Behold mark well what now the Lord doth foretell

The day before mentioned, the day of visitation and discerning of men, cometh; though it be at some four hundred years’ distance from you, yet it is coming, and will overtake you, and overwhelm you too about that time; nay, you shall have some tastes of bitter cups before, some less and shorter troubles, the presage and assurance of that dreadful day I now speak of, saith our prophet.

That shall burn as an oven: the refiner’ s fire, Mal 3:2 , is now represented to us as a fire burning more dreadfully, which really was more dreadful in the fulfilling than here it is in the prediction; when Jerusalem and the temple were on fire, and none could quench it; when the fire raged every where, but burnt most fiercely where the arched roofs did make it, as in ovens or furnaces, to double itself, and infold flames with flames, and with dreadful roarings increased its terrors. This day may well be an emblem of the day of judgment, and this place may be accommodated thereto, but it principally speaks of the times of vengeance on Jerusalem in its final desolation.

All the proud such as are described Mal 1:13 3:13-15 . All that do wickedly: this is another part of the character of these persons, and explicatory of the former passage; proud men, such as the text mentions, will be wicked workers.

Shall be stubble dried and cast into the oven, consumed as soon as cast in.

The day that cometh ; of which already, Mal 3:17 , and in this verse.

Shall burn them up totally and speedily consume them.

Saith the Lord of hosts added to confirm the certainty of the thing; the Lord of hosts hath said it shall be, and he can do what he saith he will.

It shall leave them neither root nor branch in allusion to the utter extirpation of trees for the fire, whose branches lopped off, the body cleft, and the roots stocked up, and all cast into the fire; so that nothing remains but the ashes, into which all is turned: and this was fully accomplished upon the irreligious Jews, when the Romans burnt their city and temple, and destroyed the people.

You that fear my name so are they described to us who were written in the book of remembrance, Mal 3:16 ; who loved the law of their God, and kept it; who believed his promises, and rejoiced in expectation of the good promised; who believed his threats and trembled at them, that they might rest in the day of trouble, as Hab 3:16 ; who walked humbly with their God.

The Sun Christ, who is the day.spring from on high, Luk 1:78 : or, as most elegantly described Isa 60:1-3 , who is very fitly compared to the sun; Fountain of light and vital heat to his church, he enlightens and enlivens every one Joh 1:4,9 .

Of righteousness and of mercy and benignity, for the Hebrew word imports both, and neither may be here excluded. His justice is seen in executions of judgment on the proud and wicked, who are consumed in the fire of his wrath; and his righteousness and mercy are seen in the preservation and remuneration of those that fear the Lord: so greatly different shall this time be to the wicked and the godly; to these a day of benign light and kindly influences through the mercy of God, to the wicked a day of destruction. and utter extirpation.

Arise with healing in his wings his beams and rays shall bring health and strength, with delight and joy, safety and security: it may be (as some have observed from the word) an intimation of the healing virtue that from Christ went forth to such as in faith touched the hem of his garment, Mat 9:20,21 , and is as effectual for the healing of soul maladies and infirmities as of bodily diseases.

Ye shall go forth ; go out of harm’ s way, out of Jerusalem, before the fatal siege, obeying the call from heaven, Go hence to Pella, and that of Christ, Mat 24:15,16 .

And grow up in strength, rigour, and spiritual stature, as calves of the stall; where they are safe guarded and well ordered. So will the Lord keep safe and look well to his preserved ones when the wicked are destroyed.

You that fear my name so are they described to us who were written in the book of remembrance, Mal 3:16 ; who loved the law of their God, and kept it; who believed his promises, and rejoiced in expectation of the good promised; who believed his threats and trembled at them, that they might rest in the day of trouble, as Hab 3:16 ; who walked humbly with their God.

The Sun Christ, who is the day.spring from on high, Luk 1:78 : or, as most elegantly described Isa 60:1-3 , who is very fitly compared to the sun; Fountain of light and vital heat to his church, he enlightens and enlivens every one Joh 1:4,9 .

Of righteousness and of mercy and benignity, for the Hebrew word imports both, and neither may be here excluded. His justice is seen in executions of judgment on the proud and wicked, who are consumed in the fire of his wrath; and his righteousness and mercy are seen in the preservation and remuneration of those that fear the Lord: so greatly different shall this time be to the wicked and the godly; to these a day of benign light and kindly influences through the mercy of God, to the wicked a day of destruction. and utter extirpation.

Arise with healing in his wings his beams and rays shall bring health and strength, with delight and joy, safety and security: it may be (as some have observed from the word) an intimation of the healing virtue that from Christ went forth to such as in faith touched the hem of his garment, Mat 9:20,21 , and is as effectual for the healing of soul maladies and infirmities as of bodily diseases.

Ye shall go forth ; go out of harm’ s way, out of Jerusalem, before the fatal siege, obeying the call from heaven, Go hence to Pella, and that of Christ, Mat 24:15,16 .

And grow up in strength, rigour, and spiritual stature, as calves of the stall; where they are safe guarded and well ordered. So will the Lord keep safe and look well to his preserved ones when the wicked are destroyed.

And ye: see Mal 4:2 .

Shall tread down the wicked: now the ungodly, proud, and atheistical despisers of God, providence, and future judgments. do tread down those that fear God and are godly, but it shall not be so always; that word, Psa 58:10,11 , and that, Isa 66:24 , and that, Rev 18:20 , shall be fulfilled in the overthrow of the bad, and in the triumphs of the good. But, more particularly, this treading seems to be intended of those who, after the sacking and burning of Jerusalem, should return either to view the ruins. or to dwell there, and so should, in going lip and down. tread upon the wicked, either buried in the ruins or consumed to ashes.

For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet: by this it appears that these preserved ones did not barbarously tread upon the entire bodies of the wicked, but upon the ashes of those bodies, by the fire consumed and turned into ashes, and mixed with the ashes of their houses and goods.

In the day that I shall do this burn Jerusalem and the temple, with the citizens and priests whose carcasses were slain by the sword, or their persons, surprised with the flames, shall be burnt up. And so both this and much of the first verse may be literally understood, and was so fulfilled by Titus and his soldiers, A.D. 73.

Now take leave of all prophecy, for you shall have no more till the great Prophet, till Shiloh come; and attend ye diligently to the law of Moses, keep its precepts and directions.

The law in the full extent: the moral precepts; rules of a holy and religious life for all. The ceremonial precepts; rules of your worship, so long as your temple shall stand a type of Christ to come. The judicial precepts; whilst you have any government, or power of judicatures. By a due keeping this you may escape future judgments and obtain future blessings, Le 26 De 28 : besides, by this attending to the law, they might be enabled to see the Messiah, and own him of whom Moses wrote in the law. Now though the law only be expressed, the prophets are included, who also wrote of Christ, Deu 18:15 Joh 5:46,47 Ac 13:27 . This was excellent advice to this people, who (had they taken it) had escaped the sins they ran into and the miseries they fell under; they had not crucified the Lord of glory, nor rejected their own mercy, nor pulled fiery judgments on their own heads, to their utter ruin.

Of Moses ; whose memory you venerate, in whom you glory, whose law therefore you ought to obey. My servant; who was my servant, and delivered my commands to you. I do therefore expect that my authority, and Moses’ s esteem among you, prevail with you to study most carefully this law.

Which I commanded unto him in Horeb , with most majestic circumstances, to awe you to the observance of all its precepts; and which was an emblem of that terror and majesty wherein the Lawgiver would appear to judge, to give rewards, or adjudge to punishments.

For all Israel ; so long as they should be a people and church.

With the statutes and judgments ; be not partial; statutes and judgments, i.e. the whole law, must you attend to, and remember it as God requires, not turn aside from any of its prescripts.

I will send though the spirit of propheey cease for four hundred years, yet at the expiring of those years you shall have one sent, as great as Elijah, and therefore he is now called Elijah, that shall prepare Messiah’ s way.

Elijah ; not the same in person who reproved idolatrous Israel, who destroyed Baal, though both Jews and many Christians would gladly have it so, in favour of some errors they have adopted and would maintain. But this person here called Elijah was John Baptist, as is clear from Mat 17:12 13 ,

Elias is come and they have done to him whatsoever they listed. Then the disciples understood that he spake of John the Baptist. And he was that Elias, if they would receive him, Mat 11:14 . Elias, was to come when Malachi lived; Elias was come, and the Jews had ill treated him, and Herod had beheaded him, when Christ here lived; this Elijah then was John the Baptist, who came

in the spirit and power of Elias Luk 1:17 , and therefore bears his name in this prophecy.

The prophet who foretold Christ the true Messiah’ s sudden manifestation, who indeed was already among them, but had not yet diseovered himself; on whom he persuades the Jews to believe, and receive his person and his law, Luk 1:15-17 Mar 1:7,8 ; who was greater than a prophet, Mat 11:9 ; nor doth John’ s denying himself to be a prophet, Joh 1:21 , in their sense contradict this.

Before ; that is, immediately before; so he was born six months before Christ, and began his preaching but few years before Christ began to exercise his public office.

Great : this day was great indeed, yet it is not the day of the last and great judgment, though the Jews perversely affirm it to evade the acknowledgment of Messiah’ s being already come. But this day of Messiah was great for the alterations he was to make in worship and church affairs, taking down the Mosaic ceremonies and enlarging the church; great for the miracles he wrought, and empowered others to do; great for the reconciliation between God and man, for the conquering of Satan, and casting him out of his throne. It was great too against the Jews his obstinate enemies.

Dreadful : it was a time of vengeance executed upon a people whose sins were full ripe; and such sufferings fell on the Jews at that time, as may very well be an emblem of the day of judgment, and which may be remotely meant hereby. But the first, the literal and plain, meaning of the words refer to the times of vengeance upon the Jews from either the birth, or first preaching, or death of Christ to the final desolation of the city and temple, and irrecoverable overthrow of their government, of which Christ speaks at large, Mt 24 Mr 13 ; which places point out first the sad and dismal miseries of the Jews, and next, by accommodation, the end of the world and last judgment. Such a description of this day, Joe 2:31 , by St. Peter interpreted and applied to this day of Christ, Act 2:20 , more fully clears this. The Lord ; Jesus Christ, preaching to the Jews, calling them to repentance, reproving their sins, encouraging their compliance, threatening their impenitence, and labouting to gather the children of Jerusalem together under his wings, but they would not, Mat 23:34-39 ; and therefore at last destroying by the Romans these obstinate and incorrigible sinners.

And he John the Baptist, who comes in the spirit and power of Elias.

Shall turn it shall be his office and work to turn, as it is the office of every preacher. The success is of God, who also gives it as he pleaseth, and did give it to John’ s ministry; and so the words include the event of John’ s preaching, which did, as here it is foretold he should, convert many.

The heart of the fathers to the children: there were at this time many great and unnatural divisions and quarrels among the Jews, in which fathers studied mischief to their own children; they were divided and spitefully bent against them, in civil matters and on account of religion, and these turned their hearts from the dearest relations. Some by fathers and children understand Jews and Gentiles, whose souls being converted to Christ, their hearts were turned one to another.

And the heart of the children to their fathers undutiful children estranged by the same means and on the same accounts from their fathers, but now, by obeying the call to repentance, embracing the doctrine of the Messiah immediately to be revealed, and baptized into it, religious quarrels cease, and both parents’ and children’ s hearts unite to Christ first, and then to each ofher, and all to God.

Lest I God or Christ, who indeed first tenders the blessings of grace and peace, and gives them to such as accept; but this the Jews would not, the rulers, the priests, the body of the people, refused them: the next thing Christ (Lord and King, rejected and disowned) will do, is to curse and destroy.

Smite the earth the land of Judea, and the inhabitants of it,

with a curse which brings with it and ends in utter destruction; as at this day we read in the story of the Romans invading, subduing, captivating the Jews, and razing their city and temple. That time is past now one thousand six hundred and forty-four years since a stone was not left upon a stone, as was foretold by Christ, Mat 24:2 , since those unparalleled hardships and miseries befell the Jews, which no heart almost can read and not bleed at reading, (though at this distance of time,) and the sufferers so deservedly endured such a curse as leaveth Jerusalem a desolate heap, and a perpetual monument of God’ s displeasure against a people that finally sin against his sovereignty and his mercy.

