Septuagint: Malachi

The Book of Malachi is the most curious and debated of the Books of the Twelve minor prophets, as the name Malachi (מלאכי) simply means 'angelic' in Hebrew, and the Greek translation used the word angel (ἀγγέλου) in the Septuagint. Most Jewish and Christian denominations do treat the word as the name of a prophet, however, the prophet Malachi was never mentioned by any other prophet or Ezra the scribe, and therefore some denominations consider the Book of Malachi to be an anonymous work, with the word Malachi simply referring to the angel of the lord. Early Jewish records from the late Persian era indicate that the Jews at the time considered the book of Malachi to have been written by Ezra the scribe, however, by the Greek era, the book was no longer attributed to Ezra.

The date the book was written is also a matter of debate, as the book does not include any of the usual references to the political situation. Malachi does include two references that can be used to date the work, however, are generally ignored by scholars as they both date the book to the early 800s BC. The clearest reference was the prediction in chapter 4: "Look, I will send to you Elijah the Tishbite..."

Elijah the Tishbite was the prophet Elijah from 3rd and 4th Kingdoms (Masoretic Kings), and 2nd Paralipomenon (Masoretic Diḇrê Hayyāmîm) whose live is dated to between 900 and 849 BC. The second reference is the general description of the state of Edom, which is described as having been defeated by the Judaeans. This matches the political reality of Elijah's time, when Edom was subject to the Kingdom of Judah, between 930 and 870 BC. Edom was a kingdom southeast of Judah from at least the 1200s BC until 125 BC when the Hasmonean dynasty conquered the kingdom. Edom was recorded as being a dependency of the Kingdom of Judah between 930 and 870 BC, but then rebelled against Judah, and does not appear to have been conquered outright by the Judeans again until the Hasmonean dynasty. These two references indicate the Book of Malachi was written between circa 880 and 870 BC, at the same time as the Book of Shadrach, which is embedded within the Book of Zachariah.