The Greatness of God’s Name: A Historical-Theological Look at Malachi 1:11

By Robert E. Cruickshank, Jr. and Daniel E. Harden

Daniel E. Harden (Editor)

Copyright © Robert E. Cruickshank, Jr. (June 14, 2025)

All Rights Reserved

When most Christians think of the worship of the one true God in Old Testament times, they envision it as confined – constrained within the boundaries of Israel and restricted to the Temple, the priesthood, and the covenant people.

Yet Malachi 1:11 makes a striking claim that challenges this assumption. This verse reveals that God’s name was being honored and magnified among the Gentiles – so much so that it was putting Israel’s own half-hearted worship to shame.

The implications of this are profound: during Malachi’s time, God had already begun drawing worship from the ends of the earth – paving the way for the full-scale Gospel mission to all the earth, in New Testament times.

This article will examine the textual issues involved in translating Malachi 1:11, the contextual backdrop in which Malachi’s statement is made, the historical events that led to Gentile inclusion in his day, and the ongoing implications of this for our own day.

Textual Issues

Malachi 1:11 is considered “one of the most difficult texts in the OT, both exegetically and theologically,” and there is no “scholarly consensus” on either its proper translation or its meaning.^[1] In fact, the exegetical difficulty is evident at that most basic level of translation.[2] Should the verse be understood in the present tense or the future tense? With this, the translations are divided on which way to go. For example:

“’My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the LORD Almighty’” (Mal. 1:11 NASB, emphasis added).

“For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts” (Mal. 1:11 RSV, emphasis added).

As the above two examples indicate, the verse contains three distinct main or independent clauses over which the translations differ:

1. 1. My name is/will be great among the nations (from where the sun rises to where it sets)
   2. In every place incense (and pure offerings) is/will be offered (brought)
   3. My name is/will be great among the nations

In the first and third clauses, notice that the words “will be” are in italics in the NASB, indicating that those words have been added by the translators and are not there in the original. In Hebrew, the adjective “great” is simply followed by the noun “name,” without the connecting verb (i.e., the verb to be). The RSV likewise supplies the same connecting verb, only it expresses it in the present tense.

In both cases, the addition of the verb is for the ease of reading and understanding in English. Generally speaking, when handling an adjective this way, the present tense of the added verb is assumed.[3] The RSV, consequently, would be the normal and natural rendering.

Regarding the middle clause in the verse, it contains the participle “to bring” or “to offer.”  Again, the NASB uses the future tense, but it is not actually a future tense verb in the original Hebrew; rather, it is a passive participle. And once again, the present tense would be the normal and natural reading. Recognizing this, the Septuagint (LXX) translators rendered the verse as such:

“For from the rising of the sun even to the going down thereof my name has been glorified among the Gentiles; and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord Almighty” (Mal. 11:1 LXX, emphasis added).[4]

So, the whole thing boils down to two issues:

1)   Two clauses that don’t contain a verb, and

2)   a clause containing a passive participle.

The NASB and RSV along with the LXX represent how the translations are divided on the way to handle these clauses. Is Malachi speaking of a present reality in his own time, or is he speaking of a future fulfillment not yet realized in his time?[5]

Present or Future?

With respect to the middle clause, which contains the passive participle, commentators who opt for the future sense point out that this grammatical construction can sometimes indicate future events on rare occasions.[6] From there, they postulate that Malachi 1:11 speaks of the future effects of the Gospel on the nations following the work of Christ. In other words, “God speaks here of a future time, using a current tense to indicate the certainty of His prediction of the day when His name will be great among the nations (v 11).”^[7] So the argument goes.

While this approach certainly aligns with the broader historical-redemptive narrative of Scripture (e.g., Matt. 28:18-20), it’s a case of the right doctrine but the wrong text.  The desire to warp-speed Malachi 1:11 directly to the worldwide Gospel mission in the New Testament, while bypassing Malachi’s own time, is thrown off course by two major navigational hazards.

