Sermon Tone Analysis

The prophecy of Malachi began by reminding the people of God of his irrevocable love (1:2–5), and it ends with the probable perspective on their utter destruction.

God’s judgment cannot be separated from his grace.

“If any one has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed” (1 Cor.

16:22).

Pieter A. Verhoef, The Books of Haggai and Malachi, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.

B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987), 344. 2. But (And) unto you, who fear My Name, shall the Sun of Righteousness arise.

It is said of God, The Lord God is a sun and a shield, and, 10The Lord shall be to thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory; thy sun shall no more go down; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light; and Zacharias, speaking of the office of S. John Baptist in the words of Malachi, thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His way, speaks of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness.

“12He Who is often called Lord and God, and Angel and Captain of the Lord’s host, and Christ and Priest and Word and Wisdom of God and Image, is now called the Sun of Righteousness.

He, the Father promises, will arise, not to all, but to those only who fear His Name, giving them the light of the Sun of Righteousness, as the reward of their fear toward Him.

This is God the Word Who saith, I am the Light of the world, Who was the Light of every one who cometh into the world.”

Primarily, Malachi speaks of our Lord’s second Coming, when to them that look for Him shall He appear, a second time unto salvation.

For as, in so many places14, the Old Testament exhibits the opposite lots of the righteous and the wicked, so here the prophet speaks of the Day of Judgment, in reference to the two opposite classes, of which he had before spoken, the proud and evil doers, and the fearers of God.

The title, the Sun of Righteousness, belongs to both Comings; “in the first, He diffused rays of righteousness, whereby He justified and daily justifies any sinners whatever, who will look to Him, i. e. believe in Him and obey Him, as the sun imparts light, joy and life to all who turn toward it.”

In the second, the righteousness which He gave, He will own and exhibit, cleared from all the misjudgment of the world, before men and Angels.

Yet more, healing is, throughout Holy Scripture, used of the removal of sickness or curing of wounds, in the individual or state or Church, and, as to the individual, bodily or spiritual.

So David thanks God, first for the forgiveness, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; then for healing of his soul, Who healeth all thy diseases; then for salvation, Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; then for the crown laid up for him, Who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies; then, with the abiding sustenance and satisfying joy, Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things.

Healing then primarily belongs to this life, in which we are still encompassed with infirmities, and even His elect and His Saints have still, whereof to be healed.

The full then and complete healing of the soul, the integrity of all its powers will be in the life to come.

There, will be “understanding without error, memory without forgetfulness, thought without distraction, love without simulation, sensation without offence, satisfying without satiety, universal health without sickness.”

“2For through Adam’s sin the soul was wounded in understanding, through obscurity and ignorance; in will, through the leaning to perishing goods; as concupiscent, through infirmity and manifold concupiscence.

In heaven Christ will heal all these, giving to the understanding light and knowledge; to the will, constancy in good; to the desire, that it should desire nothing but what is right and good.

Then too the healing of the soul will be the light of glory, the vision and fruition of God, and the glorious endowments consequent thereon, over-streaming all the powers of the soul and therefrom to the body.”

“God has made the soul of a nature so mighty, that from its most full beatitude, which at the end of time is promised to the saints, there shall overflow to the inferior nature, the body, not bliss, which belongs to the soul as intelligent and capable of fruition, but the fullness of health that is, the vigorousness of incorruption.”

And ye shall go forth, as from a prison-house, from the miseries of this lifeless life, and grow up, or perhaps more probably, bound, as the animal, which has been confined, exults in its regained freedom, itself full of life and exuberance of delight.

So the Psalmist, 5The saints shall exult in glory.

And our Lord uses the like word, as to the way, with which they should greet persecution to the utmost, for His Name’s sake.

Swiftness of motion is one of the endowments of the spiritual body, after the resurrection; as the angels, to whom the righteous shall be like7, ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.

3.

And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet.

It shall be a great reversal.

He that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

Here the wicked often have the pre-eminence.

This was the complaint of the murmurers among the Jews; in the morning of the Resurrection the upright shall have dominion over them.

The wicked, he had said, shall be as stubble, and that day shall burn them up; here, then, they are as the ashes, the only remnant of the stubble, as the dust under the feet.

“11The elect shall rejoice, that they have, in mercy, escaped such misery.

Therefore they shall be kindled inconceivably with the Divine love, and shall from their inmost heart give thanks unto God.”

And being thus of one mind with God, and seeing all things as He seeth, they will rejoice in His judgments, because they are His.

For they cannot have one slightest velleity, other than the all-perfect Will of God.

So Isaiah closes his prophecy, And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men, that have transgressed against Me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring to all flesh.

So 13The righteous shall rejoice, when he seeth the vengeance; and another Psalmist, The righteous shall see and rejoice; and all wickedness shall stop her mouth; and Job, 15The righteous see and are glad, and the innocent laugh them to scorn.

This “proof of the people’s righteousness to appear in mourning was done before, on account of, on behalf of (mippenê) the Lord Almighty.

They have voluntarily submitted themselves to the rites in connection with mourning and penitence to please the Lord, but according to them it all was of no avail.

Their experience contradicted the law of retribution, and they arrogantly came to the conclusion that it does not pay to be righteous.

The same attitude toward God and his service is also found in 1:2–5 and 2:17.

J. M. P. Smith is of the opinion that it was characteristic of that time to see righteousness as something that one had to pay.

If the Lord is served with gifts, offerings, and obedience, then he must also reward it in the form of material blessings, political influence, and domination.

He observes that Malachi apparently made this criterion for the appreciation of religion his own, because he does not attempt to replace it with any other.

The prophet did not accommodate himself to the people’s purely external conception of religion; his criticism was specifically directed at the heathen notion that there is a mechanical and magical connection between religion and prosperity.

Malachi’s emphasis throughout is on the people’s obligation to love, revere, and honor God (1:6; 2:5; 3:3, 4, 16).

The “arrogant” therefore were either the covenant people as such, or else those members of the nation who had already inwardly and publicly broken with the faith of the fathers, the agnostics, and the skeptics.

The expression those who feared the Lord (Heb.

yirʾê YHWH) does not refer to the proselytes of the postexilic (and NT) times, but to the spiritual remnant, the true Israel (Rom.

9:6–9), whose lives and testimony are in full accord with a living realization of the holiness and majesty of God, their Father and Lord (1:6).

They have spoken to one another (Heb.

niḏberû), and the content of their testimony was that the Lord has heeded, has given attention (Heb.

yaqšēḇ), and has listened (Heb.

yišmāʿ).

The people in general wearied the Lord by asking “Where is the God of justice” (2:17), and maintaining that it is “futile to serve God” (3:14).

The book of remembrance will include all those harsh words and arrogant acts and attitudes.

In a special sense, however, the entries in this book will be on behalf of those who feared the Lord.

They will be singled out in a special manner, according to vv. 17 and 18.

This “book of remembrance” is before the Lord, not so much in the sense of “in his presence,” but in front of him, in order to remind him of the righteous ones and what they have done (cf.

Isa.

62:6, 7).

To be the Lord’s is to be his treasured possession.

In its profane usage seg̱ullâ means “property” (Lat.

peculium, “that which is accumulated by thrift”).

In Eccl.

2:8 it is used of the treasures which Qohelet has amassed in the course of time (cf. 1 K. 10; 2 Chr.

1:14–17; 9:1–28).

In 1 Chr.

29:3 it denotes the “personal treasures” of David.

In the religious sense the word is used to denote the special position of Israel in its relationship to God as his elect people (Deut.

7:6; 14:2; Ps. 135:4).

The parallelism of election and possession in connection With Israel is significantly expressed in Ps. 135:4: “For the Lord has chosen Jacob to be his own, Israel to be his treasured possession.”

This elevation of Israel to be God’s seg̱ullâ is an essential aspect of the Sinaitic covenant (Exod.

19:5, 6), with its later renewal in the territory of Moab, where the Lord declared, “that you [Israel] are his people, his treasured possession as he promised.…

He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made

This is the one side of the Day of the Lord.

On that day God will react against all the arrogant words and unrighteous deeds.

The seriousness of the day of judgment will not only be the unexpectedness of its coming, but also the surprising manner in which it will expose every reckless word and faithless deed.

All the resentment of the “speakers” will be wiped away, and all the insolent questions—Wherein?

Whereby?

In what manner?—will finally be answered.

From the books of Ezra and Nehemiah it appears that many in Israel repented and renewed the covenant with God.

On the other hand there were those who rejected the call for repentance and who persisted in their waywardness.

To those evildoers the prophecy of Mal.

3:19 (Eng.

4:1) was directed.

20 (2) The Day of the Lord will be “the ultimate stroke of judgment” for the evildoers (v.

19 [Eng.

4:1]), but at the same time “the crown of salvation” for those who revere the name of God (vv.

20, 21 [4:2, 3]).

On the one hand his judgment will burn like a furnace, but on the other hand his righteousness will shine forth like the sun.

On this “day” the distinction between the righteous and the wicked (v.

18) will reach its climax.

This verse is one of the most significant texts in the prophecy of Malachi.

At the same time it represents an exegetical labyrinth for the interpreter.

of it.

We prefer the point of view according to which righteousness must be regarded as the key word, and sun to be its nearer definition.

On the Day of the Lord righteousness will become apparent just like the shining sun in all its brightness and blessedness.

The same idea is found in Ps. 37:6: “He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun” (NIV).

In Isa.

58:8 we read: “Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard” (NIV).

Interpreters again differ concerning whether righteousness is to be explained in the sense of a person or of matter.