We take the layout of our Bibles for granted. I don’t mean that dismissively or negatively; we just know how the Old and New Testaments are laid out. For instance, we know that Malachi ends the Old Testament in our Bibles, and Christians often view God’s words to the prophet Malachi as the last words before 400 years of silence, which God broke when He sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus’ arrival.

Related: Sunday Thoughts: 400 Years

But in the Jewish scriptures, which they call the Tanakh, the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles fall at the end. The prophetic books come before Chronicles. Those books are a recapitulation of the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, but Chronicles specifically ends with the Jewish people in exile to Babylon. 

It’s a different way to look at the ending of the Old Testament. In a recent episode of his podcast “The Bible (Unmuted),” my friend Dr. Matthew Halsted discussed the two different endings of the Old Testament and why they’re significant.

“Have you ever given much thought to the way the Old Testament ends and how that might influence the way the New Testament is introduced and read?” he began. “So for example, the Book of Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament. Then comes the New Testament Book of Matthew, which introduces the story of Jesus the Messiah. How does the message of Malachi lead into the gospel story?”

Matthew cited two specific passages from Malachi to prove his point:

Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? 

Malachi 3:1-2a (ESV)

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.

Malachi 4:5-6 (ESV)

Those two passages point the way to John the Baptist and Jesus. Matthew showed us where Jesus addresses it in Matthew 11:7-19:

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, “‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. “But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates, “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

Malachi ends the Old Testament with the prophet announcing God’s coming messenger, and the New Testament picks up with John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. 

Recommended: Sunday Thoughts: Rethinking the End of the World, a Conversation With Dr. Matthew Halsted, Part 1

Sunday Thoughts: Rethinking the End of the World, a Conversation With Dr. Matthew Halsted, Part 2

“Our English Bibles end with the Book of Malachi, but that's not how the Hebrew Bible ends,” Matthew continued in his podcast. “Interestingly, the Hebrew Bible ends with 2 Chronicles. So here's a question. How might that ending impact the way you read the New Testament?”

“To answer that question, you have to ask another question,” he added. “How does 2 Chronicles end? The answer is, with the Jewish people taken into exile.”

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.’”

2 Chronicles 36:22-23 (ESV)

Matthew elaborated:

But as we know, the rebuilding of the temple didn't end exactly how a lot of folks had hoped, and in the end, even that second temple gets destroyed in AD 70 by the Romans. And that's what makes the New Testament story so fascinating.

It offers a magnificent vision where the temple is understood to be Christ, and for the Christ people, those who are in Christ by faith are taken to be the temple by virtue of their union with Him. So here's the ending. The Hebrew Bible ends with the temple destroyed and the people taken into exile, but with the hope that there would be a return from exile and the rebuilding of the temple.

And the New Testament tells the story how that ended with God's Messiah as both the temple and the one who returns His people home to God, and in fact, that ending is part of the larger story of scripture.

It’s a fascinating way to think about the different endings of the Old Testament. For Christians, the Old Testament ends almost like a cliffhanger that points to what’s coming next in the arrival of the Messiah. The Hebrew scriptures end with exile but hang on the hope that God will restore His people. 

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