Malachi 4
neither root nor branch—proverbial for utter destruction
So complete will be the judgment that the wicked (the arrogant and every evildoer; cf. Mal. 3:15), compared to stubble, will not have a root or a branch remaining. This does not mean annihilation in the sense of cessation of being (the wicked will be resurrected, Dan. 12:2), but rather the complete exclusion of the wicked from God’s kingdom
To the wicked it shall be as an oven that consumes the stubble (Mt 6:30); to the righteous it shall be the advent of the gladdening Sun, not of condemnation, but “of righteousness”; not destroying, but “healing” (Je 23:6).
God promises to invade this world with righteousness as the sun invades the night, driving the darkness away
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.
Healing (marpē’, “health or restoration”) in its wings (or rays) refers to the restorative powers of righteousness, which are like the healthful rays of the sun. God’s people will be spiritually restored and renewed.
“Revere” translates the same Hebrew word rendered “fear” in 3:5 and “feared” in 1:14; 3:16. Revering God contrasts with saying “harsh things” against God (3:13).
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!
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.
The figure of calves enjoying open pasture after being cooped up in a pen (stall) expresses the future satisfaction and joy of the righteous
Solving the difficulty (Mal 3:15) that the wicked often now prosper. Their prosperity and the adversity of the godly shall soon be reversed. Yea, the righteous shall be the army attending Christ in His final destruction of the ungodly
“Recall it to mind and do it!”
The office of Christ’s forerunner was to bring them back to the law, which they had too much forgotten, and so “to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” at His coming
I send you Elijah—as a means towards your “remembering the law” (Mal 4:4).
Elijah, mentioned twenty-eight times in the NT, was viewed as the preeminent prophet of repentance
Although this prophecy was provisionally fulfilled by John the Baptist (Mal 3:1–5), it will be further fulfilled at Jesus’s return
But Lu 1:16, 17 substitutes for “the heart of the children to the fathers,” “the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,” implying that the reconciliation to be effected was that between the unbelieving disobedient children and the believing ancestors, Jacob, Levi, “Moses,” and “Elijah” (just mentioned) (compare Mal 1:2).
The Hebrew word used here, cherem, is used throughout the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch) to refer to the complete destruction of something that has been put under a sacred ban, usually in reference to the Canaanites and their religion
It is deeply suggestive that the last utterance from heaven for four hundred years before Messiah was the awful word “curse.” Messiah’s first word on the mount was “Blessed” (Mt 5:3). The law speaks wrath; the Gospel, blessing.
The Hebrew word for turning or returning (compare Mal 3:7 and note) appears here with the idea of repentance.
Mal 4:6, quoted in Lk 1:16–17, describes a time of reconciliation when “the disobedient” will accept the wisdom of “the righteous” and when fathers and their children will no longer live self-serving lives but will regard one another with compassion and respect (2:15; Ezk 5:10; Rm 1:30).