Recent criticism has shown that, whether the word was originally intended as a personal name or not, it was a purely artificial one borrowed from chap. iii. 1, _Behold, I send My messenger_, “malĕ’akhi,” for the title, which itself has been added by the editor of the Twelve Prophets in the form in which we now have them. The peculiar words of the title, _Burden_ or _Oracle of the Word of Jehovah_, occur nowhere else than in the titles of the two prophecies which have been appended to the Book of Zechariah, chap. ix. 1 and chap. xii. 1, and immediately precede this Book of “Malachi.” In chap. ix. 1 _the Word of Jehovah_ belongs to the text; _Burden_ or _Oracle_ has been inserted before it as a title; then the whole phrase has been inserted as a title in chap. xii. 1. These two pieces are anonymous, and nothing is more likely than that another anonymous prophecy should have received, when attached to them, the same heading.[953] The argument is not final, but it is the most probable explanation of the data, and agrees with the other facts. The cumulative force of all that we have stated—the improbability of malĕ’akhi being a personal name, the fact that the earliest versions do not treat it as such, the obvious suggestion for its invention in the malĕ’akhi of chap. iii. 1, the absence of a father’s name and place of residence, and the character of the whole title—is enough for the opinion rapidly spreading among critics that our book was, like so much more in the Old Testament, originally anonymous.[954] The author attacks the religious authorities of his day; he belongs to a pious remnant of his people, who are overborne and perhaps oppressed by the majority.[955] In these facts, which are all we know of his personality, he found sufficient reason for not attaching his name to his prophecy. The book is also undated, but it reflects its period almost as clearly as do the dated Books of Haggai and Zechariah. The conquest of Edom by the Nabateans, which took place during the Exile,[956] is already past.[957] The Jews are under a Persian viceroy.[958] They are in touch with a heathen power, which does not tyrannise over them, for this book is the first to predict no judgment upon the heathen, and the first, moreover, to acknowledge that among the heathen the true God is worshipped _from the rising to the setting of the sun_.[959] The only judgment predicted is one upon the false and disobedient portion of Israel, whose arrogance and success have cast true Israelites into despair.[960] All this reveals a time when the Jews were favourably treated by their Persian lords. The reign must be that of Artaxerxes Longhand, 464—424.