steadfast love from the time of Moses to the end of Old Testament revelation. The reader of Malachi should also recall the Lord’s affirmation of love with which “the Book of the Twelve” or Minor Prophets begins. Watts notes that God’s love (ʾāhabâ) for Israel is only explicit in the Twelve in Hosea (3:1; 9:15; 11:1, 4; 14:3–4) and here in Mal 1:2.27 All that has happened in and to Israel has not overturned the Lord’s love for his people (cf. Mal 3:6). The reminder here at the end of the prophets
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