END OF VOL. II

There are two messages in this chapter – two signals Malachi sets up for our attention.  There is both anticipation and joy and dread.  There is judgment and there is blessing.  The day that comes (and by the way throughout the Old Testament prophets you find this unique term " the day of the Lord" as a unique prophetic marker that says there is coming a special time in the economy of God’s purposes when God will have His way).  There are some schools of thought that would indicate that the Old Testament Jews viewed all of time in two sequences.  One was the present evil time when they as a people were in a minority and where they stuggled and suffered to survive, and then the day of the Lord and that time forward would be a time when God with power and with decisive intervention would step into the affairs of men and the kingdom of God would have its most dominant and prominent effect in human history.  It sounds like there may be something to that in the language we read here.  But for many of these people who superficially anticipated the day of the Lord and looked forward to it, it was not just going to be a day of judgment against Israel’s enemies, it was going to be a day of judgment against many in the nation of Israel.  The proud and the wicked will face God in the same way that stubble, straw, faces fire.  If you’re stubble and a fire is coming at you, you’re not real pleased about the prospect of what is going to happen next.  The day burns.  No human being cares for fire.  I think if any of us had to name the most dreadful injury we might potentially suffer it would be to suffer traumatic injury by fire, severe burns, it would just be an awful thing to go through.  And there’s not much left of these people – they’re burned up.   They’re consumed in this event.  But, in verse 2 He says " Unto you that fear my Name" and we’ve seen in chaper two that those who feared the Lord met in communities, spoke often one with another.  God made a list and checked it twice.  He would not overlook the blessing upon those who feared Him.  Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings and it says you’ll go forth as calves fed in a stall, put into a stall and fed, hand-fed, by the owner the very choicest foods and everything you eat and every need you have supplied personally by the Master.  It just doesn’t get better.  And that is what God says will happen to those who fear His Name.

Furnace. At the day of judgment, the difference between the just and the wicked will plainly appear. (Worthington) ---

This sense is most generally given, as well as to those words where our Saviour speaks of the signs of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the end of the world together, Matthew xxiv. 3., and Luke xxi. 5. Yet the prophet may also allude to the punishment of the Jews by the Romans, when all were assembled at the Passover, (Calmet) a scourge which the Christians escaped by retiring to Pella. (Eusebius, History of the Church iii. 5.) ---

Proud. Septuagint, "strangers." (Calmet) ---

Branch. No hope shall remain. (Menochius)

Wings. The sun is represented with wings, to imply celerity. The appearance of the Lord will be most acceptable to the virtuous. (Calmet) ---

Look up, for your redemption is at hand, Luke xxi. 28. ---

Herd. Protestants, "stall." Hebrew marbek, (Haydock) "fattened;" though some explain it of oxen treading out corn: they would not however leap, nor fatten so much. (Calmet)

Ashes, burnt in Jerusalem. (Haydock) ---

Christians rejoiced in the execution of divine justice. The Jews were not allowed to approach the new city, Elia. (St. Jerome)

Law. This must be your guide and comfort. No more prophets shall appear before [John] the Baptist. (Calmet)

Elias. Septuagint add, "the Thesbite;" and St. Jerome (in Matthew xvii.) says, that Elias shall indeed come and restore all things. ---

Dreadful. Christ's first coming was in all meekness; but he will judge in terror. Hence the prophet's meaning is not that St. John [the Baptist], but that Elias shall come before the great day of the Lord. (Worthington) ---

Yet we may understand it of Christ coming into the world to preach, and again to judge. His first coming proved terrible to the perfidious Jews, whose ruin presently ensued. The destruction of Jerusalem was a figure of that which the world shall experience. (Calmet) ---

This shall be preceded by the preaching of Elias. (N. Alex. Diss.vi.) ---

This interpretation seems very striking and natural, though the prophet may have had the first coming of Christ and the ruin of the city chiefly in view. Our Saviour testifies that the Elias whom the Jews expected was already come, Matthew xi. 14., and xvii. 11., and Luke ix. 8. (Calmet)

Heart, &c. By bringing over the Jews to the faith of Christ, he shall reconcile them to their fathers, viz., the patriarchs and prophets, whose hearts for many ages have been turned away from them, because of their refusing to believe in Christ. (Calmet) ---

The antipathy of Jews and Gentiles shall cease. Both shall enter the Church of Christ, Isaias xi. 13. John the Baptist strove to ameliorate the manners of the people, and to bring all to Christ, who reconciles all seeming contradictions in the Scriptures. He came to put an end to all dissensions. (Calmet) ---

Yet the wicked will still have war, Matthew x. 35. (Haydock) ---

Christ will convert those Jews at last, (Romans xi. 26.; Calmet) who have not yet opened their eyes. Their fathers, the apostles and first converts, have long ago shewn them the example. (Haydock) ---

Anathema. In the Hebrew, cherem, that is, utter destruction. (Challoner) ---

Septuagint, "entirely," (Calmet) or "suddenly;" Greek: arden. (St. Jerome) (Deuteronomy vii. 26.) ---

This passage intimates that the ruin of Jerusalem is threatened. If people should be converted, would that stop the general conflagration? (Calmet) ---

Some of our crafty adversaries have inferred from the above explanation of anathema, that the Church means heretics to be destroyed: but her kingdom is not of this world: she speaks only of the soul, and exercises a spiritual power. (Haydock)

For, behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven,.... Not the day of judgment, as Kimchi and other interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, think; but the day of Christ's coming in his kingdom and power, to take vengeance on the Jewish nation, which burned like an oven, both figuratively and literally; when the wrath of God, which is compared to fire, came upon that people to the uttermost; and when their city and temple were burnt about their ears, and they were surrounded with fire, as if they had been in a burning oven: and this being so terrible, as can hardly be conceived and expressed, the word "behold" is prefixed to it, not only to excite attention, but horror and terror at so dreadful a calamity; which though future, when the prophet wrote, was certain:

and all the proud; yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; the proud Pharisees, that boasted of their own righteousness, trusted in themselves, and despised others; all workers of iniquity, in private or in public; all rejecters of Christ, contemners of his Gospel and ordinances, and persecutors of his people; as well as such who were guilty of the most flagitious crimes, as sedition, robbery, murder, &c. of which there were notorious instances during the siege of Jerusalem; these were all like stubble before devouring fire, weak and easily destroyed:

and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts: which is repeated, to show the certainty of it, and to apply it to the persons before described:

that it shall leave them neither root nor branch: which signifies an entire and complete destruction; the city and temple so utterly destroyed, that not one stone shall be left on another; both magistrates and subjects shall perish, priests and people, so that there shall be no form of government, civil nor ecclesiastical; tribes and families lost, they and their posterity: and so the Targum,

"which shall not leave them son and nephew:''

and, indeed, the numbers cut off were so many, and the destruction so general, that it may be wondered at that any remained: it is a proverbial expression, setting forth the greatness of the calamity; see Mat 3:10.

But unto you that fear my name,.... The few that were of this character among that wicked nation; See Gill on Mal 3:16,

shall the Sun of righteousness arise; not the Holy Ghost, who enlightens sinners, convinces of righteousness, and gives joy, peace, and comfort to the saints, but Christ: and thus it is interpreted of him by the ancient Jews, in one of their Midrashes or expositions ^a; they say, Moses says not they shall be for ever pledged, that is, the clothes of a neighbour, but until the sun comes, until the Messiah comes, as it is said, "unto you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise", &c.; and Philo the Jew ^b not only observes, that God, figuratively speaking, is the sun; but the divine "Logos" or Word of God, the image of the heavenly Being, is called the sun; who, coming to our earthly system, helps the kindred and followers of virtue, and affords ample refuge and salvation to them; referring, as it seems; to this passage: indeed, they generally interpret it of the sun, literally taken, which they suppose, at the end of the world, will have different effects on good and bad men; they say ^c,

"in the world to come, God will bring the sun out of its sheath, and burn the wicked; they will be judged by it, and the righteous will be healed by it:''

for the proof of the former, they produce the words in the first verse of this chapter, "behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven"; and of the latter these words, "but unto you that fear my name &c."; and a very ridiculous notion they have, that Abraham their father had a precious stone or pearl hanging about his neck, and every sick person that saw it was healed by it immediately; and, when he departed out of the world, God took it, and fixed it to the orb of the sun; hence the proverb, the sun rises, and sickness decreases ^d; and as it is elsewhere quoted ^e, this passage is added to confirm it, as it is said, "to you that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings": unless this fable should be intended to mean, as Abarbinel ^f interprets it, that Abraham, while he lived, clearly proved the unity of God and his perfections; and that, after his death, the same truth was taught by the wonderful motion of the sun: but, be this as it will, those are undoubtedly in the right who understand these words figuratively of the Messiah; who is compared to the "sun", because, as the sun is a luminous body, the light of the whole world, so is Christ of the world of men, and of the world of saints; particularly of the Gentiles, often called the world; and of the New Jerusalem church state, and of the world to come: and as the sun is the fountain of light, so is Christ the fountain of natural and moral light, as well as of the light of grace, and of the light of glory: as the sun communicates light to all the celestial bodies, so Christ to the moon, the church; to the stars, the ministers of the word; to the morning stars, the angels: as the sun dispels the darkness of the night, and makes the day, so Christ dispelled the darkness of the ceremonial law, and made the Gospel day; and he dispels the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, and makes the day of grace; and will dispel the darkness of imperfection, and will make the day of glory; as the sun is a pure, clear, and lucid body, so is Christ, without the least spot of sin; and so are his people, as they are clothed with his righteousness: as the sun is a glorious body, so is Christ both his natures, divine and human; in his office as Mediator; and will be in his second coming: as the sun is superior to all the celestial bodies, so is Christ to angels and saints: as the sun is but one, so there is but one Son of God; one Mediator between God and man; one Saviour and Redeemer; one Lord and Head of the church: its properties and effects are many; it lays things open and manifest, which before were hid; communicates heat as well as light; make the earth fruitful; is very exhilarating; has its risings and settings, and of great duration: so Christ declares the mind and will of his Father, the hidden mysteries of grace; lays open the thoughts of men's hearts in conversion; and will at the last day bring to light the hidden things of darkness: he warms the hearts of his people with his love, and causes them to burn within them, while they hear his Gospel, and he makes them fervent in spirit while they serve the Lord; he fills them with the fruits of righteousness, and with joy unspeakable, and full of glory; but he is not always seen, is sometimes under a cloud, and withdraws himself; yet his name is as the sun before the Lord, and wilt abide for ever. He is called "the sun of righteousness", because of the glory of his essential righteousness as God; and because of the purity and perfection of his righteousness as man, which appeared in all his actions, and in the administration of all his offices; and because of the display of the righteousness of God in him, in his sufferings and death, in atonement, pardon, and justification by him; and because he is the author and bringer in of righteousness to his people, the glory of which outshines all others, is pure and spotless like the sun, and is everlasting; those who have it are said to be clothed with the sun, and on such he shines in his beams of divine love, grace, and mercy, which righteousness sometimes signifies; and his rays of grace transform men into righteousness and true holiness. The "arising" of this sun may denote the appearance of Christ in our nature; under the former dispensation this sun was not risen, it was then night with the world; John the Baptist was the morning star, the forerunner of it: Christ the sun is now risen; the dayspring from on high hath visited mankind, and has spread its light and heat, its benign influences, by the ministration of the Gospel, the grace of God, which has appeared and shone out, both in Judea, and in the Gentile world: it may be accommodated to his spiritual appearance: this sun is sometimes under a cloud, or seems to be set, which occasions trouble, and is for wise ends, but will and does arise again to them that fear the Lord. The manner is,

with healing in his wings; by which are meant its rays and beams, which are to the sun as wings to a bird, by which it swiftly spreads its light and heat; so we read of the wings of the morning, Psa 139:9. Christ came as a physician, to heal the diseases of men; he healed the bodily diseases of the Jews, and he heals the soul diseases of his people, their sins; which healing he has procured by his blood and stripes: pardon of sin by the blood of Christ is meant by healing, which is universal, infallible, and free, Psa 103:3 it may denote all that preservation, protection, prosperity, and happiness, inward and outward, which they that feared the Lord enjoyed through Christ, when the unbelieving Jews were destroyed; and which is further expressed by what follows:

and ye shall go forth; not out of the world, or out of their graves, as some think; but either out of Jerusalem, as the Christians did a little before its destruction, being warned so to do ^g, whereby they were preserved from that calamity; or it intends a going forth with liberty in the exercise of grace and duty, in the exercise of faith on Christ, love to him, hope in him, repentance, humility, self-denial, &c.; and in a cheerful obedience to his will; or else walking on in his ways; having health and strength, with great pleasure and comfort; and, as Aben Ezra says, by the light of this sun.