First, those who take this approach to the middle clause readily concede that, when this particular form of a Hebrew participle[8] bears the future sense, it is always the “immediate”^[9] or “imminent”^[10] future that is in view, with the events resulting in those actions already in motion.  But there is never a disconnect, much less a gap, of hundreds or thousands of years.[11] With that said, Malachi wrote around 430 BC.^[12] The Great Commission initiated by Christ, five centuries later, hardly fits the bill as something “immediate” or “imminent” to the time of Malachi.

Second, Malachi specifically mentions two Old Covenant rituals, incense burning and grain offerings, which were among the types and shadows done away with in Christ. To transpose these Old Testament types and shadows into the New Testament age is disjointed, out of place, and incompatible with Christian worship. Undeterred by this mismatch, proponents of the future tense in Malachi 1:11 point out that the “use of incense is still a ritual in many Christian traditions.”[13]  In fact, the Roman Catholic view is that Malachi 1:11 “refers to a prediction of the Mass.”[14]

But modern liturgical practice scarcely justifies the practice itself, and the New Testament nowhere condones, much less warrants, such a return to the Old Testament types and shadows. To the contrary, the entire book of Hebrews is a move in the exact opposite direction.[15]  Despite efforts to parse the passage to the contrary, the specific mention of two Old Testament rites in Malachi 1:11 points directly to the time in which those rites were practiced – the time of the Old Testament.

A Present-Tense Reading

Rather than trying to force a future tense onto Malachi 1:11, and import Old Testament rituals into the New Testament era, perhaps it’s best to simply let the text say what it says – as per the RSV translation, the LXX, and many others.[16]

In other words, let’s just take Malachi at his word, and believe God’s Word, that Yahweh’s name was great among the nations, and that the Gentiles were worshiping Him in every known place at the time. Scripture is its own best interpreter, and this would comport with what Malachi himself reiterates in verse 14 – which even the NASB translates in the present tense: “My name is feared among the nations” (Mal. 1:14c NASB)[17]. In short, worship of Yahweh had breached the borders of Israel in Malachi’s own day and was not exclusively a promise of some future day.

Additionally, there is very little in the entire chapter to indicate any prophetic statements, and certainly nothing Messianic. Both 1:10 and 1:12 are clearly about conditions in Malachi’s time.^[18] There is simply no contextual reason to “jump ahead” in 1:11, only to “jump back” in 1:12.

Following Malachi’s Lead

With that said, we must keep in mind that Malachi’s whole point in his first chapter was to shame the Jews of his day, who were offering impure sacrifices (Mal. 1:6-10), by comparing them to the Gentiles who were worshiping the Lord with purity and sincerity.  God tells His own people that He will “not accept an offering” from them (Mal. 1:10). Whereas His name was great among the nations and honored in every other place (Mal. 1:11), Malachi’s audience was profaning the Lord’s table with defiled food (Mal. 1:12). The prophet’s rhetorical punch would lose its sting if he were speaking of the far-distant future – a future that his own audience wouldn’t even live to see.[19]

But this brings us to the central question: how could Gentiles have been worshiping the Lord with pure offerings in Malachi’s day?

Cyrus and the Dawning of a New Day

The answer to this question emerges when we consider the post-exilic period – the period that began with the call to come home. One particular phrase in Mal. 1:11 should help pinpoint this more clearly.

The verse begins with these words: “From the rising of the sun to the setting.” This phrase appears several times in the Old Testament to refer to the expanse of God’s glory. But the one reference especially relevant to what Malachi is expressing is in Isa. 45:6.

The section of Isaiah 45:1-7 is a prophecy where God specifically points to Cyrus as the one who will initiate the subduing of the nations (vs. 1). This is done for the sake of Israel, thus referring to the restoration from exile (vs. 4), but it goes beyond that. In verse 6, Isaiah makes this statement regarding the result of what Cyrus would accomplish among the nations:

“So that people may know from the rising to the setting of the sun
That there is no one besides Me.
I am the Lord, and there is no one else” (Isa. 45:6).

