My covenant with him was a covenant of life and peace: With him refers to Levi (verse 4) and the reference continues to be not to Levi as an individual, but to his descendants. Thus Good News Translation renders “them” (compare New Living Translation, Bible en français courant, Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente) and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, 1. Edition actually uses the term “descendants.” A covenant of life and peace is best taken to mean “a covenant that brought them life and peace.” This expression does not occur anywhere else in the Old Testament. Life means more than just physical existence, and peace means more than just the absence of war. Peace is rendered as “well-being” in New Revised Standard Version and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, and as “prosperity” in New English Bible (compare Bible en français courant, Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente). In some languages the two nouns life and peace may be best combined into a single phrase, such as “a full life” (Contemporary English Version) or “a prosperous life,” and the whole clause may be translated as “In my agreement I promised to give them a full life.”

And I gave them to him, that he might fear: The Hebrew underlying these words is awkward. As it stands, them refers back to the life and peace in the previous clause and the words that he might fear translate a single Hebrew noun “fear.” Most scholars take this noun to be parallel with life and peace, and to be a third object of the verb gave. This is how the ancient Latin translation took it, and the Septuagint Greek is somewhat similar. Both of these versions however omit the Hebrew suffix translated them and thus simplify the sentence structure. The thought seems to be that the LORD fulfilled his covenant promise to give life and peace with a view to causing the descendants of Levi to fear (or, “respect”) him in return. It is this understanding that leads to the addition of the words that he might in Revised Standard Version (compare “so that they might” in Good News Translation). It is also possible to follow the Hebrew grammatical structure more closely, as New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh does with “I had with him a covenant of life and well-being, which I gave to him, and of reverence, which he showed me.” New Revised Standard Version expresses the cause and effect sequence in a different way with “… life and well-being, which I gave him; this called for reverence, and he revered Me….” The statement as a whole indicates that in the earlier times that the prophet is referring to, just as the LORD kept his obligations under the covenant, so did the Levites. This is reinforced by the emphatic position of the pronoun he at the end of the verse in Hebrew. The first part of this verse may then be alternatively rendered as “In my agreement I promised to give them a full life, so that they might respect [or, honor] me.”

And he feared me, he stood in awe of my name: Feared means “respect” (Beck) or “revered” (New English Bible/Revised English Bible). The Hebrew verbs here translated as feared and stood in awe are often used together in the Old Testament (Deut 1.21; Josh 8.1; 10.25; Jer 23.4; 30.10; Ezek 2.6; note that Revised Standard Version has “dismayed” for the second verb in these verses). My name is virtually the same as “me” (see 1.6), and some versions translate it as “me” (Good News Translation, Moffatt, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, 1. Edition). Others render it as “my power” (Bible en français courant, Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente) or “My nearness” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, 2. Edition). In some languages my name is used naturally in the same sense as in Hebrew and in such situations a literal translation will be in order. A possible alternative translation is “and they did respect and fear [or, stand in awe of] me.”

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Malachi. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2002. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .