Maleakhi 4:5

4:5 Look, I will send you Elijah ¹  the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord arrives.

Matius 17:10-13

17:10 The disciples asked him, ²  “Why then do the experts in the law ³  say that Elijah must come first?” 17:11 He ⁴  answered, “Elijah does indeed come first and will restore all things. 17:12 And I tell you that Elijah has already come. Yet they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wanted. In ⁵  the same way, the Son of Man will suffer at their hands.” 17:13 Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist.

Markus 9:11-13

9:11 Then ⁶  they asked him, ⁷  “Why do the experts in the law ⁸  say that Elijah must come first?” 9:12 He said to them, “Elijah does indeed come first, and restores all things. And why is it written that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be despised? 9:13 But I tell you that Elijah has certainly come, and they did to him whatever they wanted, just as it is written about him.”

Lukas 1:17

1:17 And he will go as forerunner before the Lord ⁹  in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, ¹⁰  to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.”

Yohanes 1:21

1:21 So they asked him, “Then who are you? ¹¹  Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not!” ¹²  “Are you the Prophet?” ¹³  He answered, “No!”

[4:5]  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).

[17:10]  ² tn Grk “asked him, saying.” The participle λέγοντες (legontes) is redundant and has not been translated.

[17:10]  ³ tn Or “do the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[17:11]  ⁴ tn Grk “And answering, he said.” This has been simplified in the translation.

[17:12]  ⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[9:11]  ⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[9:11]  ⁷ tn Grk “And they were asking him, saying.” The participle λέγοντες (legontes) is redundant and has not been translated.

[9:11]  ⁸ tn Or “Why do the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 1:22.

[1:17]  ⁹ tn Grk “before him”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:17]  ¹⁰ sn These two lines cover all relationships: Turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children points to horizontal relationships, while (turn) the disobedient to the wisdom of the just shows what God gives from above in a vertical manner.

[1:21]  ¹¹ tn Grk “What then?” (an idiom).

[1:21]  ¹² sn According to the 1st century rabbinic interpretation of 2 Kgs 2:11, Elijah was still alive. In Mal 4:5 it is said that Elijah would be the precursor of Messiah. How does one reconcile John the Baptist’s denial here (“I am not”) with Jesus’ statements in Matt 11:14 (see also Mark 9:13 and Matt 17:12) that John the Baptist was Elijah? Some have attempted to remove the difficulty by a reconstruction of the text in the Gospel of John which makes the Baptist say that he was Elijah. However, external support for such emendations is lacking. According to Gregory the Great, John was not Elijah, but exercised toward Jesus the function of Elijah by preparing his way. But this avoids the real difficulty, since in John’s Gospel the question of the Jewish authorities to the Baptist concerns precisely his function. It has also been suggested that the author of the Gospel here preserves a historically correct reminiscence – that John the Baptist did not think of himself as Elijah, although Jesus said otherwise. Mark 6:14-16 and Mark 8:28 indicate the people and Herod both distinguished between John and Elijah – probably because he did not see himself as Elijah. But Jesus’ remarks in Matt 11:14, Mark 9:13, and Matt 17:12 indicate that John did perform the function of Elijah – John did for Jesus what Elijah was to have done for the coming of the Lord. C. F. D. Moule pointed out that it is too simple to see a straight contradiction between John’s account and that of the synoptic gospels: “We have to ask by whom the identification is made, and by whom refused. The synoptic gospels represent Jesus as identifying, or comparing, the Baptist with Elijah, while John represents the Baptist as rejecting the identification when it is offered him by his interviewers. Now these two, so far from being incompatible, are psychologically complementary. The Baptist humbly rejects the exalted title, but Jesus, on the contrary, bestows it on him. Why should not the two both be correct?” (The Phenomenon of the New Testament [SBT], 70).

[1:21]  ¹³ sn The Prophet is a reference to the “prophet like Moses” of Deut 18:15, by this time an eschatological figure in popular belief. Acts 3:22 identifies Jesus as this prophet.