Or, as the Septuagint interprets it:

“So that they who are from the rising of the sun and from its going down may know that there is no one beside me” (Isa. 45:6, LXX).[20]

Malachi shows the fulfillment of this statement: “From the rising of the sun to the setting, my name is great among the nations.” The spreading of God’s name among the Gentiles was one of the reasons for the restoration, and it began to take on concrete shape in the lives and loyalties of freed exiles. The impact of Cyrus’s decree and God’s providential hand created conditions in which Yahweh’s fame grew beyond Israel’s borders.

From Cyrus’s Decree to Esther’s Victory

Historically, this began to play out after the victory by Esther, Mordecai, and the Jews over Haman’s forces in 510 BC,[21] where we read that “many from the peoples of the country declared themselves Jews, for fear of the Jews had fallen on them” (Esth. 8:17).[22]  The Septuagint even goes a step further, indicating that they were also circumcised.[23]  Subsequent generations would then have been born into God-fearing families throughout the entire empire – right down to Malachi’s time, 80 years later.

This trajectory continued on into New Testament times, as indicated by the God-fearing centurion Cornelius (Acts 10:1-2, 22) and the God-fearing Gentiles “in every nation” (Acts 10:35).[24]  Hence, we find both Jews and Gentiles attending the Jewish synagogues on the Sabbath in the book of Acts (Acts 14:1; 17:17; 18:4).  So, in the end, Malachi 1:11 does ultimately weave its way into the larger scope of the redemptive reality accomplished by Christ, but not by skipping the middle step of Gentile inclusion before Christ.

In a nutshell: what began during the time of Esther, continued through to the time of Malachi, and then on into New Testament times – paving the way for the Gospel to be brought to “God-fearing Gentiles” (Acts 17:17 NASB). These God-fearers (from Esther to Malachi to Acts) represent the historical bridge between the Old Covenant and the Gospel’s worldwide expansion in the New Covenant under Christ. Before the exile, worship was done in the temple. After the return from exile, worship was expanded to include local synagogues.[25] In the New Testament, these synagogues became the patterns for the local churches. There was a clear progression – a steady movement forward, setting the stage for the Gospel to take root and spread across the world. That progression continues to this day as His name continues to grow among the nations.

Recap

Malachi 1:11 need not be pressed into a future mold. Nor do incense and grain offerings need be pressed into Christian worship. This verse reflects the present reality in Malachi’s own day. Gentiles had met Israel’s God after the exile was over and were worshiping Him sincerely in “every place” that the sun’s light reached. The supposed difficulty associated with this verse is only such if we assume that this didn’t happen rather than simply taking God at His word and believing that it did.

This preserves the grammatical integrity of the passage, honors its immediate historical context, and coheres with redemptive history – all without retrofitting Old Testament rituals into the New Testament and warp-speeding Malachi’s words centuries into the future.

In short, Malachi recognized a genuine worship among the nations of his time, and not just a prophecy of times to come. Gentile worship of the Lord on foreign soil tilled that soil for the Gospel seed to be planted.

Takeaways for Today

From Cyrus to Esther to Malachi, a trajectory of Gentile inclusion was unfolding. This laid the groundwork for the spread of the Gospel in the New Testament. The New Testament, in turn, laid the groundwork for the spread of the Gospel in our own time. Paul wrote that the “surpassing riches of His grace” would be “shown in the ages to come” (Eph. 2:7), and that His “glory in the Church” and “in Jesus Christ” is for “all generations forever” (Eph. 3:21). As believers today, we are part of a bigger story – a story that began centuries ago. We’re called to keep the story going, and the kingdom growing, so God’s name would be “great among the nations” of our own day – just as it was in Malachi’s day (Mal. 1:11).

In this light, Malachi 1:11 shows us that God’s glory is not bound by borders nor confined to ethnicity. The returning exiles began learning this, the New Testament believers continued to learn this, and His people must never unlearn this. God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34), and there is no room for racism of any kind in His kingdom. God draws people from every nation to Himself (Jn. 12:32), and His love transcends national and cultural boundaries.

Malachi’s first chapter also teaches us that sincere worship is more important than religious formality. God rejected Israel’s offerings because they were impure and insincere. By contrast, Gentiles (outsiders) were honoring God with genuine devotion. Ritual, tradition, and appearance don’t trump sincere worship from the heart. Jesus called it worshiping in “spirit and truth” (Jn. 4:34).