And grow up as calves of the stall; such as are fat, being put up there for that purpose; see Amo 6:4. Bochart ^h has proved, from many passages out of the Talmud ⁱ, that the word which the Targum here makes use of, and answers to that in the Hebrew text, which is rendered "stall", signifies a yoke or collar, with which oxen or heifers were bound together, while they were threshing or treading out of corn; so that the calves or heifers here referred to were such as were not put up in a stall, but were yoked together, and employed in treading out the corn; now as there was a law that such should not be muzzled while they were thus employed, but might eat of the corn on the floor freely and plentifully, Deu 25:4 these usually grew fat, and so were the choicest and most desirable, to which the allusion may be here, and in Jer 46:21 Amo 6:4 and are a fit emblem of saints joined together in holy fellowship, walking together in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord; where they get spiritual food for their souls, and are in thriving circumstances; where they meet with the corn of heaven, with that corn which makes the young men cheerful, and that bread which nourishes up to everlasting life. The apostle alludes to the custom of oxen yoked together, either in ploughing, or in treading out the corn, when he says, speaking of church fellowship and communion in the ordinances of the Gospel, "be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers", 2Co 6:14 for this hinders spiritual edification, as well as the promotion of the glory of God; but where they are equally yoked, and go hand in hand together in the work and ways of the Lord, they grow and flourish; they are comfortable in their souls, and lively in the exercise of grace; and they are the most thriving Christians, generally speaking, who are in church communion, and most constantly attend the means of grace, and keep closest to the word and ordinances: for the metaphor here used is designed to express a spiritual increase in all grace, and in the knowledge of Christ, and a growing up into him in all things, through the use of means, the word and ordinances; whereby saints become fat and flourishing, being fed with the milk of the word, and the breasts of ordinances, and having fellowship with one another; and, above all, this spiritual growth is owing to the dews of the grace of God, the shining of the Sun of righteousness, and the comfortable gales of the south wind of the Spirit of God, which cause the spices to flow out. The Septuagint version, and those that follow it, render it, "ye shall leap" or "skip as calves loosed from bonds"; as such creatures well fed do when at liberty; and may denote the spiritual joy of the saints upon their being healed, or because of their secure, safe, and prosperous estate: and so the word is explained in the Talmud ^k, they shall delight themselves in it; and where the Rabbins interpret this and the preceding verse Mal 4:1 of the natural sun in the firmament, which will be the hell ^l in the world to come, and which will burn the wicked, and heal the righteous.

And ye shall tread down the wicked,.... As grapes in the winepress, as Christ did before them, Isa 63:2 and they by virtue of him; who makes them more than conquerors through himself, over all their enemies, spiritual and temporal:

for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet; this refers to the burning of them, Mal 4:1 and may be literally understood of their being burnt with the city and temple; when afterwards, as Grotius observes, the city of Jerusalem being in some measure rebuilt, and called Aelia, there was a Christian church in it, governed by bishops, who were converted Jews; and so might be literally said to trample upon the ashes of the wicked, who had persecuted them in times past, they being upon the very spot where these men were destroyed by fire:

in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts: or "in the day which I make" ^m; that is, by the rising of the sun of righteousness, the Gospel day. The Talmud ⁿ interprets this verse of the bodies of the wicked in hell, which after twelve months will be consumed, and the wind will scatter them under the soles of the feet of the righteous.

Remember ye the law of Moses my servant,.... Who was faithful as such in the house of God, in delivering the law to the children of Israel, which was given him; and who are called upon to remember it, its precepts and its penalties, which they were apt to forget: and particularly this exhortation is given now, because no other prophet after Malachi would be sent unto them, this is what they should have and use as their rule and directory; and because that Christ, now prophesied of, would be the end of this law; and this, and the prophets, were to be until the days of John the Baptist, spoken of in the next verse Mal 4:5; and the rather, because in this period of time, between Malachi and the coming of Christ, the traditions of the elders were invented and obtained, which greatly set aside the law, and made it of no effect:

which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel; for though the law came by Moses, and is therefore called his, yet God was the author and efficient cause of it; Moses was only a servant and minister; and this was given in Horeb, the same with Sinai: these are names of one and the same mountain, at least of the parts of it; one part of it was called Horeb, from its being a dry desert and desolate place; and the other Sinai, from its bushes and brambles. So Jerom ^o says,

"Horeb, the mountain of God, is in the land of Midian, by Mount Sinai, above Arabia in the wilderness, to which are joined the mountain and wilderness of the Saracens, called Pharan; but to me it seems the same mountain is called by two names, sometimes Sinai, and sometimes Horeb;''

see Exo 31:18. Agreeably to which Josephus ^p calls Horeb, where Moses fed his flock, and saw the vision of the burning bush, Mount Sinai; and says, it was the highest of the mountains in those parts, very convenient for pasture, and abounded with excellent herbage. Some say ^q the eastern part of it was called Sinai, and the western part Horeb; it is very likely they joined together at the bottom of the mountain, and were the two tops of it. This being mentioned shows, that the law, strictly taken, and not the prophets, is here designed, for no other was commanded, ordered, or delivered in Horeb; and that was for all the children of Israel in successive ages, until the coming of the Messiah, and for them only, as to the ministration of it by Moses.

With the statutes and judgments; the laws ceremonial and judicial, which were given to Moses, at the same time the law of the decalogue was, to be observed by the children of Israel, and which were shadows of things to come; namely, those of them that were of a ceremonial nature, and therefore to be remembered and attended to as leading to Christ, and the things of the Gospel.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet,.... Not the Tishbite, as the Septuagint version wrongly inserts instead of prophet; not Elijah in person, who lived in the times of Ahab; but John the Baptist, who was to come in the power and spirit of Elijah, Luk 1:17 between whom there was a great likeness in their temper and disposition; in their manner of clothing, and austere way of living; in their courage and integrity in reproving vice; and in their zeal and usefulness in the cause of God and true religion; and in their famous piety and holiness of life; and in being both prophets; see Mat 11:11 and that he is intended is clear from Mat 17:10. It is a notion of the Jews, as Kimchi and others, that the very Elijah, the same that lived in the days of Ahab, shall come in person before the coming of their Messiah they vainly expect, and often speak of difficult things to be left till Elijah comes and solves them; but for such a notion there is no foundation, either in this text or elsewhere. And as groundless is that of some of the ancient Christian fathers, and of the Papists, as Lyra and others, that Elijah with Enoch will come before the day of judgment, and restore the church of God ruined by antichrist, which they suppose is meant in the next clause.

Before the coming of the great and, dreadful day of the Lord; that is, before the coming of Christ the son of David, as the Jews ^r themselves own; and which is to be understood, not of the second coming of Christ to judgment, though that is sometimes called the great day, and will be dreadful to Christless sinners; but of the first coming of Christ, reaching to the destruction of Jerusalem: John the Baptist, his forerunner, the Elijah here spoken of, came proclaiming wrath and terror to impenitent sinners; Christ foretold and denounced ruin and destruction to the Jewish nation, city, and temple; and the time of Jerusalem's destruction was a dreadful day indeed, such a time of affliction as had not been from the creation, Mat 24:21 and the Talmud interprets ^s this of the sorrows of the Messiah, or which shall be in the days of the Messiah.

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children,.... Or "with" the children, as Kimchi; and Ben Melech observes, that על is put for עם, and so in the next clause:

and the heart of the children to their fathers; or "with" their fathers; that is, both fathers and children: the meaning is, that John the Baptist should be an instrument of converting many of the Jews, both fathers and children, and bringing them to the knowledge and faith of the true Messiah; and reconcile them together who were divided by the schools of Hillell and Shammai, and by the sects of the Sadducees and Pharisees, and bring them to be of one mind, judgment, and faith, and to have a hearty love to one another, and the Lord Christ; see Mat 3:5; see Gill on Luk 1:17. The Talmudists ^t interpret this of composing differences, and making peace.

Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse; the land of Judea; which, because the greater part of the inhabitants of it were not converted to the Lord, did not believe in the Messiah, but rejected him, notwithstanding the preaching and testimony of John the Baptist, and the ministry and miracles of Christ, it was smitten with a curse, was made desolate, and destroyed by the Roman emperors, Vespasian and Adrian, as instruments doing what God here threatened he would do; for not the whole earth is intended, as the Targum and Abarbinel suggest; but only that land, and the people of it, are intended, to whom the law of Moses was given; and to whom Elias, or John the Baptist, was to be sent; and to whom he was sent, and did come; and by whom he was rejected, and also the Messiah he pointed at; for which that country was smitten with a curse, and remains under it to this day.

¹ sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:6 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:19 HT, 4:2 ET = 3:20 HT, etc., through 4:6 ET = 3:24 HT. Thus the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible has only three chapters, with 24 verses in ch. 3.

² sn This day is the well-known “day of the Lord” so pervasive in OT eschatological texts (see Joel 2:30-31; Amos 5:18; Obad 15). For the believer it is a day of grace and salvation; for the sinner, a day of judgment and destruction.

³ tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.

¹ tn Here the Hebrew word צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah), usually translated “righteousness” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT; cf. NAB “justice”), has been rendered as “vindication” because it is the vindication of God’s people that is in view in the context. Cf. BDB 842 s.v. צְדָקָה 6; “righteousness as vindicated, justification, salvation, etc.”

sn The expression the sun of vindication will rise is a metaphorical way of describing the day of the Lord as a time of restoration when God vindicates his people (see 2 Sam 23:4; Isa 30:26; 60:1, 3). Their vindication and restoration will be as obvious and undeniable as the bright light of the rising sun.

² sn The point of the metaphor of healing wings is unclear. The sun seems to be compared to a bird. Perhaps the sun’s “wings” are its warm rays. “Healing” may refer to a reversal of the injury done by evildoers (see Mal 3:5).

³ tn Heb “you will go out and skip about.”

¹ sn Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (cf. Exod 3:1).

² tn Heb “which I commanded him in Horeb concerning all Israel, statutes and ordinances.”

¹ sn I will send you Elijah the prophet. In light of the ascension of Elijah to heaven without dying (2 Kgs 2:11), Judaism has always awaited his return as an aspect of the messianic age (see, e.g., John 1:19-28). Jesus identified John the Baptist as Elijah, because he came in the “spirit and power” of his prototype Elijah (Matt 11:14; 17:1-13; Mark 9:2-13; Luke 9:28-36).

¹ tn Heb “he will turn the heart[s] of [the] fathers to [the] sons, and the heart[s] of [the] sons to their fathers.” This may mean that the messenger will encourage reconciliation of conflicts within Jewish families in the postexilic community (see Mal 2:10; this interpretation is followed by most English versions). Another option is to translate, “he will turn the hearts of the fathers together with those of the children [to me], and the hearts of the children together with those of their fathers [to me].” In this case the prophet encourages both the younger and older generations of sinful society to repent and return to the Lord (cf. Mal 3:7). This option is preferred in the present translation; see Beth Glazier-McDonald, Malachi (SBLDS), 256.

² tn Heb “[the] ban” (חֵרֶם, kherem). God’s prophetic messenger seeks to bring about salvation and restoration, thus avoiding the imposition of the covenant curse, that is, the divine ban that the hopelessly unrepentant must expect (see Deut 7:2; 20:17; Judg 1:21; Zech 14:11). If the wicked repent, the purifying judgment threatened in 4:1-3 will be unnecessary.

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall ^{( a )} burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

^{( a )} He prophesies of God's judgments against the wicked, who would not receive Christ, when God would send him for the restoration of his Church.

