Week 32 Malachi 3
Malachi 3:1 triggers a memory. The Lord is speaking: I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.
The cross-reference says that the verse is quoted in the NT by Mark: as it is written…: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way”. Right after quoting Malachi Mark starts talking about John the Baptist. He doesn’t explicitly say “John the Baptist is Malachi’s Messenger”. But that’s the implication.
Matthew quotes Malachi too (but he’s more unambiguous than Mark). Jesus is talking to a crowd of people – specifically about John the Baptist – and he tells them: (John) is the one about whom it is written: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you”.
Anyway the reason I looked up the Malachi quote in Matthew & Mark is because there’s a note in the margin of the bible I’m using that says ‘messenger’ can also mean ‘angel’. That confused things. I felt pretty sure that Malachi’s Messenger was John the Baptist. But if the Messenger is an angel then he’s not John the Baptist. Unless John is referred to as an angel in an unliteral – a flatteringly figurative – way.
I check several dozen other versions. Almost all of them use the word ‘messenger’. So I decide to leave it at that – messenger…not angel. It’s a smallish but nagging glitch in my mind. But I’ll go with the majority opinion.
Note: quotes from Malachi 3:1 Mark 1:2 Matthew 11:10-11 (NIV)