Malachi in Citation

Roughly around 445 BC a prophet who has come to be known as Malachi wrote a book for the House of Israel. This book, The Book of Malachi, was eventually placed as the last book in The Old Testament.

The Book of Malachi was written in Hebrew, but at least a century before the birth of Christ the language most Jews in Palestine spoke was Aramaic. For this reason a translation was prepared from Hebrew to Aramaic, maybe in the first century BC, or perhaps even in the late first century AD. This Aramaic translation, known as Targum Jonathan, is not simply a conversion from Hebrew to Aramaic as Targums frequently have textual expansions. I would like to offer six brief but interesting "expansions" from the Targum of Malachi.

Expansion One

KJV

2:12 The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto The LORD of Hosts. 

Targum

2:12 The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and if he is a priest, he shall not be allowed to offer an offering unto The Lord of Hosts.  

Now, the student of The Old Testament will notice that the Priesthood was needed for a man to offer a sacrifice unto The Lord. What is interesting here is that the translator(s) of this Targum, known as "Jonathan", saw fit to make explicit what was implicit, that the person offering the sacrifice would be a priest. Priests are already addressed in Malachi (1:6, 2:1, 2:7), but this interpolation or insertion increased the references of priests to 4. It is interesting to note that Malachi specifically addresses the corruption of the priests of his day.

Expansion Two

KJV

3:6 For I am The LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Targum

3:6 For I am The Lord, I do not change my covenant which is from eternity; therefore, House of Israel, ye are not consumed.

In the Targum The Lord is quoted as saying that He will not change His eternal covenant, and He addresses the entire House of Israel, which is the name His people received by covenant.

Expansion Three

KJV

3:7 Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them.

Targum

3:7 Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine covenants, and have not kept them. 

The Targum deftly shifts the focus onto the covenants, that The Lord does not alter His covenants, but that the House of Israel has consistently broken the covenants.

Expansion Four

KJV

3:12 And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith The LORD of Hosts.

Targum

3:12 And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall dwell in the land of the House of my Presence, and shall do my will in it, saith The Lord of Hosts. 

This interpolation is particularly interesting insofar as "being a delightsome land" is clarified to mean "dwelling in the land of the House of my Presence", or the Temple, and doing the will of The LORD in it, which implies having the Priesthood so as to officiate in the Temple.

Expansion Five

KJV

4:4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.

Targum

4:4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, to teach covenants and judgments. 

The focus of Malachi in the Targum becomes the covenants of The Lord, covenants Israel had broken, covenants that were taught to Israel by a prophet The Lord raised up.

Expansion Six

KJV

4:6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Targum

4:6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the chidren to their fathers, lest I shall reveal myself and shall find the whole earth with a curse. 

In this passage The Lord states that the binding of hearts of fathers to children is a requirement of His revealing Himself otherwise He shall find the whole earth with a curse.

Question: Why are these six expansions on Malachi from the Aramaic Targum of interest to me? They are of interest because on September 21, 1823, Joseph Smith received a visitation from the Angel Moroni. In this visit Moroni taught Joseph of his upcoming prophetic call. Moroni then quoted passages from Malachi. (Joseph Smith History 1:36, 38-39)

1:36 After telling me these things, [Moroni] commenced quoting the prophecies of The Old Testament. He first quoted part of the third chapter of Malachi; and he quoted the fourth or last chapter of that prophecy, though with a little variation from how it reads in our Bibles. Instead of quoting the first verse as it reads in our books, he quoted it thus. 

1:38 ...Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of The Lord.

1:39 He also quoted the next verse differently: And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming. 

I remember reading this passage for the first time as a recently baptized nineteen-year-old member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joseph Smith's testimony of seeing God The Father and His Son Jesus Christ, both Men standing side by side, radiating powerful light and peace, had reached my heart. I had no doubts as to Joseph Smith's prophetic call. Still, I puzzled over these citations of Malachi, the divergence from the standard Biblical text, in particular to present the concepts of "revealing" the "Priesthood" so that the "promises" made to the fathers would become relevant to the children, otherwise the "whole" earth would be wasted at the coming of our Lord.

So imagine my astonishment at discovering this month, August, 2016, information about the ancient Aramaic translation of Malachi, information that scholars began writing about roughly 70 years after Joseph Smiths' encounter with Moroni, but information which clearly demonstrates that the ancient Jews believed that The Book of Malachi was oriented toward the corrupt priests, pointed to a day of renewal when the Temple of The Lord would be in operation with Priesthood officiation, when covenants ("promises to the fathers") would be renewed, and when there would be a great event of "revealing". Imagine my delight at reading that the ancient Aramaic Targum even added the word "whole" to earth (4:6), verbatim what Moroni did when he visited Joseph Smith.

The reader is at liberty to make of these passages what he or she will. As for me, I see linguistic evidence substantiating the veracity of Joseph Smith's angelic visitation and his prophetic ministry. More to the point, I must share this: Question: How did James come upon this find? I was reading Scripture last week and a clear and authoritative thought came to my mind: "James, look at the Targum of Malachi. Compare it to how Moroni quoted Malachi to Joseph Smith." Immediately I knew that The Father had spoken to my understanding, and I knew that there would emerge a further witness of Joseph Smith's prophetic calling.

But however the reader takes this information I ask one thing only: That you remember that the passages, at least, are actually textual.