But unto you that fear my name shall the ^{( b )} Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go ^{( c )} forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

^{( b )} Meaning, Christ, who with his wings or beams of his grace would enlighten and comfort his Church; (Eph 5:14). And he is called the "Sun of righteousness", because in himself he has all perfection, and also the justice of the Father dwells in him: by which he regenerates us to righteousness, cleanses us from the filth of this world, and reforms us to the image of God.

^{( c )} You will be set at liberty, and increase in the joy of the Spirit; (2Co 3:17).

^{( d )} Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, [with] the statutes and judgments.

^{( d )} Because the time had come that the Jews would be destitute of Prophets until the time of Christ, because they should with more fervent minds desire his coming, the Prophet exhorts them to exercise themselves diligently in studying the Law of Moses in the meantime, by which they might continue in the true religion, and also be armed against all temptations.

Behold, I will send you ^{( e )} Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and ^{( f )} dreadful day of the LORD:

^{( e )} This Christ interprets of John the Baptist, who both for his zeal, and restoring or religion, is aptly compared to Elijah; (Mat 11:13-14).

^{( f )} Which as it is true for the wicked, so does it waken the godly, and call them to repentance.

And he shall ^{( g )} turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and ^{( h )} smite the earth with a curse.

^{( g )} He shows in what John's office would consist: in the turning of men to God, and uniting the father and children in one voice of faith: so that the father will turn to the religion of his son who is converted to Christ, and the son will embrace the faith of the true fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

^{( h )} The second point of his office was to give notice of God's judgment against those that would not receive Christ.

The Last Words Of The Old And New Testaments

Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.'--Malachi 4:6.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.'--Revelation 22:21.

IT is Of course only an accident that these words close the Old and the New Testaments. In the Hebrew Bible Malachi's prophecies do not stand at the end; but he was the last of the Old Testament prophets, and after him there were four centuries of silence.' We seem to hear in his words the dying echoes of the rolling thunders of Sinai. They gather up the whole burden of the Law and of the prophets; of the former in their declaration of a coming retribution, of the latter in the hope that that retribution may be averted.

Then, in regard to John's words, of course as they stand they are simply the parting benediction with which he takes leave of his readers; but it is fitting that the Book of which they are the close should seal up the canon, because it stands as the one prophetic book of the New Testament, and so reaches forward into the coming ages, even to the consummation of all things. And just as Christ in His Ascension was taken from them whilst His hands were lifted up in the act of blessing, so it is fitting that the revelation of which He is the centre and the theme should part from us as He did, shedding with its final words the dew of benediction on our upturned heads.

I venture, then, to look at these significant closing words of the two Testaments as conveying the spirit of each, and suggesting some thoughts about the contrast and the harmony and the order that subsist between them.

I. The Apparent Contrast And The Real Harmony And Unity Of These Two Texts.

I ask you, first, to notice the apparent contrast and the real harmony and unity of these two texts.

Lest I come and smite the land with a curse.' That last awful word does not convey, in the original, quite the idea of our English word curse.' It refers to a somewhat singular institution in the Mosaic Law according to which things devoted, in a certain sense, to God were deprived of life. And the reference historically is to the judgments that were inflicted upon the nations that occupied the land before the Israelitish invasion, those Canaanites and others who were put under the ban' and devoted to utter destruction. So, says my text, Israel, which has stepped into their places, may bring down upon its head the same devastation; and as they were swept off the face of the laud that they had polluted with their iniquities, so an apostate and God-forgetting Judah may again experience the same utter destruction falling upon them. If instead of the word curse' we were to substitute the word destruction,' we should get the true idea of the passage.

And the thought that I want to insist upon is this, that here we have distinctly gathered up the whole spirit of millenniums of divine revelation, all of which declare this one thing, that as certainly as there is a God, every transgression and disobedience receives, and must receive, its just recompense of reward.

That is the spirit of law, for law has nothing to say, except, Do this, and thou shalt live; do not this, and thou shalt die.'

And then turn to the other. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.' What has become of the thunder? All melted into dewy rain of love and pity and compassion. Grace is love that stoops; grace is love that foregoes its claims, and forgives sins against itself. Grace is love that imparts, and this grace, thus stooping, thus pardoning, thus bestowing, is a universal gift. The Apostolic benediction is the declaration of the divine purpose, and the inmost heart and loftiest meaning of all the words which from the beginning God hath spoken is that His condescending, pardoning, self-bestowing mercy may fall upon all hearts, and gladden every soul.

So there seems to emerge, and there is, a very real and a very significant contrast. I come and smite the earth with a curse' sounds strangely unlike The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.' And, of course, in this generation there is a strong tendency to dwell upon that contrast and to exaggerate it, and to assert that the more recent has antiquated the more ancient, and that now the day when we have to think of and to dread the curse that smites the earth is past, because the true Light now shineth.'

So I ask you to notice that beneath this apparent contrast there is a real harmony, and that these two utterances, though they seem to be so diverse, are quite consistent at bottom, and must both be taken into account if we would grasp the whole truth. For, as a matter of fact, nowhere are there more tender utterances and sweeter revelations of a divine mercy than in that ancient law with its attendant prophets. And as a matter of fact, nowhere, through all the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai, are there such solemn words of retribution as dropped from the lips of the Incarnate Love. There is nothing anywhere so dreadful as Christ's own words about what comes, and must come, to sinful men. Is there any depth of darkness in the Old Testament teaching of retribution half as deep, half as black, and as terrible, as the gulf that Christ opens at your feet and mine? Is there anything so awful as the threatenings of Infinite Love?

And the same blending of the widest proclamation of, and the most perfect rejoicing confidence in, the universal and all-forgiving love of God, with the teaching of the sharpest retribution, lies in the writings of this very Apostle about whose words I am speaking. There are nowhere in Scripture more solemn pictures than those in that book of the Apocalypse, of the inevitable consequences of departure from the love and the faith of God, and John, the Apostle of love, is the preacher of judgment as none of the other writers of the New Testament are.

Such is the fact, and there is a necessity for it. There must be this blending; for if you take away from .your conception of God the absolute holiness which hates sin, and the rigid righteousness which apportions to all evil its bitter fruits, you have left a maimed God that has not power to love but is nothing but weak, good-natured indulgence. Impunity is not mercy, and punishment is never the negation of perfect love, but rather, if you destroy the one you hopelessly maim the other. The two halves are needed in order to give full emphasis to either. Each note alone is untrue; blended, they make the perfect chord.

II. The Relation Of The Grace To The Punishment.

And now, let me ask you to look with me at another point, and that is, the relation of the grace to the punishment.

Is it not love which proclaims judgment? Are not the words of my first text, if you take them all, merciful, however they wear a surface of threatening? Lest I come.' Then He speaks that He may not come, and declares the issue of sin in order that that issue may never need to be experienced by us that listen to Him. Brethren! both in regard to the Bible and in regard to human ministrations of the Gospel, it is all-important, as it seems to me at present, to insist that it is the cruellest kindness to keep back the threatenings for fear of darkening the grace; and that, on the other hand, it is the truest tenderness to warn and to proclaim them. It is love that threatens; it is mercy to tell us that the wrath will come.

And just as one relation between the grace and the retribution is that the proclamation of the retribution is the work of the grace, so there is another relation--the grace is manifested in bearing the punishment, and in bearing it away by bearing it. Oh! there is no adequate measure of what the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is except the measure of the smiting destruction from which He frees us. It is because every transgression receives its just recompense of reward, because the wages of sin is death, because God cannot but hate and punish the evil, that we get our truest standard of what Christ's love is to every soul of us. For on Him have met all the converging rays of the divine retribution, and burnt the penal fire into His very heart. He has come between every one of us, if we will, and that certain incidence of retribution for our evil, taking upon Himself the whole burden of our sin and of our guilt, and bearing that awful death which consists not in the mere dissolution of the" tie between soul and body, but in the separation of the conscious spirit from God, in order that we may stand peaceful, serene, untouched, when the hail and the fire of the divine judgment are falling from the heavens and running along the earth. The grace depends for all our conceptions of its glory, its tenderness, and its depth, on our estimate of the wrath from which it delivers.

So, dear brethren, remember, if you tamper with the one you destroy the other; if there be no fearful judgment from which men need to be delivered, Christ has borne nothing for us that entitles Him to demand our hearts; and all the ascriptions of praise and adoration to Him, and all the surrender of loving hearts, in utter self-abandonment, to Him that has borne the curse for us, fade and are silent. If you strike out the truth of Christ's bearing the results of sin from your theology, you do not thereby exalt, but you fatally lower the love; and in the interests of the loftiest conceptions of a divine lovingkindness and mercy that ever have blessed the world, I beseech you, be on your guard against all teachings that diminish the sinfulness of sin, and that ask again the question which first of all came from lips that do not commend it to us--Hath God said?' or advance to the assertion--Ye shall not surely die.' If I come to smite the earth with a curse' ceases to be a truth to you, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ' will fade away for you likewise.

III. The Alternative Which These Texts Open For Us.

Now, still further, let me ask you to consider, lastly, the alternative which these texts open for us.

I believe that the order in which they stand in Scripture is the order in which men generally come to believe them, and to feel them. I am old-fashioned enough and narrow enough to believe in conversion; and to believe further that, as a rule, the course through which the soul passes from darkness into light is the course which divine revelation took: first, the unveiling of sin and its issues, and then the glad leaping up of the trustful heart to the conception of redeeming grace.

But what I seek briefly to suggest now is, not only the order of manifestation as brought out in these words, but also the alternative which they present to us, one branch or other of which every soul of you will have to experience. You must have either the destruction or the grace. And, more wonderful still, the same coming of the same Lord will be to one man the destruction, and to another the manifestation and reception of His perfect grace. As it was in the Lord's first coming, He is set for the rise and the fall of many in Israel.' The same heat softens some substances and bakes others into hardness. A bit of wax and a bit of clay put into the same fire--one becomes liquefied and the other solidified. The same light is joy to one eye and torture to another. The same pillar of cloud was light to the hosts of Israel, and darkness and dismay to the armies of Egypt. The same Gospel is a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death,' by the giving forth of the same influences killing the one and reviving the other; the same Christ is a Stone to build upon or a Stone of stumbling; and when He cometh at the last, Prince, King, Judge, to you and me, His coming shall be prepared as the morning; and ye shall have a song as when one cometh with a pipe to the mountain of the Lord'; or else it shall be a day of darkness and not of light. He comes to me, to you; He comes to smite or He comes to glorify.

Oh, brethren! do not believe that God's threatenings are wind and words; do not let teachings that sap the very foundations of morality and eat all the power out of the Gospel persuade you that the solemn words, The soul that sinneth it shall die,' are not simple verity.

And then, my brethren, oh I then, do you turn yourselves to that dear Lord whose grace is magnified in this most chiefly, that He hath borne our sins and carried our sorrows'; and taking Him for your Saviour, your King, your Shield, your All, when He cometh it will be life to you; and the grace that He imparts will be heaven for ever more.

THE END

St. Matthew 1-8

Matthew 1-8

Here is a reference to the first and to the second coming of Christ: God has fixed the day of both. Those who do wickedly, who do not fear God's anger, shall feel it. It is certainly to be applied to the day of judgment, when Christ shall be revealed in flaming fire; to execute judgment on the proud, and all that do wickedly. In both, Christ is a rejoicing Light to those who serve him faithfully. By the Sun of Righteousness we understand Jesus Christ. Through him believers are justified and sanctified, and so are brought to see light. His influences render the sinner holy, joyful, and fruitful. It is applicable to the graces and comforts of the Holy Spirit, brought into the souls of men. Christ gave the Spirit to those who are his, to shine in their hearts, and to be a Comforter to them, a Sun and a Shield. That day which to the wicked will burn as an oven, will to the righteous be bright as the morning; it is what they wait for, more than those that wait for the morning. Christ came as the Sun, to bring, not only light to a dark world, but health to a distempered world. Souls shall increase in knowledge and spiritual strength. Their growth is as that of calves of the stall, not as the flower of the field, which is slender and weak, and soon withers. The saints' triumphs are all owing to God's victories; it is not they that do this, but God who does it for them. Behold another day is coming, far more dreadful to all that work wickedness than any which is gone before. How great then the happiness of the believer, when he goes from the darkness and misery of this world, to rejoice in the Lord for evermore!

