The words of the prophet Malachi portray the grand design.
Granted, Malachi begins with the complaints of the people of faith, who feel that precisely because of their faith, they lead difficult, restricted lives, and they ask questions that have no answers.
As the prophet puts it, “You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. What have we gained by keeping His charge? We have walked about mournfully because of the Lord of Hosts’” (Mai. 3:14).
This is a complaint not specifically about exile but about something much broader: divine concealment.
Why is the world beset with the reality of, “Now we consider the arrogant happy. They have done evil and yet are built up; they have tested God and escaped” (3:15)?
This question does not stem from one particular tragedy but, rather, relates to the course of life in its totality, a miserable life in which God does not seem to be involved at all.
However, at the end of the prophecy, Malachi insists that days will come in which all the answers and solutions will be revealed, and the truth will be recognized.
In those days, “you will come to see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who does not serve Him” (3:18).
And together with the answers and solutions, the time of reward will also come: “For you who revere My name, a sun of righteousness will rise, with healing in its wings” (3:20).
This will be the time of clarification and response, when the righteous will ascend higher and higher and the wicked will descend lower and lower.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz