariah, the Talmud says, the spirit of prophecy departed from Israel with Malachi; they are also counted among the Men of the Great Assembly, who fixed the prayers and closed the canon.