Here is a solemn conclusion, not only of this prophecy, but of the Old Testament. Conscience bids us remember the law. Though we have not prophets, yet, as long as we have Bibles, we may keep up our communion with God. Let others boast in their proud reasoning, and call it enlightening, but let us keep near to that sacred word, through which this Sun of Righteousness shines upon the souls of his people. They must keep up a believing expectation of the gospel of Christ, and must look for the beginning of it. John the Baptist preached repentance and reformation, as Elijah had done. The turning of souls to God and their duty, is the best preparation of them for the great and dreadful day of the Lord. John shall preach a doctrine that shall reach men's hearts, and work a change in them. Thus he shall prepare the way for the kingdom of heaven. The Jewish nation, by wickedness, laid themselves open to the curse. God was ready to bring ruin upon them; but he will once more try whether they will repent and return; therefore he sent John the Baptist to preach repentance to them. Let the believer wait with patience for his release, and cheerfully expect the great day, when Christ shall come the second time to complete our salvation. But those must expect to be smitten with a sword, with a curse, who turn not to Him that smites them with a rod. None can expect to escape the curse of God's broken law, nor to enjoy the happiness of his chosen and redeemed people, unless their hearts are turned from sin and the world, to Christ and holiness. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all. Amen.

The great and terrible day of the Lord is here prophesied of. This, like the pillar of cloud and fire, shall have a dark side turned towards the Egyptians that fight against God, and a bright side towards the faithful Israelites that follow him: The day cometh, that is, the Lord cometh, the day of the Lord; and it has reference both to the first and to the second coming of Jesus Christ; the day of both was fixed, and should answer the character here given of it.

I. In both Christ is a consuming fire to those that rebel against him. The day of his coming shall burn as an oven; it shall be a day of wrath, of fiery indignation. This was foretold concerning the Messiah, Psa 21:9, Thy hand shall find out all thy enemies, and shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of thy anger. It will be a day of terror and destruction like the burning of a city, or rather of a wood, the trees whereof are withered and dried, for to that the allusion seems to be, as Isa 10:17, Isa 10:18, The light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame, and it shall consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field. Now observe here, 1. Who shall be fuel to this fire - all the proud in heart, whose words have been stout against God, and their necks stiff and unapt to yield to the yoke of his commandments (all those that in the pride of their countenances will not seek after God, nor submit to the grace and government of Jesus Christ - all that proudly say they will not have Christ to reign over them ), and all those that do wickedly in their affections and conversations, that wilfully persist in sin, in contempt of and contradiction to the law of God; they are such as do wickedly against the covenant, as another prophet had lately expressed it, Dan 11:32. God, that has perfect knowledge of every one's character, knows who are the proud, and of every one's actions, knows who they are that do wickedly; and they shall be as stubble to this fire; they shall be consumed by it, easily consumed, utterly consumed, and it is wholly owing to themselves that they shall be so, for they make themselves stubble, that is, combustible matter, to this fire. If they were not stubble, it would not burn them; for the fire will be to every man according as he and his works are found; if they be wood, hay, and stubble, they will be consumed; but if they be gold, solver, and precious stones, they will abide the fire and be purified by it, 1Co 3:13-15. Those that by their unbelief oppose Christ thereby set themselves as briers and thorns before a devouring fire, Isa 27:4, Isa 27:5. 2. What shall be the force and what the fruit of this fire: The day that cometh shall burn them up, shall both terrify and ruin them, and shall leave them neither root nor branch, neither son nor nephew (so the Chaldee paraphrase): neither they nor their posterity shall be spared; they shall be wholly extirpated and cut off. Who knows the power of God's anger? The proud and those that do wickedly will not fear it, but they shall be made to feel it. Where are those now that called the proud happy, when thus they are made completely miserable, when there remains no branch of their happiness to be enjoyed for the present, nor any root of it out of which it might again spring up? Now this was fulfilled, (1.) When Christ, in his doctrine, spoke terror and condemnation to the proud Pharisees and the other Jews that did wickedly, when he sent that fire on the earth which burnt up the chaff of the traditions of the elders and the corrupt glosses they had put upon the law of God. (2.) When Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the nation of the Jews, as a nation, quite blotted out from under heaven, and neither root nor branch left them. This seems to be principally intended here; our Saviour says that those should be the days of vengeance, when all the things that were written to that purport should be fulfilled, Luk 21:22. Then the unbelieving Jews were as stubble to the devouring fire of God's judgments, which gathered together to them as the eagles to the carcase. (3.) It is certainly applicable, and is to be applied, to the day of judgment, to the particular judgment at death (some of the Jewish doctors refer it the punishment that seizes on the souls of the wicked immediately after they go out of the body ), but especially to the general judgment, at the end of time, when Christ shall be revealed in flaming fire, to execute judgment on the proud, and all that do wickedly. The whole world shall then burn as an oven, and all the children of this world, that set their hearts upon it and choose their portion in it, shall take their ruin with it, and the fire then kindled shall never be quenched.

II. In both Christ is a rejoicing light to those who serve him faithfully, to those who fear his name and give him the glory due to it (Mal 4:2), who stand in awe of that name of his which the wicked profane and trample upon. Here are mercy and comfort kept in store for all those who fear the Lord and think on his name. Observe,

1. Whence this mercy and comfort shall flow to them: To you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise, with healing in his wings. The day that comes, as it will be a stormy day to the wicked, a day in which God will rain upon them fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest, as he did on Sodom (Psa 11:6), a day of clouds and thick darkness (Amo 5:18, Amo 5:20), so it will be a fair and bright day to those who fear God, and reviving as the rising sun is to the earth; and particular notice is taken of the rising of the sun upon Zoar when that was mercifully distinguished from the cities of the plain, which the fire consumed; see Gen 19:23. So to those that fear God is comfort spoken. When the hearts of others fail for fear let them lift up their heads for joy, for their redemption draws nigh, Luk 21:28. But by the Sun of righteousness here we are certainly to understand Jesus Christ, who would undertake to secure the believing remnant, in the day of the general destruction of the Jews, from falling with the rest, and to comfort them in that day of distress and perplexity with his consolations; he directed those that were in Judea to flee to the mountains (Mat 24:16), and they did so, and were all safe and easy in Pella. But it is to be applied more generally, (1.) To the coming of Christ in the flesh to seek and save those that were lost; then the Sun of righteousness arose upon this dark world. Christ is the light of the world, the true light, the great light that makes day and rules the day (Joh 8:12), as the sun. He is the light of men (Joh 1:4), is to men's souls as the sun is to the visible world, which without the sun would be a dungeon; so would mankind be darkness itself without the light of the glory of God shining in the face of Christ. Christ is the Sun that has light in himself, and is the fountain of light (Psa 19:4-6); he is the Sun of righteousness, for he is himself a righteous Saviour. Righteousness is both the light and the heat of this Sun; the word of his righteousness is so; it guides, instructs, and quickens; so is the everlasting righteousness he has brought in. He is made of God to us righteousness; he is the Lord our righteousness, and therefore is fitly called the Sun of righteousness. Through him we are justified and sanctified, and so are brought to see light. This Sun of righteousness, in the fulness of time, arose upon the world, and with him light came into the world (Joh 3:19), a great light, Mat 4:16. In him the day-spring from on high visited us, to give light to those that sit in darkness, Luk 1:78, Luk 1:79. Righteousness sometimes signifies mercy or benignity, and it was in Christ that the tender mercy of our God visited us. (2.) It is applicable to the graces and comforts of the Holy Spirit, brought into the souls of men. Grotius understands it of Christ's giving the Spirit to those that are his, to shine in their hearts, and to be a comforter to them, a sun and a shield. Those that are possessed and governed by a holy fear of God and a dread of his majesty shall have his love also shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost; and then the sun may be said to arise there, and to bring both a delightful day and a fruitful spring along with it. (3.) Christ's second coming will be a glorious and welcome sun-rising to all that fear his name; it will be that morning of the resurrection in which the upright shall have dominion, Psa 49:14. That day which to the wicked will burn as an oven will to the righteous be bright as the morning; and it is what they wait for, more than those that wait for the morning.

2. What this mercy and comfort shall bring to them: He shall arise with healing under his wings, or in his rays or beams, which are as the wings of the sun. Christ came, as the sun, to bring not only light to a dark world, but health to a diseased distempered world. The Jews (says Dr. Pocock) have a proverbial saying, As the sun riseth, infirmities decrease; the flowers which drooped and languished all night revive in the morning. Christ came into the world to be the great physician, yea, and the great medicine too, both the balm in Gilead and the physician there. When he was upon earth, he went about as the sun in his circuit, doing this good; he healed all manner of sicknesses and diseases among the people; he healed by wholesale, as the sun does. He shall arise with healing in his skirts; so some read it, and they apply it to the story of the woman's touching the hem of his garment, and being thereby made whole, and his finding that virtue went out of him, Mar 5:28-30. But his healing bodily diseases was a specimen of his great design in coming into the world to heal the diseases of men's souls, and to put them into a good state of health, that they may serve and enjoy both God and themselves.

3. What good effect it shall have upon them. (1.) It shall make them vigorous in themselves: " You shall go forth, as those that are healed go abroad and return to their business."The souls shall go forth out of their bodies at death, and the bodies out of their graves at the resurrection, as prisoners out of their dungeons, and both to see the light and be set at liberty. " You shall go forth as plants out of the earth, when in the spring the sun returns."Some make it to mean the going forth of the Christians from Jerusalem, and the escape they thereby made from its destruction. And thus the souls on whom the Sun of righteousness arises go forth out of the world, go forth out of Babylon, as those that are made free indeed. "You shall likewise grow up; being restored to health and liberty, you shall increase in knowledge, and grace, and spiritual strength."The souls on which the Sun of righteousness arises are growing up towards the perfect man; those that by the grace of God are made wise and good are by the same grace made wiser and better; and their path, like that of the rising sun, shines more and more to the perfect day, Pro 4:18. Their growth is compared to that of the calves of the stall, which is a quick, strong, and useful growth. "You shall grow up, not as the flower of the field, which is slender, and weak, and of little use, and withers soon after it has grown up, but as the calves of the stall, "that, as one of the rabbin expounds it, grow great in flesh and fatness, with which both God's altars and men's tables are replenished; so the growth of the saints, on whom the Sun of righteousness arises, honours both God and man. Some read it, instead of You shall grow up, You shall move yourselves, or leap for joy, shall be as frolicsome as calves of the stall, when they are let loose in the open field; it denotes the joy of the saints, who rejoice in Christ Jesus; they shall even leap for joy; they are always caused to triumph.

(2.) It shall make them victorious over their enemies (Mal 4:3): You shall tread down the wicked. Time was when the wicked trod them down, said to their souls, Bow down, that we may go over; but the day will come when they shall tread down the wicked. The wicked, being made Christ's footstool, are made theirs also (Psa 110:1), and come and worship before the feet of the church, Rev 3:9. The elder shall serve the younger. When believers by faith overcome the world, when they suppress their own corrupt appetites and passions, when the God of peace bruises Satan under their feet, then they tread down the wicked. When it came to the turn of the Christians to triumph over the Jews that had insulted over them, then this promise was fulfilled: They shall be ashes under the soles of your feet; they shall not only be trodden down, but trodden to dirt. When the day that comes shall have burnt them up, they shall trample upon them as ashes. When the righteous shall rise to everlasting life, the wicked shall rise to everlasting contempt; and, though they shall not triumph over them, they shall triumph in that God whose justice is glorified in their destruction. The saints in glory are said to have power given them over the nations, to rule them with a rod of iron, Rev 2:26, Rev 2:27. This you shall do, in the day that I shall do this. Note, The saints' triumphs are all owing to God's victories; it is not they that do this, but God that does it for them, that says, Come set your feet on the necks of these kings. Some read it, " In the day that I make, or shall make, the great day that I shall make remarkable, of which you will say with joy, This is the day which the Lord has made. "The day of the destruction of Jerusalem is called the great and notable day of the Lord (Act 2:20), and our Saviour in foretelling that destruction made use of such expressions as, like these, might be applied likewise to the end of the world and the last judgment; for it was such a terrible revelation of the wrath of God from heaven, and caused such a scene of horror upon this earth, that it might fitly serve for a type of that glorious transaction which will be an outlet to the days of time and an inlet to the days of eternity. By the accomplishment of these prophecies in the ruin of the Jewish nation, we should have our faith confirmed in the assurances Christ has given us concerning the dissolution of all things. Surely I come quickly; so says Christ, the Lord of hosts, to whom all power in heaven and earth is committed.

