Malachi 4:5

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

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: Behold, I will send you Elijah - as a means toward your "remembering the law" (Malachi 4:4).

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 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, . 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, , 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, ,8; who was greater than a prophet, ; nor doth John’ s denying himself to be a prophet, , 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, Matthew 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, , by St.

Malachi 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:Ver. 5. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet] Not Elijah the Tishbite, as the Septuagint corruptly read; and the Popish expositors make no small use of it, to prove that the Pope is not antichrist, because Enoch and Elijah are not yet come, and yet are to come in his time, before the day of judgment (as they fondly fable), to preserve the elect in the faith of Christ, and to convert the Jews. But we have better interpreters of this text. 1. An angel, who applies it to John Baptist, Luke 1:17 2. Christ, that angel of the covenant, Matthew 17:10-11; Matthew 11:14. Hear ye him, against all antichrist’ s agitators. St Mark begins his Gospel with these very words of Malachi, to let us know that this Elias is the Baptist, who is called Elijah the prophet, because of the like gifts, calling, and ministry, office of reforming habit, people with whom they dealt, &c. The like almost may be said of Luther, a third Elias for boldness, courage, zeal, knowledge, success, &c. But yet we see no footing in this text for Lucas Osiander’ s conceit, viz. that the prophet here pointed at Luther as well as at John Baptist; and that men must receive his doctrine, or else look to be smitten with a curse. Howbeit this is more passable and possible than that of the Jesuits, who presume to control Christ’ s own exposition; and infer, that as the devil stirred up Luther to call the Pope antichrist, so God raised up them to resist Luther. But what a mad fellow was that Spaniard (of whom Severus Sulpitius writeth) that professed himself, first, to be the prophet Elias, and afterward, when he had gained authority, to be the Christ; carrying himself so cunningly in his collusion, that Bishop Ruffus was led away with the error, believing in him, and adoring him as God; for which he was justly deprived of his dignity! Had we not need receive the truth in the love of it, lest God give us up to the efficacy of error, 2 Thessalonians 2:10? lest being first infatuated, we be seduced, and then being seduced, we be damned, as Austin glosseth on that text? Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord] Great, in respect of the good, and dreadful, or horrible, in respect of the wicked, as Montanus interprets it, paralleling it with Matthew 3:12. Or great, because it shall be a beginning of great changes, both to the godly and the ungodly; and dreadful to the bad, yea, and to the best also at first, till they have recollected and better bethought themselves, as another senseth it; as taking it of the last day, which is the general mistake of Popish expositors, and that upon this ground, because Christ’ s first coming was an acceptable time, and a day of salvation.

(5) Elijah.—There is no more reason to suppose that this refers actually to “Elijah” the prophet, and that he is to appear upon earth, than to imagine from Hosea 3:5; Ezekiel 24:23; Ezekiel 37:24; Jeremiah 30:9; that David himself is to come again in the flesh. When John the Baptist answered the question of the deputies of the Sanhedrim, “Art thou Elias?” by “I am not,” he simply gave a negative reply to their question, which was formulated on their misapprehension. On the other hand, that John the Baptist is the “messenger” of Malachi 3:1 and the “Elijah” of this verse is shown conclusively (as far as Christians are concerned) by Luke 1:16-17 before his birth, by Matthew 3:1-12, Mark 1:2-8, Luke 3:2-18, at the commencement of his ministry. Moreover, our Lord Himself assured the people that John was this “messenger” and “Elijah” (Matthew 11:10, seq.; Luke 7:27, seq.), and His disciples that he had appeared, and not been recognised (Matthew 17:11, seq.; Mark 9:1, seq.). Finally, it is a significant fact that these two greatest of Old Testament prophets, Moses and Elias, who are mentioned together in this last prophetic exhortation, are the two who appeared with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration, when all that which is contained in the Law and the prophets was about to be fulfilled.

Verse 5. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet] This is meant alone of John the Baptist, as we learn from Lu 1:17, (where see the note,) in whose spirit and power he came.

5. Elijah the prophet] The reading of the LXX., “Elijah the Tishbite” (τὸνΘεσβίτην), has been thought to indicate their belief that the actual return of Elijah to earth is here foretold. Some have traced the same belief in the appropriation by the Son of Sirach to the literal Elijah of Malachi’s description of the work of the coming prophet (Malachi 4:6) (Sir 48:10); though it may well be doubted whether the passage proves anything more than his acquaintance with our prophecy. The belief, however, was certainly current among the Jews in our Lord’s time (Matthew 17:10; Mark 9:11; John 1:21). Nor does it follow that the belief was unfounded, because He Himself distinctly claims the prophecy for John the Baptist, identifying him at the same time with the “messenger” foretold by Malachi (Matthew 11:10; Matthew 11:14; Matthew 17:12-13). The prophecy had a first fulfilment in the Baptist, who went before the face of the Lord “in the spirit and power of Elijah”, to do the work here described (Luke 1:17). In one sense he was “Elias which was for to come”; but in another sense, and on his own confession (John 1:21), he was not. For the prophecy awaits a second and (as some believe) more literal fulfilment; and as the typical Elijah came before Christ’s first Advent, and “they knew him not, but did unto him whatsoever they listed”, so before His second Advent shall another Elijah come “and shall restore all things.” (Matthew 17:10-13).

Behold I will send (I send, as a future, proximate in the prophet’s mind) you Elijah the prophet - The Archangel Gabriel interprets this for us, to include the sending of John the Immerser. For he not only says Luke 1:17.

CLOSING , Malachi 4:4-6.The last three verses of the book of Malachi have no immediate connection with the preceding section; they must be understood rather as closing admonitions belonging to the