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Chapter VIII107The Lord and the Apostle of the CovenantThe last book of the Canonical Jewish Code of the Bible bears the name of “Malachai,” which looks to be more a surname than a proper noun. The correct pronunciation of the name is Mālākhī, which means “my angel” or “my messenger.”The Hebrew word, “Māl’àkh,” like the Arabic “malak”, like the Greek term “anghelos” from which the English name “angel” is derived, signifies “a messenger,” one commissioned with a message or news to deliver to somebody.Who this Mālākhī is, in what period of the Jewish history he lived and prophesied is not known either from the book itself or from any other portion of the Old Testament. It begins with the words: “The ‘missa’ of the Word of Yahweh the El of Israel by the hand of Mālākhī,” which may be translated: “The discourse of the Word of Yāhweh, God of Israel, by the hand of Mālākhī.” It contains four short chapters.The oracle is addressed, not to a king and his courtiers, but to a people already settled in Jerusalem with the Temple and its services. The sacrifices and oblations are of the meanest and worst kind; the sheep and cattle offered at the altars are not of the best quality; they are blind, lame, and lean animals. The tithes are not regularly paid, and if at all paid are of the inferior material. The priests, too, naturally, cannot devote their time and energy to perform their sacred duty. For they cannot chew the beefsteaks and roasted mutton chops of the lean old, crippled sacrifices. They cannot live on the scanty tithes or insufficient stipends. Yāhweh, as usual with this incorrigible people, now threatens, now holds out promises, and at times complain.