The Sun of Righteousness has lured me down a short detour through Malachi. The book's name is provocative: it means "my angel." This is obviously written by visionary men following the return from Babylon -- the establishment is called "Esau" and "Edom," Jerusalem was laid waste for their sins, and though they have come back and rebuilt, the Lord is still unhappy with them.
And what does My Angel have to say to this establishment? They have laid "polluted bread" on the altar, a clear reference to deviation from, loss or corruption of, the Worship of the Shalems, with its central sacrament of bread and wine. Even better, Malachi says they have "polluted" the "table of the Lord" and "the fruit thereof." This is not a different charge, but the same one repeated, and it tells us what in Plain and Precious Things I inferred by comparing Leviticus 24, Revelation 22, John 6, Luke 22, and 1 Nephi 8 -- that the bread upon the table in the temple (the "table of the Lord") was regarded as "fruit."
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