The Book of Malachi, in addition to its references to the brothers Esau and Jacob, speaks at length of yet another ancestor, Jacob's third son Levi, the forbear of those who made Israel's offerings:
Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it. And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts (2:3-8, KJV).
And so, in contrast to the "Esau" character in Malachi--the Esau unloved compared to Jacob--we have the progenitor of the temple class, Levi, heaped with praise: "My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity." It seems to be the case, however, that there is little in the actual account of Levi that would merit such praise.
This is the Levi who, together with his full brother Simeon, avenged his sister Dinah's rape by conspiring to effect a false peace with the Hivite offender's people and "Dinah's brethren...took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males" (Genesis 34:25) and, in Old Testament fashion, robbed, enslaved (including, presumably, power-raping women and girls) and destroyed.
"And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, You have troubled me to make me stink among the inhabitants of the land" (34:30), and that was not the last the two murderers heard of it. When his time at last came, Jacob said, "Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father....Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations....Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel" (49:2-7).
Is this then the "Levi" of Malachi, of whom "saith the Lord of hosts": "My covenant was with him of life and peace....he walked with me in peace and equity...."? The Book of Malachi, once again, is undercutting the specialness of Israel as inheritors even as the book is reinforcing the value and necessity of true Israelite worship. Malachi is neither discrediting the observances in the temple nor disparaging the thrust of Jewish religion that led through the synagogues to Judaism's stature as one of the great world faiths.
What Malachi is in fact doing is asserting a view of God as an ever-present factor in the world's conscience and consciousness. "The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel" (1:5). We will see more of this to come.
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