Malachi Chapter One, Sibling Rivalry

 

Malachi 1:3 but Esau I have hated, and laid waste his mountains and his heritage for the jackals of the wilderness.”

 

But what of Esau? Elsewhere in Genesis we learn what became of Esau after he parted ways with Jacob, and with Jacob’s God. “Now this is the genealogy (generations) of Esau, who is Edom,” Genesis 36:1. To ensure the reader understands that Jacob’s lineage and Esau’s diverged, not only to different geographical regions but spiritual destinies, Moses emphasizes verse 1 three more times in 36:8, 19, and 43. Esau is Edom, or the Edomites, while Jacob is Israel, or the Hebrews. To gain a clearer picture, we look back on Rebekah who was having a clearly tumultuous pregnancy. Inquiring of God what was amiss, He told her, “Two nations are in your womb, two peoples shall be separated from your body; one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger,” Genesis 25:23. God knows the end from the beginning. In Jacob and Esau, who had not been born yet, He saw the great nations that would arise from them. In the one the messianic line would continue. They would have Canaan, the giving of the Law, the prophets, the tabernacle and the temple, the kingship. All of this, through Yahweh’s divine superintendence, would culminate with the Christ, the Son (seed or descendant) of David, heir to Judah’s scepter. The seed of the woman and its attendant promise would be kept safe in the bloodline of Israel, who became a people separate from the nations, 1 Kings 8:53. “He declares His word to Jacob, His statues and His judgments to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any nation; and as for His judgments, they have not known them,” Psalm 147:19, 20. Jacob then was chosen by God’s election to serve as the conduit, the vessel through which the promises given in their Messiah, the Christ would be realized in due time.

Esau stands among the nations that “have not known” God’s Law. Like Moab and Ammon, both of which descended from Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19:37, 38), and being related to Abraham, Edom became an inveterate enemy of Israel. Like their willful patriarch, Edom opposed Israel at every turn, only to be conquered and enslaved, fulfilling what Yahweh told Rebekah long before. “[David] put garrisons in Edom; throughout all Edom he put garrisons, and all the Edomites became David’s servants,” 2 Samuel 8:14. But again fulfilling God’s word through Isaac, as told in Genesis 27:40, Edom eventually became sovereign. “In [Joram’s] days Edom revolted against Judah’s authority, and made a king over themselves…thus Edom has been in revolt against Judah’s authority to this day,” 2 Kings 8:20, 22. The spiteful rivalry between brothers became national contentions between neighboring countries. Isaac told Esau, “by your sword you shall live,” and we find later that Edom has taken that prophetic utterance most seriously. “Because you have an ancient hatred, and have shed the blood of the children of Israel by the power of the sword at the time of their calamity, when their iniquity came to an end, “therefore as I live,” says the Lord God, “I will prepare you for blood, and blood shall pursue you,” Ezekiel 35:5, 6. Obadiah, reflecting Ezekiel’s words, says, “For violence against your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever. In the day that you stood on the other side—in the day that strangers carried captive his forces, when foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem—even you were as one of them,” Obadiah 10, 11.

 

Knowing both men, and the nations that would spring from them, God chose Jacob and rejected Esau. Malachi isn’t presently referring to the men, but the nations these patriarchs represent. Jacob is a chosen vessel that God has employed for His own purposes, separating them from the surrounding nations. Esau did not attain to that privilege and has since hounded and harmed Israel in a centuries’ long blood feud. Jacob has God loved; Israel is the nation chosen for His purposes, while rejecting Esau, or Edom. And since Edom determined to make itself an enemy of Israel, God in turn carried out His benediction toward Israel, “I will make you [Abram, or Abraham] a great nation…I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you,” Genesis 12:2, 3. Since Edom chose to curse, Obadiah 12, Ezekiel 35:10, 11, God retaliated on His people’s behalf and laid waste to Esau’s inheritance. No more would Edom rise as a nation with a king at its head. The prophet Joel carries the same tone as Malachi when he writes, “and Edom (shall be) a desolate wilderness, because of violence against the people of Judah, for they have shed innocent blood in their land,” Joel 3:19. Compared to Egypt’s fate (being desolated) Joel goes a step further by describing the region as a desolate wilderness. The land has reverted to a state prior to Esau’s arrival. His heritage now belongs to the jackals (dragons, KJV) of the wilderness.

 

The Hebrew word for “jackals” (NKJV) or “dragons” (KJV) in Malachi is “tannah,” the feminine form of “tan” or “tanniym.” Its definition includes, “to elongate; a monster (as preternaturally formed), i.e. a sea serpent (or other huge marine animal); also a jackal (or other hideous land animal), a marine or land monster.” Henry Morris strongly believed that this apparently peculiar word family denoted what we have called dinosaurs since Sir Richard Owen coined the term in 1842. The habitation or dwelling of dragons or jackals is a reference to a wild, desolate, dangerous region. It can be found in Isaiah 34:13, 35:7, Jeremiah 9:11, 10:22, 49:33, 51:37. While this prospect seems at first to be unbelievable, if we accept the creation account of Genesis as factual, eyewitness statements, then disbelief can find comfort in reliable testimony. Modern school textbooks overwhelm the average reader with “undeniable proof” that dinosaurs and man were not remotely contemporaries. Yet according to God’s word ALL marine animals were created on the fifth day (Genesis 1:20, 21), including “sea creatures” NKJV, or “whales” KJV, translated from the Hebrew word, “tanniym,” marking its first contextual appearance in Scripture. On the sixth day ALL land animals were created (Genesis 1:24, 25), and that would have to include the terrestrial dinosaurs, as we now call them.

 

Assuredly representatives entered the ark at God’s compulsion to save them from the Flood, Genesis 7:14. Corrupted or exaggerated mythologies about Eden, the Flood, and Babel took root in pagan cultures as men attempted to purge God from their lives, attributing to the creation the glory belonging solely to Him, Romans 1:21. It is then not shocking to likewise find legends across the ancient world of “dragons” and the valiant heroes that slew them. Such might have been “Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod, the might hunter before the Lord,” Genesis 10:8, 9 KJV. The first named king of the post-Flood earth, Nimrod’s glory began in Babel, while he also founded the Assyrian empire, Micah 5:6. Nimrod, and others like him who wanted a reputation, or to protect the human population from animal predation may have assisted in the demise of what was left of these animals. We know reputation not only compelled Nimrod, but inspired others to be like him so much that a then-famous saying became popularized, “it is said, Even as Nimrod…” The book of Job, considered to have occurred contemporaneously with Abraham’s narrative, also suggests mankind attempted to make sport or profit from hunting such animals, to their regret. “Can you fill [leviathan’s] skin with harpoons, or his head with fishing spears? Lay your hand on him; remember the battle—never do it again!” Job 41:7, 8. It would not be outrageous, but quite reasonable then, for the prophets to reference these dangerous animals even utilizing their (presumably) fierce reputation to reinforce the potency of God’s judgment against sin and those being punished for it. Even if such animals were extinct by Malachi’s time stories would without doubt survive, and recalling their grandeur would undoubtedly invoke the sort of imagery the prophet sought.