This is doubtless intended for a solemn conclusion, not only of this prophecy, but of the canon of the Old Testament, and is a plain information that they were not to expect any more sayings nor writing by divine inspiration, any more of the dictates of the Spirit of prophecy, till the beginning of the gospel of the Messiah, which sets aside the Apocrypha as no part of holy writ, and which therefore the Jews never received.

Now that prophecy ceases, and is about to be sealed up, there are two things required of the people of God, that lived then: -

I. They must keep up an obedient veneration for the law of Moses (Mal 4:4): Remember the law of Moses my servant, and observe to do according to it, even that law which I commanded unto him in Horeb, that fiery law which was intended for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments, not only the law of the ten commandments, but all the other appointments, ceremonial and judicial, then and there given. Observe here, 1. The honourable mention that is made of Moses, the first writer of the Old Testament, in Malachi, the last writer. God by him calls him Moses my servant; for the righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance. See how the penmen of scripture, though they lived in several ages at a great distance from each other (it was above 1200 years from Moses to Malachi), all concurred in the same thing, and supported one another, being all actuated and guided by one and the same Spirit. 2. The honourable mention that is made of the law of Moses; it was what God himself commanded; he owns it for his law, and he commanded it for all Israel, as the municipal law of their kingdom. Thus will God magnify his law and make it honourable. Note, We are concerned to keep the law because God has commanded it and commanded it for us, for we are the spiritual Israel; and, if we expect the benefit of the covenant with Israel (Heb 8:10), we must observe the commands given to Israel, those of them that were intended to be of perpetual obligation. 3. The summary of our duty, with reference to the law. We must remember it. Forgetfulness of the law is at the bottom of all our transgressions of it; if we would rightly remember it, we could not but conform to it. We should remember it when we have occasion to use it, remember both the commands themselves and the sanctions wherewith they are enforced. The office of conscience is to bid us remember the law. But how does this charge to remember the law of Moses come in here? (1.) This prophet had reproved them for many gross corruptions and irregularities both in worship and conversation, and now, for the reforming and amending of what was amiss, he only charges them to remember the law of Moses: "Keep to that rule, and you will do all you should do."He will lay upon them no other burden than what they have received; hold that fast, Rev 2:24, Rev 2:25. Note, Corrupt churches are to be reformed by the written word, and reduced into order by being reduced to the standard of the law and the testimony, see 1Co 11:23. (2.) The church had long enjoyed the benefit of prophets, extraordinary messengers from God, and now they had a whole book of their prophecies put together, and it was a finished piece; but they must not think that hereby the law of Moses was superseded, and had become as an almanac out of date, as if now they were advanced to a higher form and might forget that. No; the prophets do but confirm and apply the law, and press the observance of that; and therefore still Remember the law. Note, Even when we have made considerable advances in knowledge we must still retain the first principles of practical religion and resolve to abide by them. Those that study the writings of the prophets, and the apocalypse, must still remember the law of Moses and the four gospels. (3.) Prophecy was now to cease in the church for some ages, and the Spirit of prophecy not to return till the beginning of the gospel, and now they are told to remember the law of Moses; let them live by the rules of that, and live upon the promises of that. Note, We need not complain for want of visions and revelations as long as we have the written word, and the canon of scripture complete, to be our guide; for that is the most sure word of prophecy, and the touchstone by which we are to try the spirits. Though we have not prophets, yet, as long as we have Bibles, we may keep our communion with God, and keep ourselves in his way. (4.) They were to expect the coming of the Messiah, the preaching of his gospel, and the setting up of his kingdom, and in that expectation they must remember the law of Moses, and live in obedience to that, and then they might expect the comforts that the Messiah would bring to the willing and obedient. Let them observe the law of Moses, and live up to the light which that gave them, and then they might expect the benefit of the gospel of Christ, for to him that has, and uses what he has well, more shall be given, and he shall have abundance.

II. They must keep up a believing expectation of the gospel of Christ, and must look for the beginning of it in the appearing of Elijah the prophet (Mal 4:5, Mal 4:6): " Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet. Though the Spirit of prophecy cease for a time, and you will have only the law to consult, yet it shall revive again in one that shall be sent in the spirit and power of Elias, "Luk 1:17. The law and the prophets were until John (Luk 16:16); they continued to be the only lights of the church till that morning-star appeared. Note, As God never left himself without witness in the world, so neither in the church, but, as there was occasion, carried the light of divine revelation further and further to the perfect day. They had now Moses and the prophets, and might hear them; but God will go further: he will send them Elijah. Observe,

1. Who this prophet is that shall be sent; it is Elijah. The Jewish doctors will have it to be the same Elijah that prophesied in Israel in the days of Ahab - that he shall come again to be the forerunner of the Messiah; yet others of them say not the same person, but another of the same spirit. It should seem, those different sentiments they had when they asked John, " Art thou Elias, or that prophet that should bear his name?"Joh 1:19-21. But we Christians know very well that John Baptist was the Elias that was to come, Mat 17:10-13; and very expressly, Mat 11:14, This is Elias that was to come; and v. 10, the same of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger, Mal 3:1. Elijah was a man of great austerity and mortification, zealous for God, bold in reproving sin, and active to reduce an apostate people to God and their duty; John Baptist was animated by the same spirit and power, and preached repentance and reformation, as Elias had done; and all held him for a prophet, as they did Elijah in his day, and that his baptism was from heaven, and not of men. Note, When God has such work to do as was formerly to be done he can raise up such men to do it as he formerly raised up, and can put into a John Baptist the spirit of an Elias.

2. When he shall be sent - before the appearing of the Messiah, which, because it was the judgment of this world, and introduced the ruin of the Jewish church and nation, is here called the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. John Baptist gave them fair warning of this when he told them of the wrath to come (that wrath to the uttermost which was hastening upon them) and put them into a way of escape from it, and when he told them of the fan in Christ's hand, with which Christ would thoroughly purge his floor; see Mat 3:7, Mat 3:10, Mat 3:12. That day of Christ, when he came first, was as that day will be when he comes again - though a great and joyful day to those that embrace him, yet a great and dreadful day to those that oppose him. John Baptist was sent before the coming of this day, to give people notice of it, that they might get ready for it, and go forth to meet it.

3. On what errand he shall be sent: He shall turn the heart of the fathers to their children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; that is, "he shall be employed in this work; he shall attempt it; his doctrine and baptism shall have a direct tendency to it, and with many shall be successful: he shall be an instrument in God's hand of turning many to righteousness, to the Lord their God, and so making ready a people prepared for him, "Luk 1:16, Luk 1:17. Note, The turning of souls to God and their duty is the best preparation of them for the great and dreadful day of the Lord. It is promised concerning John, (1.) That he shall give a turn to things, shall make a bold stand against the strong torrent of sin and impiety which he found in full force among the children of his people, and beating down all before it. This is called his coming to restore all things (Mat 17:11), to set them to rights, that they may again go in the right channel. (2.) That he shall preach a doctrine that shall reach men's hearts, and have an influence upon them, and work a change in them. God's word, in his mouth, shall be quick and powerful, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Many had their consciences awakened by his ministry who yet were not thoroughly wrought upon, such a spirit and power was there in it. (3.) That he shall turn the hearts of the fathers with the children, and of the children with the fathers (for so some read it), to God and to their duty. He shall call upon young and old to repent, and shall not labour in vain, for many of the fathers that are going off, and many of the children that are growing up, shall be wrought upon by his ministry. (4.) That thus he shall be an instrument to revive and confirm love and unity among relations, and shall bring them closer and bind them faster to each other, by bringing and binding them all to their God. He shall prepare the way for that kingdom of heaven which will make all its faithful subjects of one heart and one soul (Act 4:32), which will be a kingdom of love, and will slay all enmities.

4. With what view he shall be sent on this errand: Lest I come and smite the earth, that is, the land of Israel, the body of the Jewish nation (that were of the earth earthy), with a curse. They by their impiety and impenitence in it had laid themselves open to the curse of God, which is a separation to all evil. God was ready to smite them with that curse, to bring utter ruin upon them, to strike home, to strike dead, with the curse; but he will yet once more try them, whether they will repent and return, and so prevent it; and therefore he sends John Baptist to preach repentance to them, that their conversion might prevent their confusion; so unwilling is God that any should perish, so willing to have his anger turned away. Had they universally repented and reformed, their repentance would have had this desired effect; but, they generally rejecting the counsel of God in John's baptism, it proved against themselves (Luk 7:30) and their land was smitten with the curse which both it and they lie under to this day. Note, Those must expect to be smitten with a sword, with a curse, who turn not to him that smites them with a rod, with a cross, Isa 9:13. Now the axe is laid to the root of the tree, says John Baptist, and it is ready to be smitten, to be cut down, with a curse; therefore bring forth fruit meet for repentance. Some observe that the last word of the Old Testament is a curse, which threatens the earth (Zec 5:3), our desert of which we must be made sensible of, that we may bid Christ welcome, who comes with a blessing; and it is with a blessing, with the choicest of blessings, that the New Testament ends, and with it let us arm ourselves, or rather let God arm us, against this curse. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all. Amen.

This admonition to the ungodly is explained in Mal 4:1. by a picture of the separation which will be effected by the day of judgment. Mal 4:1. "For behold the day cometh burning like a furnace, and all the proud and every doer of wickedness become stubble, and the coming day will burn them, saith Jehovah of hosts, so that it will not leave them root or branch. Mal 4:2. But to you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise and healing in its wings, and ye will go out and skip like stalled calves, Mal 4:3. And will tread down the ungodly, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I create, saith Jehovah of hosts." The day of judgment will be to the ungodly like a burning furnace. "A fire burns more fiercely in a furnace than in the open air"(Hengstenberg). The ungodly will then resemble the stubble which the fire consumes (cf. Isa 5:24; Zep 1:18; Oba 1:18, etc.). זדים and עשׂה רשׁעה point back to Mal 3:15. Those who are called blessed by the murmuring nation will be consumed by the fire, as stubble is burned up, and indeed all who do wickedness, and therefore the murmurers themselves. אשׁר before לא יעזב is a conjunction, quod ; and the subject is not Jehovah, but the coming day. The figure "root and branch"is borrowed from a tree - the tree is the ungodly mass of the people (cf. Amo 2:9) - and denotes total destruction, so that nothing will be left of them. To the righteous, on the other hand, the sun of righteousness will arise. Ts^e dâqâh is an epexegetical genitive of apposition. By the sun of righteousness the fathers, from Justin downwards, and nearly all the earlier commentators understand Christ , who is supposed to be described as the rising sun, like Jehovah in Psa 84:12 and Isa 60:19; and this view is founded upon a truth, viz., that the coming of Christ brings justice and salvation. But in the verse before us the context does not sustain the personal view, but simply the idea that righteousness itself is regarded as a sun. Ts^e dâqâh , again, is not justification or the forgiveness of sins, as Luther and others suppose, for there will be no forgiving of sins on the day of judgment, but God will then give to every man reward or punishment according to his works. Ts^e dâqâh is here, what it frequently is in Isaiah (e.g., Isa 45:8; Isa 46:13; Isa 51:5, etc.), righteousness in its consequences and effects, the sum and substance of salvation. Malachi uses ts^e dâqâh , righteousness, instead of ישׁע , salvation, with an allusion to the fact, that the ungodly complained of the absence of the judgment and righteousness of God, that is to say, the righteousness which not only punishes the ungodly, but also rewards the good with happiness and salvation. The sun of righteousness has מרפּא , healing, in its wings. The wings of the sun are the rays by which it is surrounded, and not a figure denoting swiftness. As the rays of the sun spread light and warmth over the earth for the growth and maturity of the plants and living creatures, so will the sun of righteousness bring the healing of all hurts and wounds which the power of darkness has inflicted upon the righteous. Then will they go forth, sc. from the holes and caves, into which they had withdrawn during the night of suffering and where they had kept themselves concealed, and skip like stalled calves (cf. 1Sa 28:24), which are driven from the stall to the pasture. On pūsh , see at Hab 1:8. And not only will those who fear God be liberated from all oppression, but they will also acquire power over the ungodly. They will tread down the wicked, who will then have become ashes, and lie like ashes upon the ground, having been completely destroyed by the fire of the judgment (cf. Isa 26:5-6).

