Bibelkommentare

God’s judgment on the wicked, Malachi 4:1, and his blessing on the good, Malachi 4:2,3. He exhorteth to the study of the law, Malachi 4:4, and telleth of Elijah’s coming and office, Malachi 4:5,6.

The words immediately foregoing (which, as we have the chapters divided, did end the third chapter) foretold a day to come then, though it is now long since past, in which such judgments should be executed upon the Jewish nation, as should make the stoutest contemners of God to see and acknowledge his different respects and providences toward the good and toward the evil. Now in this verse (which continueth the discourse) he accounteth how it should be.

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, Malachi 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 Malachi 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, Malachi 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.

Verse 1. - Burn as an oven (a furnace). Fire is often spoken of in connection with the day of judgment and the advent of the Judge. It is a symbol of the holiness of God, which consumes all impurity, and also represents the punishment inflicted on the ungodly (Psalm 1:8; Isaiah 10:17; Isaiah 66:15, 16; Daniel 7:9, 10; Joel 2:30; 1 Corinthians 3:13; 2 Peter 3:7, etc.). The LXX. adds, "and it shall burn them." Stubble (see note on Obadiah 1:18); or, perhaps, chaff, as Matthew 3:11, 12. Root nor branch The ungodly are regarded as a tree which is given up to be burned so that nothing of it is left. The same metaphor is used by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:10; setup. Amos 2:9). The Hebrew text includes this chapter in ch. 3.

IV.

(1) The day already foretold in Malachi 3:2 shall be as a fire burning fiercely as a furnace, and “the wicked”—not only the heathen, but the murmurers themselves, so far from being accounted happy (Malachi 3:15)—shall be as “stubble.” (Comp. Isaiah 5:24; Zephaniah 1:18; Obadiah 1:18, &c.)

Malachi 4:1. the day] i.e. “the day” predicted in the preceding verse, with which this verse coheres closely. The commencing of a new chapter here in A.V. (and LXX., after Vulg., though not in our present Hebrew Bibles) is unfortunate. The R.V. rightly prints from Malachi 3:13 to Malachi 4:3 inclusive in a continuous paragraph.

that shall burn as an oven] Rather, it burneth as a furnace, R.V. Comp. ἡ γὰρ ἡμέρα δηλώσει, ὅτι ἐν πυρὶ ἀποκαλύπτεται, for the day shall declare it, because it (the day) is revealed in fire, 1 Corinthians 3:13.

all the proud … all that do wickedly] The judgment passed on them by the scoffers (Malachi 3:15) shall be signally reversed.

root nor branch] A sudden change of figure from the straw or “stubble” to the tree which succumbs to the raging fire, till neither root nor branch remains.

Malachi 4:1. For behold the day cometh — Though it may appear to be at a distance from you, yet it is coming, and will soon overtake and overwhelm you: even that great and terrible day of the Lord, as it is called Joel 2:31. That shall burn as an oven — God is described as a consuming fire, when he comes to execute his judgments, Deuteronomy 4:24, and the prediction here was remarkably verified when, upon the taking of the city and temple of Jerusalem, by the Roman army under Titus, they were both destroyed by such flames as no human power could quench. The refiner’s fire, mentioned Malachi 3:2, now became unspeakably more dreadful, raging everywhere through the city and temple, and most fiercely where the arched roofs made it double itself and infold flames within flames: by which terrible destruction, and the judgments accompanying it, an end was put to the whole state of the Jews: an awful image this of the conflagration of the heavens and the earth, and the final judgment of the last day on the whole human race. And all the proud — Such especially as those spoken of Malachi 3:15. And all that do wickedly — All impenitent sinners, of whatever kind, whether heathen, Jews, or Christians, so called, even all that do not obey the truth, whether manifested by God’s works or his word, but obey unrighteousness, shall be as stubble — Shall perish by these awful judgments. And the day that cometh shall burn them up — Shall totally and speedily consume them. It shall leave them neither root nor branch — A proverbial expression for utter destruction, and signifying, as applied to the unbelieving Jews, that both they and their families should be utterly destroyed.

Malachi 4:1. Behold, the day cometh— This is a continuation of the discourse in the preceding chapter; and would be more properly joined to it, than made the beginning of a new chapter.

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For, behold, the day cometh, that shall 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.

For, behold, the day cometh — This chapter should not be divided from the former; for here God’s different dealing with the righteous and the wicked, proposed in the former verse, is further amplified by various effects of Christ’s coming in the flesh. And if any ask, saith an interpreter, how this was verified of that his first coming? we answer, It was an initial or incipient stage, and by way of preparation, then; and shall be consummate in the day of the last judgment. This day comprehendeth all that time that is called by the apostle, "the ends of the world," 1 Corinthians 10:11 , and "the world to come," Hebrews 2:5 ; all the administrations of Christ’s kingdom, from his incarnation to the end of all things, which also is at hand, and, as it were, under view already. "Behold, the day," that notable day, so long looked for by the Jews, who boasted of a Redeemer, and promised themselves all possible comforts then: Tunc enim Deus nos dignabitur clarissima visione, saith Jachiades on Daniel 12:4 , tunc intelligemus res ipsas prout sunt: Then shall we have a most clear vision of things as they are, … Lo, that day cometh; not such a day as you imagined, but like that in Amos, "A day of darkness, and not light: even very dark, and no brightness in it," Amos 5:20 . A day that shall burn like an oven; Nebuchadnezzar’s oven, seven times more heated than it was wont, Daniel 3:19 . This day is come, the end is come, it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come, Ezekiel 7:6 . It was fulfilled in part upon this people at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and their miserable exile ever since for their unbelief. Howbeit, all these are but the beginning of sorrows; their present sorrows but a typical hell, "the pile whereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of fire, doth kindle it," Isaiah 30:33 . It is said to be "prepared for the devil and his angels," Matthew 25:41 , as if the all-powerful wisdom did deliberate, and, as it were, sit down and devise most tormenting temper, for that most formidable fire. The fire of the last day shall surely be very terrible, when all the world shall be on ablaze with fire, and wicked men shall give account with flames about their ears, with the elements melting and falling like scalding lead or burning bell metal on their heads. But all this will be but a shadow or spark of that fire of hell, the smoke whereof ascendeth for ever and ever, Revelation 19:3 . Some have held the fire of hell to be no true material; and corporeal fire but metaphorical, of a type known to God. qualem novit Deus. The most conspire in the contrary tenet; because bodies are to be punished by it. How spirits are also thus tormented, as the rich glutton’s, Luke 16:24 , Austin sits down and admires the mystery; he tells us that for vehemence of heat it exceeds our fire, as far as ours doth fire that is painted on a wall (De Civ. Dei, lib. 21, c. 10). I would we had not cause to complain that preaching of hell is but as the painting of fire; which men can look on and handle without harm or fear. Surely he that observes the impiety of this age may say to us, as Cato did to Caesar, Credo, quae de inferis dicuntur, falsa existimas, I believe you think hell to be a very fable, Esse aliquos manes nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum aere lavantur (Juven.).

And all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, … — Those proud whom you pronounced happy, Malachi 3:15 , because jolly, and full of worldly prosperity, rich and renowned; those workers of wickedness, whom you looked upon as set up, built upon a firm basis: God shall abase every one that is lifted up, he shall repay the wicked doer to his face, Deuteronomy 7:10 , and into his bosom, Isaiah 65:6 . Whatever arrows are in the bow string will one day fly and hit, and strike deep. They shall be as stubble, saith the text, as stubble that is fully dried, Nahum 1:10 , even when they be folden together as thorns. "Who would set these briers and thorns against me in battle?" saith the Lord: "I would go through them, I would burn them together," Isaiah 27:4 . Did he not deal so by Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Herod, the primitive persecutors? … Those mighty Magnificos that here seemed fortes, ferrei, et aenei, strong, and made up, as it were, of brass and iron, shall appear to be but as stubble, that cannot stand before God’s fire.

The day that cometh shall burn them up — Heb. Shall so burn them ut flamma ex ipsis excitetur, as to set them aflame. Here Christ burns up his enemies with invisible judgments, inward terrors and torments, pangs and plunges, a very hell in their consciences, a foretaste of eternal torment (as was to be seen in Belshazzar, and our Richard III). But what will they do at the last day, when the law they shall be judged by is a fiery law, Deuteronomy 33:2 , the tribunal of fire, Ezekiel 1:27 , the judge a consuming fire, Hebrews 12:29 , his attendants flaming seraphims, his pleading with sinners in flames of fire, 2 Thessalonians 1:7 , the place of punishment a lake of fire fed with a river of brimstone? Isaiah 30:33 ; what can be the fruit of such a fiery proceeding but utter excision? Surely this fire will leave them neither root nor branch.

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Evangelical Predictions (400 BC)

¹ For, behold, the day cometh, that shall 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.
² But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
³ And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.

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, Ps 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 10:17,18, 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, Da 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, silver, 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 27:4,5. 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, Lu 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 (Ps 11:6), a day of clouds and thick darkness (Am 5:18,20), 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 Ge 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, Lu 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 (Mt 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 (Ps 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, Mt 4:16. In him the day-spring from on high visited us, to give light to those that sit in darkness, Lu 1:78,79. 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, Ps 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, Mk 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, Pr 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 (Ps 110:1), and come and worship before the feet of the church, Re 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, Re 2:26,27. 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 (Ac 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.