Page:06.CBOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.B.vol.6.LesserProphets.djvu/1509

been handed down concerning the circumstances of the prophet's life. The recollection, however, of the circumstances connected with the personal history of the prophet might easily have become extinct during the period of at least 150 or 200 years which intervened between the lifetime of the prophet and the Alexandrian version of the Old Testament, if his life was not distinguished by any other facts than the prophecies contained in his book. And Jonathan lived, at the earliest, 400 years after Malachi. That all recollection of the person of Malachi was not lost, however, is evident both from the notice in the Talmud to the effect that Malachi was one of the men of the great synagogue, as Haggai and Zechariah had been, and also from the statements made by Ps. Doroth., Epiph., and other fathers, to the effect that he was a Levite of the tribe of Zebulun, and was born in Supha, or Σοφά, or Σοφιρά (see the passages in Koehler, Mal. pp. 10, 11), although all these statements show that nothing certain was known as to the circumstances of his life.
But the principal reason for taking the name not as a nomen proprium, but simply as a name adopted by the prophet for this particular prophecy, is to be found, according to Hengstenberg, in the character of the name itself, viz., in the fact that it is not formed from מלאך and יהּ = יהוה, and cannot be explained by angelicus. But neither the one nor the other can be regarded as established. The formation of proper names by adding the termination ־י to appellative nouns is by no means unusual, as the long list of examples of words formed in this manner, given by Olshausen (Heb. Gramm. 218, b), clearly shows; and the remark that “this formation only serves to denote descent or occupation” (Hengstenberg) is beside the mark, since it does not apply to such names as גּרמי, זכרי, and others. The interpretation of the name as a contraction of מלאכיּה, messenger of Jehovah, is quite as possible as this derivation. We have an unquestionably example of a contraction of this kind in אבי in 2Ki 18:2, as compared with אביּה in 2Ch 29:1. And just as the יהּ is there omitted altogether in אבי, so is the other name of God, אל, omitted in פלטי in 1Sa 25:44, which is written פּלטיאל in 2Sa 3:15. This omission of the name of God is by no means rare. “The Hebrews very often drop the names of God at the end of proper names” (Simonis, p. 11).