Concluding Admonition. - Mal 4:4. "Remember ye the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded him upon Horeb for all Israel, statutes and rights.

(Note: The lxx have put Mal 4:4 at the end of the book, not to call attention to its great importance, but probably for the very same reason for which the Masora observes, at the close of our book, that in the יתקק , i.e., in the books of Isaiah, the twelve prophets, the Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes, the last verse but one of these books was to be repeated when they were read in the synagogue, namely, because the last verse had too harsh a sound. The transposition is unsuitable, inasmuch as the promise in Mal 4:5 and Mal 4:6 does not fit on to the idea expressed in Mal 4:2 and Mal 4:3, but only to that in Mal 4:4. According to the Masora , the ז in זכרוּ should be written as litera majusc. , although in many codd. it has the usual form; and this also is not to show the great importance of the verse, since these Masoretic indications have generally a different meaning, but in all probability it is simply to indicate that this is the only passage in the book of the twelve prophets in which the word is pronounced זכרוּ (cf. זכרו in Hos 12:6; Hos 14:8), whereas in the other books, with the exception of Job 18:17, this is the only pronunciation that is met with.)

Mal 4:5. Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet before the day of Jehovah comes, the great and terrible one. Mal 4:6. And he will turn the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to their fathers, that I may not come and smite the land with the curse" ( mit dem Banne , with the ban). The admonition, "Remember ye the law of Moses,"forms the conclusion not only of the last section (Malachi 3:13-4:3), but of the whole of the book of Malachi, and cannot be connected with Mal 4:3 in the sense of "Remember what Moses has written in the law concerning Christ, or concerning the judgment,"as Theod. Mops. and others maintain; nor must it be restricted to the time previous to the coming of the Messiah by the interpolation of interim (v. Til and Mich.). It is rather a perfectly general admonition to lay to heart and observe the law. For this is referred to here, "not according to its casual and transient form, but according to its real essence as expressing the holiness of God, just as in Mat 5:17"(Hengstenberg). Malachi thus closes by showing to the people what it is their duty to do, if on the day of judgment they would escape the curse with which transgressors are threatened in the law, and participate in the salvation so generally desired, and promised to those who fear God. By the expression "my servant,"the law is traced back to God as its author. At the giving of the law, Moses as only the servant of Jehovah. אשׁר צוּיתי אותו is not to be rendered "whom ( אשׁר אותו ) I charged with statutes and rights to all Israel"(Ewald, Bunsen), for we do not expect any further explanation of the relation in which Moses stood to the law, but "which I commanded him upon (to) all Israel." Tsivvâh is construed with a double accusative, and also with על governing the person to whom the command refers, as in Ezr 8:17; 2Sa 14:8; Est 4:5. The words chuqqı̄ı̄m ūmishpâtı̄m are an epexegetical definition belonging to אשׁר : "which I commanded as statutes and rights,"i.e., consisting of these; and they recall to mind Deu 4:1 and Deu 8:14, where Moses urges upon the people the observance of the law, and also mentions Horeb as the place where the law was given. The whole of the admonition forms an antithesis to the rebuke in Mal 4:4, that from the days of their fathers they went away from the ordinances of Jehovah. These they are to be mindful to observe, that the Lord when He comes may not smite the land with the ban.

In order to avert this curse from Israel, the Lord would send the prophet Elijah before His coming, for the purpose of promoting a change of heart in the nation. The identity of the prophet Elijah with the messenger mentioned in Mal 4:1, whom the Lord would send before Him, is universally acknowledged. But there is a difference of opinion as to the question, who is the Elijah mentioned here? The notion was a very ancient one, and one very widely spread among the rabbins and fathers, that the prophet Elijah, who was caught up to heaven, would reappear (compare the history of the exposition of our verse in Hengstenberg's Christology , vol. iv. p. 217 translation). The lxx thought of him, and rendered אליּה הנּביא by Ἠλίαν τὸν Θεσβίτην ; so also did Sirach (48:10) and the Jews in the time of Christ (Joh 1:21; Mat 17:10); and so have Hitzig, Maurer, and Ewald in the most recent times. But this view is proved to be erroneous by such passages as Hos 3:5; Eze 34:23; Eze 37:24, and Jer 30:9, where the sending of David the king as the true shepherd of Israel is promised. Just as in these passages we cannot think of the return or resurrection of the David who had long been dead; but a king is meant who will reign over the nation of God in the mind and spirit of David; so the Elijah to be sent can only be a prophet with the spirit or power of Elijah the Tishbite. The second David was indeed to spring from the family of David, because to the seed of David there had been promised the eternal possession of the throne. The prophetic calling, on the other hand, was not hereditary in the prophet's house, but rested solely upon divine choice and endowment with the Spirit of God; and consequently by Elijah we are not to understand a lineal descendant of the Tishbite, but simply a prophet in whom the spirit and power of Elijah are revived, as Ephr. Syr., Luther, Calvin, and most of the Protestant commentators have maintained. But the reason why this prophet Elijah is named is to be sought for, not merely in the fact that Elijah was called to his work as a reformer in Israel at a period which was destitute of faith and of the true fear of Jehovah, and which immediately preceded a terrible judgment (Koehler), but also and more especially in the power and energy with which Elijah rose up to lead back the ungodly generation of his own time to the God of the fathers. The one does not exclude but rather includes the other. The greater the apostasy, the greater must be the power which is to stem it, so as to rescue those who suffer themselves to be rescued, before the judgment bursts over such as are hardened. For Mal 4:5 , compare Joe 3:4. This Elijah, according to Mal 4:6, is to lead back the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to their fathers. The meaning of this is not that he will settle disputes in families, or restore peace between parents and children; for the leading sin of the nation at the time of our prophet was not family quarrels, but estrangement from God. The fathers are rather the ancestors of the Israelitish nation, the patriarchs, and generally the pious forefathers, such as David and the godly men of his time. The sons or children are the degenerate descendants of Malachi's own time and the succeeding ages. "The hearts of the godly fathers and the ungodly sons are estranged from one another. The bond of union, viz., common love to God, is wanting. The fathers are ashamed of their children, the children of their fathers"(Hengstenberg). This chasm between them Elijah is to fill up. Turning the heart of the fathers to the sons does not mean merely directing the love of the fathers to the sons once more, but also restoring the heart of the fathers, in the sons, or giving to the sons the fathers' disposition and affections. Then will the heart of the sons also return to their fathers, turn itself towards them, so that they will be like-minded with the pious fathers. Elijah will thereby prepare the way of the Lord to His people, that at His coming He may not smite the land with the ban. The ban involves extermination. Whoever and whatever was laid under the ban was destroyed (cf. Lev 27:28-29; Deu 13:16-17; and my Bibl. Archäol. i. §70). This threat recals to mind the fate of the Canaanites who were smitten with the ban (Deu 20:17-18). If Israel resembles the Canaanites in character, it will also necessarily share the fate of that people (cf. Deu 12:29).

The New Testament gives us a sufficient explanation of the historical allusion or fulfilment of our prophecy. The prophet Elijah, whom the Lord would send before His own coming, was sent in the person of John the Baptist. Even before his birth he was announced to his father by the angel Gabriel as the promised Elijah, by the declaration that he would turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the unbelieving to the wisdom of the just (Luk 1:16-17). This address of the angel gives at the same time an authentic explanation of Mal 4:5 and Mal 4:6 of our prophecy: the words "and the heart of the children to their fathers"being omitted, as implied in the turning of the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the explanatory words "and the unbelieving to the wisdom of the just"being introduced in their place; and the whole of the work of John, who was to go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, being described as "making ready a prepared people for the Lord."The appearance and ministry of John the Baptist answered to this announcement of the angel, and is so described in Mat 3:1-12, Mar 1:2-8; Luke 3:2-18, that the allusion to our prophecy and the original passage (Isa 40:3) is obvious at once. Even by his outward appearance and his dress John announced himself as the promised prophet Elijah, who by the preaching of repentance and baptism was preparing the way for the Lord, who would come after him with the winnowing shovel to winnow His floor, and gather the wheat into His granary, but who would burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Christ Himself also not only assured the people (in Mat 11:10., Luk 7:27.) that John was the messenger announced by Malachi and the Elijah who was to come, but also told His disciples (Mat 17:1.; Mar 9:1.) that Elijah, who was to come first and restore all things, had already come, though the people had not acknowledged him. And even Joh 1:21 is not at variance with these statements. When the messengers of the Sanhedrim came to John the Baptist to ask whether he was Elias, and he answered, "I am not,"he simply gave a negative reply to their question, interpreted in the sense of a personal reappearance of Elijah the Tishbite, which was the sense in which they meant it, but he also declared himself to be the promised forerunner of the Lord by applying to his own labours the prophecy contained in Isa 40:3.

And as the prophet Elijah predicted by Malachi appeared in John the Baptist, so did the Lord come to His temple in the appearing of Jesus Christ. The opinion, which was very widely spread among the fathers and Catholic commentators, and which has also been adopted by many of the more modern Protestant theologians (e.g., Menken and H. Olshausen), viz., that our prophecy was only provisionally fulfilled in the coming of John the Baptist and the incarnation of the Son of God in Jesus Christ, and that its true fulfilment will only take place at the second coming of Christ to judge the world, in the actual appearance of the risen Elijah by which it will be preceded, is not only at variance with the statements of the Lord concerning John the Baptist, which have been already quoted, but as no tenable foundation in our prophecy itself. The prophets of the Old Testament throughout make no allusion to any second coming of the Lord to His people. The day of the Lord, which they announce as the day of judgment, commenced with the appearance on earth of Christ, the incarnate Logos; and Christ Himself declared that He had come into the world for judgment (Joh 9:39, cf. Joh 3:19 and Joh 12:40), viz., for the judgment of separating the believing from the ungodly, to give eternal life to those who believe on His name, and to bring death and condemnation to unbelievers. This judgment burst upon the Jewish nation not long after the ascension of Christ. Israel rejected its Saviour, and was smitten with the ban at the destruction of Jerusalem in the Roman war; and both people and land lie under this ban to the present day. And just as the judgment commenced at that time so far as Israel was concerned, so does it also begin in relation to all peoples and kingdoms of this earth with the first preaching of Christ among them, and will continue throughout all the centuries during which the kingdom spreads upon earth, until it shall be ultimately completed in the universal judgment at the visible second coming of the Lord at the last day.

With this calling to remembrance of the law of Moses, and this prediction that the prophet Elijah will be sent before the coming of the Lord Himself, the prophecy of the Old Testament is brought to a close. After Malachi, no other prophet arose in Israel until the time was fulfilled when the Elijah predicted by him appeared in John the Baptist, and immediately afterwards the Lord came to His temple, that is to say, the incarnate Son of God to His own possession, to make all who received Him children of God, the s^e gullâh of the Lord. Law and prophets bore witness of Christ, and Christ came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil them. Upon the Mount of Christ's Transfiguration, therefore, there appeared both Moses, the founder of the law and mediator of the old covenant, and Elijah the prophet, as the restorer of the law in Israel, to talk with Jesus of His decease which He was to accomplish in Jerusalem (Mat 17:1.; Mar 9:1.; Luk 9:28.), for a practical testimony to the apostles and to us all, that Jesus Christ, who laid down His life for us, to bear our sin and redeem us from the curse of the law, was the beloved Son of the Father, whom we are to hear, that by believing in His name we may become children of God and heirs of everlasting life.

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C. The coming judgment of Israel 3:17-4:3

3:17 Almighty Yahweh announced that He would honor those who feared Him as His own on the day He prepared His own possessions. This probably refers to the day of the Lord (cf. v. 2; 4:1, 3) when He will resurrect Old Testament saints and judge them. This will be when Jesus Christ returns to rule and reign on the earth. The faithful will receive a reward in His kingdom for their submission. He also promised to spare them as a man spares his own son. When Jesus Christ judges Old Testament saints, He will separate the sheep from the goats (Matt. 25:31-46). Here God described the sheep as His sons. He will spare them the humiliation and punishment that will be the lot of those who did not honor Him (vv. 14-15).