Malachi also speaks to the fact that the Israelites of His day weren’t bringing God the best they had to offer (Mal. 1:8-10). This should cause us to reflect and ask ourselves some questions. Does our devotion to the Lord take first place in our lives, or is He an afterthought once we’ve gone through our daily business? How does our time in prayer compare to other things that consume and occupy our time? Do we spend the time that we should reading His word, studying it, and meditating upon it? An honest answer to these questions will reveal if our devotion is real.

Finally, Malachi 1:11 shows that God was receiving worship from outside the expected channels. With that said, we all have our own faith traditions within the Christian community. Believers today have differing preferences with regard to expressing worship, and we prefer fellowship with others who share those preferences. This speaks to the fact that there is a place for all true and sincere believers within the body of Christ, and Malachi reminds us that our preferred place is not the only place where God prefers His Spirit to be moving!

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[1] Åke Viberg, “Waking the Sleeping Metaphor: A New Interpretation of Malachi 1:11” (Tyndale Bulletin 45.2, 1994): 297.

[2] Our deepest appreciation to Dr. Jordan Grant for making us aware of the significance of Malachi 11:1, what the verse is actually saying, and the translational issues involved in the varying modern versions.

[3] For a helpful overview, see: Hebrew for Christians – Verbless Clauses in Biblical Hebrew https://bit.ly/3FMaBg3

[4] Malachi 1 Brenton’s Septuagint Translation https://bit.ly/4jVGGjr

[5] Other translations that render the verse in the future tense would be the New International Version, the English Standard Version, the Berean Study Bible, the King James Version, the New King James Version, the Legacy Study Bible, the Amplified Bible, the Christian Standard Bible, the Holman Christian Standard Bible, and the International Standard Version.

Other translations that render the verse in the present tense would be Young’s Literal Translation, Smith’s Literal Translation, the Literal Standard Version, the Good News Translation, the English Revised Version, the Contemporary English Version, the New Living Translation, the Douay-Rheims Bible, the Catholic Public Domain Version, the New American Bible, and the JPS Tanakh translation.

[6] For example, Greg Goswell gives uses 2 Sam. 20:21 as an example of “a passive participle that refers to the future,” along with Kgs 2:2; 2 Kgs 4:16; Isa 3:1; 7:14; Jer 30:10; Zech 2:13; 3:8, but he qualifies that by stating the “use of the participle” is  “to indicate imminent future action” (Greg Goswell, “The Eschatology of Malachi after Zechariah 14” [Journal of Biblical Literature, Volume 132, Number 3, 2013]: 632). The fact that the “future action” is “immediate,” however, would seem to run contrary to his idea that Malachi depicts “an eschatological hope” that still has yet to be realized.

[7] The Bible Says Commentary – Malachi 1:11 https://bit.ly/45ObHlS ; italics added.

[8] The form of the participle “to be offered” in Mal. 1:1 is the Hebrew passive participle hophal. The hiphal and hophal forms of the Hebrew participle represent “causative action”, with the hiphal being the active form, and the hophal being the passive form. While the action of the participle itself may or may not have started, the idea that it was “causative” indicates that the cause that would bring about that result was already in process, with which the action of the participle would shortly follow as a result. The key for hiphal and hophal isn’t just the active or passive nature of the participle, but also the causative action. So in Mal 1:11, strictly speaking, the wooden grammatical interpretation would be “the incense is (being) caused to be offered”. Even in 2 Sam 20:21, the cause for the throwing of the head was already started. The English doesn’t really have an equivalent to express the causative action except to use the future tense, but the causative action isn’t a simple future tense. It is something that is occurring in the present but that will shortly come to fruition. It is an action that is about to occur as the direct result of a present action.

[9] J.G. Baldwin, “Malachi 1:11 and the Worship of the Nations in the Old Testament” (Tyndale Bulliten 23, 1972): 123-124.

[10] Greg Goswell, “The Eschatology of Malachi after Zechariah 14,” 632.

[11] See, for instance, the examples given by Goswell in footnote 6 above.