3:18 In that day it will be clear who behaved righteously and who behaved wickedly because Jesus Christ will reward the righteous and not reward the wicked among the Israelites. Then the true and the false servants of the Lord will be manifest. In Malachi's day, and in ours, the true motives of God's people are not obvious, but in the future they will become clear for many to see.

4:1 The Lord now elaborated on the day to which He had just referred (3:17).⁴¹ This day of the Lord would be a day of judgment, which He compared to a fiery furnace in which all the arrogant and every evildoer would burn like chaff (or stubble; cf. 3:2-3, 15). That day would set them ablaze in that the Lord would set them ablaze in that day. He would so thoroughly purge them that they would be entirely consumed, like a shrub thrown into a hot fire is totally burned up, from root to branch (a merism of totality). The judgment of wicked unbelievers is in view (cf. Matt. 25:46). Later revelation clarified the time of this judgment, namely, the end of the Millennium (Rev. 20:11-15).

4:2 In contrast, the Israelites who feared Yahweh (1:14; 3:5, 16-17) would experience a reign of righteousness compared here to sunshine (cf. Isa. 60:1-3). The sun can blister, but it can also bless, and its blessing effect is in view here. The prophet evidently visualized the sunrays like the wings of a bird stretching over the earth. This righteous day would have a healing effect on the inhabitants of the earth, healing them, and the planet, from the harmful effects of past millennia of sin.

Some expositors have understood "the sun of righteousness" to be a messianic title, but it seems best to view it as a description of the day of blessing that Messiah will bring, the Millennium.⁴² The figure of vigorous calves cavorting in open pasture after having been cooped up in a stall pictures the joy and freedom that the righteous will enjoy in that day (cf. Isa. 65:17-25; Hos. 14:4-7; Amos 9:13-15; Zeph. 3:19-20).

4:3 The righteous would also enjoy superiority over the wicked in that day, the opposite of the situation in Malachi's day. The wicked would be as ashes under their feet in that the wicked would suffer judgment and offer no resistance (cf. Isa. 66:24; Matt. 3:12; Mark 9:48). Almighty Yahweh was preparing that day, so it would inevitably come.

VIII. A concluding promise and warning 4:4-6

The final three verses of the book, which are also the final message in the Old Testament, are sufficiently different from what immediately precedes to indicate another message from Malachi. Essentially Malachi said, Be prepared for God's coming.

"Malachi began with an illustration from Genesis (Jacob and Esau) and spent most of the first half of the book reminding priests and people of the need to keep the Mosaic Law. Now, close to the end of his book, he gives another terse reminder of their continuing obligation to those laws."⁴³

4:4 Moses' last words to the Israelites in Deuteronomy contain about 14 exhortations to remember the Law that God had given them. Malachi closed his book, and God closed the Old Testament, with the same exhortation. The Israelites had forgotten and disregarded God's law, and Malachi had pointed out many specific instances of that. Now he urged the people to recall and obey their Law. By calling Moses "My servant," the Lord was reminding Malachi's audience of how faithful Moses had carried out God's will. He was to be their model of obedience.

4:5 The Lord promised to send His people Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord arrived. An angel later told John the Baptist's parents that their son would minister in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17). Yet John denied that he was Elijah (John 1:21-23). Jesus said that John would have been the Elijah who was to come if the people of his day had accepted Jesus as their Messiah (Matt. 11:14). Since they did not, John did not fulfill this prophecy about Elijah coming, though he did fulfill the prophecy about Messiah's forerunner (3:1).

This interpretation has in its favor Jesus' words following the Transfiguration (and John the Baptist's death). Jesus said that Elijah would come and restore all things (Matt. 17:11). Whether the original Elijah will appear before the day of the Lord or whether an Elijah-like figure, similar to John the Baptist, will appear remains to be seen. Since Jesus went on to say that Elijah had come and the Jews failed to recognize him, speaking of John (Matt. 17:12-13), I prefer the view that an Elijah-like person will come.

What John did for Jesus at His first coming, preparing the hearts of people to receive Him, this latter-day Elijah will do for Him at His second coming. Evidently the two witnesses in the Tribulation will carry out this ministry (Rev. 11:1-13). Who the witnesses will be is a mystery. Evidently one of them will be an Elisha-like person. These men will do miracles as Elijah and Elisha did.

4:6 Malachi revealed only one future forerunner of Messiah before the day of the Lord in view, perhaps the more prominent of the two. Elijah was a very significant person in Israel's history because he turned the Israelites back to God at the time of their worst apostasy, when Ahab and Jezebel had made Baal worship the official religion of Israel. Moses established the theocracy on earth, but Elisha restored it when it almost passed out of existence. Similarly the eschatological Elijah will unite the hearts of the Jews to turn back and worship Yahweh.

At His first coming Jesus said that because of Him families would experience division. Some fathers would believe on Him but their sons would not, and daughters would disagree with their mothers over Him (Matt. 10:35-36; Luke 12:49-53; cf. Mic. 7:6). When this Elijah comes, he will cause the Jews to believe on their Messiah as they did in the past. They will unite over belief in Him.

If the Lord would not send this Elijah, and if he did not turn the hearts of the Jews back to God, the Lord would have to come (in the person of Messiah) and strike the earth with a curse. Because the Jews will turn to Jesus Christ in faith, blessing will come to the earth, not a curse (vv. 2-3). This is another reference to millennial conditions.

The Jews of Malachi's day needed to remember their Law and practice it as preparation for the coming day of the Lord. As Jesus said, Moses wrote of Him (John 5:46). Had Malachi's audience and subsequent generations of Jews paid attention to the Law of Moses they would have recognized Jesus for who He was at His first coming. This was the last revelation that God gave His people before the forerunner of Messiah whom He promised in 3:1 appeared some 400 years later. They had plenty of time to get ready.

In Malachi's day the people needed to return to the Lord or He would smite the land with a curse. This is really what happened since they did not return to Him. The Israelites' problems occupying the land God gave them since the Babylonian captivity is evidence of their failure.

Fortunately for them, and for the whole world, God did not cast off His people Israel because they rejected His Son (Rom. 11:1). He will send another powerful prophet, like Moses, to His people in the end times. They will believe the message of that Elijah and will turn to Jesus Christ in faith when He returns to the earth (Zech. 12:10). Then Messiah will initiate a righteous worldwide rule that will last 1, 000 years (Rev. 20:1-6) rather than smiting the land with a curse.

Malachi 4 - The Sun of Righteousness

A. The final resolution.

1. (1) Resolution of the wicked.

"For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up," says the LORD of hosts, "That will leave them neither root nor branch."

a. The day is coming: Discouraged by the apparent prosperity of the wicked and uselessness of serving the LORD, God's people needed to be reminded that the day is coming. God still has eternity to right all wrongs and reward all good.

b. Burning like an oven: God promised a fire for His people (Malachi 2:2-3) and here He promises a fire for the wicked. But there is a big difference between the refining fire applied to God's people and the burning fire against the ungodly.

c. All who do wickedly will be stubble: Stubble is the unusable part of the grain, and lasts only moments if it is thrown into a fire.

d. Leave them neither root nor branch: In that coming day the wicked will have no hope of shooting up again to life. As long as a root remains there is hope, but hope is gone for these because the judgment of eternity is final.

2. (2-3) Resolution of the righteous.

"But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves. You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this," says the LORD of hosts.

a. But to you who fear My name: In the previous verse God promised a judgment of fire for the proud, but God says that those who fear My name will be saved.

b. The Sun of Righteousness shall arise: From the time of early Christians like Justin Martyr to today, Christians have regarded the Sun of Righteousness as a reference to Jesus.

i. In many passages God is related to a planet or star (Psalm 84:11, Isaiah 60:19, Revelation 22:16, Numbers 24:17). Here, the Messiah is not only a Sun, but also the Sun of Righteousness who brings healing.

ii. "He went under a cloud in his passion, and brake forth again in his resurrection. From heaven he daily darts forth his beams of righteousness, and showers down all spiritual blessings in heavenly privileges." (Trapp)

c. With healing in His wings: The wings of the sun are the rays or sunbeams it sends out. They bring healing, joy, and wholeness. When the Sun of Righteousness shines, we need no other light or warmth. Imagine trying to light a candle on a sunny day to help out the sun! That makes as much sense as trying to "improve" the work of Jesus for us with our own righteousness.

d. You shall trample the wicked: When God's people see the final resolution of all things they will be so happy they will jump about like stall-fed calves set free from the pen. As they jump about with joy, the wicked are trampled beneath their feet.

i. "Understand the figure. The calf in the stall is shut up, tied up with a halter at night, but when the sun rises the calf goes forth to the pasture; the young bullock is set free. So the child of God may be in bondage. The recollection of past sins and present unbelief may halter him up and keep him in the stall, but when the Lord reveals himself he is set free." (Spurgeon)

ii. We can see a glorious progression in those who look upon the risen Sun of Righteousness and receive the healing in His wings:

· They shall go out - they will be free and enjoy their liberty

· They shall grow fat - growing strong and prosperous in the LORD

· They shall trample the wicked - enjoying the LORD's victory in their life

B. The concluding words of the Old Testament.

1. (4) Remember the Law of Moses.

"Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments."

a. Remember the Law of Moses: In these last few prophetic words of the Old Testament, Malachi warns Israel to remember the Law, because God's prophetic voice would be silent for some 400 years. We never need to despair when God seems silent, because what He has already said is rich enough - if we will only remember.

b. With the statues and judgments: The last few words of the Old Testament are a call back to the Law - because under the Old Covenant man related with God on the basis of Law. Thank God for the New Covenant - for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17).

2. (5-6) Elijah will come.

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse."

a. I will send you Elijah the prophet: In this unique promise, God assures that He will send Elijah to Israel again before the great and dreadful day of the LORD.

i. This was fulfilled in John the Baptist in a figurative sense (Matthew 11:14, Mark 9:11-13, Luke 1:17). Yet because this Elijah comes before the coming of the great and dreadful day, we know that the Elijah prophecy is only completely fulfilled before the Second Coming of Jesus. John 17:11-12 and Revelation 11:3-12 speak of this future fulfillment, when God will either send Elijah back to the earth on this special errand, or send someone uniquely empowered in the spirit and office of Elijah.

ii. In anticipation of this, Jewish homes set a place at the table for Elijah at Passover, just in case he might come on that night to announce the news that Messiah has come. The empty chair and the cup that is filled but never drank is a testimony to their anticipation of Elijah's coming.

b. Elijah the prophet: Why Elijah? Because he ministered in a time of crisis in Israel, when the nation was far from God, and a time that immediately preceded a terrible judgment.

i. It is significant that in these closing words of the Old Testament, God makes reference to both Moses and Elijah. They both met God at Mount Sinai (Exodus 3:1; 1 Kings 19:8-18). They also both met Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-5). They are probably the two witnesses of Revelation 11.

d. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children: This promise speaks of more than the reconciliation of families. When God turns the hearts of the children to their fathers, it also has in mind turning to the God of their fathers, to the faith of the patriarchs.

e. Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse: The Old Testament ends with the threat of a curse, but also with the expectation of a new dawning of the Sun of Righteousness.

i. This ending of the Book of Malachi bothered the ancient Jews. "The Masorites, who have given us most of the copies of the Hebrew Old Testament we have . . . were so bothered by this that they repeated the next-to-the-last verse of Malachi after the last verse. Similarly, the Septuagint reverses the last two verse so the Old Testament ends, not with a curse, but with a blessing." (Boice)

ii. The end of the New Testament recognizes the rising of the Sun of Righteousness: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all! (Revelation 22:21)

© 2001 David Guzik - No distribution beyond personal use without permission

See Mal 3:16 footnote.

THE FUNCTION OF THE LAW

We are not to forget the Law once we have accepted the Savior .

Does the student, after he graduates, forget the knowledge given by his schoolmaster?

That knowledge may now be used to instruct lost sinners on why they, too, need the Savior. (see Gal 3:24 )

Thank God for all of the "Elijahs," who help to save us from God's curse because they are not afraid to speak of the "coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord."

More souls have been won for Christ by preachers who did what little they could, than by renowned evangelists. Richard Wurmbrand