[12] See: William Cox, Biblical studies in Final Things (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1966 [1980]: 61.

[13] The Bible Says Commentary – Malachi 1:11 https://bit.ly/45ObHlS .

[14] Richard Coggins & Jin H. Han, Six Minor Prophets Through the Centuries: Blackwell Bible Commentaries (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell Publications, 2011): 190. See also: Steven Lovison, Malachi 1:11 is the Catholic Mass! | Adoration Servants https://bit.ly/4dTL8h7 . According to Lovison, “Malachi 1:11 is fulfilled in the Sacrifice of the Mass. It is an unbloody food offering.” The Council of Trent specifically linked the Catholic Mass to the prophecy of Malachi, calling it  a “pure oblation, which cannot be defiled by unworthiness and impiety on the part of those who offer it, and concerning which God has predicted through Malachi, that there would be offered up a clean oblation in every place to His Name, which would be great among the Gentiles” (Council of Trent, 1545-1563, Session 22, Ch 1). See also: Norman P. Tanner, S.J., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Volume II, (Sheed & Ward and Georgetown University Press, 1990): 733.

[15] For an overview of attempts to spiritualize the rites specified in Malachi 1:11 and make them figurative for New Covenant realities, See: Goswell, “The Eschatology of Malachi after Zechariah 14,” 630-631.

[16] For examples of other translations using the present tense, see footnote 5.

[17] The construct of Mal. 1:14c is the same as the first and third clauses in 1:11. Even the same word “great” is used.

[18] This is not to say that the book of Malachi does not contain prophetic or messianic elements, but the prophetic element seems to start in chapter 3 with the announcement of the coming messenger of the covenant (Mal. 3:1).

[19] As Robert Martin-Achard pointed out: “the contrast involves places, not times” (A Light to the Nations: A Study of the Old Testament Conception of Israel’s Mission to the World [trans. John Penney Smith; Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1962]): 44.

[20] This reinforces Robert Martin-Achard’s observation that geographical area is in view here, rather than a time period (see footnote 19). In other words, God’s name is glorified by the people who occupy all the ground under which the sun’s light falls. Another way of saying it might be “from one end of heaven to the other.” To take the phrase in the sense of a time period would mean that God’s name would be glorified for one day, rather than forever. Even if one were to press the metaphor to mean something like God’s name would be glorified every single day, does this mean His name is not glorified at night – when the sun is down? Clearly, “from the rising of the sun to it’s going down,” refers to the geographical area covered by the sun’s light.

[21] For the date of the battle in the book of Esther, See: James B. Jordan, Darius, Artaxerxes, and Ahasuerus in the Bible (Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2014): 72-73.

[22] The word for “fear” in Malachi 1:11 is ya’re (to fear, be afraid) while the word in Esther 8:17 is pa’chad (terror, dread). The terms are not mutually exclusive, but rather complement each other and are basically two different ways of saying the same thing.  In 510 BC, many became Jews for fear (pa’chad) of the Jews (Esth. 8:17), and their descendants continued to fear (ya’re) the Lord in 430 BC (Mal. 1:14).

[23] “…in every city and province wherever the ordinance was published: wherever the proclamation took place, the Jews had joy and gladness, feasting and mirth: and many of the Gentiles were circumcised, and became Jews, for fear of the Jews” (Esther 8 Brenton’s Septuagint Translation, https://bit.ly/43G0PFl ).

[24] According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, “God-fearers” (theosebeis) “refers to gentiles who sympathize with the Jewish religion. The evidence evinces the existence of non-Jewish groups or individuals on the fringes of local synagogues who were deeply interested in aspects of Judaism and observed ad libitum precepts of the Jewish law…” (God-fearers (theosebeis) | Oxford Classical Dictionary https://bit.ly/3Zt3eRb ).

[25] While it is well known how the general synagogal services were structured, it is also true that some synagogues included the burning of incense. In Magdala, for example, an incense shovel, or mahta, was discovered in a synagogue that predates the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem (Jewish settlement from Second Temple era unearthed | The Jerusalem Post https://bit.ly/4kJDBEp ).