Malachi 4:4

Remember ye the law of Moses my servant,.... Who was faithful as such in the house of God, in delivering the law to the children of Israel, which was given him; and who are called upon to remember

Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Remember ye the law of Moses.

Now take leave of all prophecy, for you shall have no more till the great Prophet, till Shiloh come; and attend ye diligently to the law of Moses, keep its precepts and directions. The law; in the full extent: the moral precepts; rules of a holy and religious life for all. The ceremonial precepts; rules of your worship, so long as your temple shall stand a type of Christ to come. The judicial precepts; whilst you have any government, or power of judicatures. By a due keeping this you may escape future judgments and obtain future blessings, Leviticus 26 Deu 28: besides, by this attending to the law, they might be enabled to see the Messiah, and own him of whom Moses wrote in the law. Now though the law only be expressed, the prophets are included, who also wrote of Christ, ,47 Acts 13:27. This was excellent advice to this people, who (had they taken it) had escaped the sins they ran into and the miseries they fell under; they had not crucified the Lord of glory, nor rejected their own mercy, nor pulled fiery judgments on their own heads, to their utter ruin. Of Moses; whose memory you venerate, in whom you glory, whose law therefore you ought to obey. My servant; who was my servant, and delivered my commands to you. I do therefore expect that my authority, and Moses’ s esteem among you, prevail with you to study most carefully this law. Which I commanded unto him in Horeb, with most majestic circumstances, to awe you to the observance of all its precepts; and which was an emblem of that terror and majesty wherein the Lawgiver would appear to judge, to give rewards, or adjudge to punishments. For all Israel; so long as they should be a people and church. With the statutes and judgments; be not partial; statutes and judgments, i.e. the whole law, must you attend to, and remember it as God requires, not turn aside from any of its prescripts.

Malachi 4:4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, [with] the statutes and judgments.Ver. 4. Remember ye the law of Moses] viz. Now henceforth, in the end of prophecy, for Malachi knew that after him until the days of John Baptist no prophet should arise. Hence this exhortation, to read and remember the law, as leading them to Christ; the law, I say, in all the parts of it; not excluding the prophets, those interpreters of the law, and most excellent commentaries thereupon, with like reverence to be read and received. The Jews at this day read in their synagogues two lessons; one out of the law, by some chief person, another out of the prophets, correspondent to the former in argument, but is read by some boy, or lowly companion; for they will in no sort do that honour, neither attribute they that authority, to any part of the Bible, that they do to their law. But "this their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings," as the Psalmist speaketh in another case, Psalms 49:13. Two things offer themselves to our observation from these first words. First, the little coherence that this verse hath with the former; the prophet choosing rather to fall abruptly upon his most needful, but too much neglected, duty of remembering the law, than not at all to mention it. See the like Romans 16:17, where the apostle breaks off his salutations, to warn them of their danger by seducers; and that done, returns thereto again. Secondly, in the Hebrew word rendered remember, there is, in many Bibles, a great Zain; to show, as some think, the necessity and excellency of this duty of remembering the law of Moses (Buxtorf. in Comment. Maser. c. 14). It is well enough known, that since the fall man’ s soul is like a filthy pond, wherein fish die soon and frogs live long; profane matters are remembered, pious passages forgotten. Our memories are like sieves, or nets, that retain chaff and palterment, let go the good grain, or clear water; God’ s word runs through us, as water runs through a riven vessel. And as hour glasses, which no sooner turned up and filled, but are presently running out again to the last sand, so is it here. And yet the promise of salvation is limited to the condition of keeping in memory what we have read or heard, 1 Corinthians 15:2. And David’ s character of a blessed man is, that he meditateth in the law day and night, Psalms 1:2. “ Hoc primum repetens opus, hoc postremus omittens ” ( Hor. Ephesians 6:1-24). Bishop Babington had a little book, containing three leaves only, which he turned over night and morning.

. (4-6) As the prophetical books began (Joshua 1:2; Joshua 1:8) with “Moses my servant is dead . . . this book of the Law shall not be removed from thy mouth, &c.,” so they close with the admonition, “Remember ye the Law of Moses my servant.” (Comp. Deuteronomy 4:1; Deuteronomy 8:14.) The path of duty is the path of safety and of light. (Comp. John 7:17.) “Mysteries belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed are for us and for our children for ever, in order to perform all the words of this Law” (Deuteronomy 29:29; comp. also Ecclesiastes 12:13). The best preparation for the reception of the New Covenant, when God would “put His law in their inward parts and write it on their heart” (Jeremiah 31:32), must needs be the hearty observance of the spirit of the Old.

Verse 4. Remember ye the law of Moses] Where all these things are predicted. The Septuagint, Arabic, and Coptic, place this verse the last.

Ch. Malachi 4:4-6. Concluding Exhortation (Malachi 4:4) and Promise (Malachi 4:5-6) Remember ye the law of Moses] The revelation of God is always continuous. Each fresh step is evolved out of, and is in harmony with, those which went before. To “remember” the past is to prepare for the future. The exhortation here is a direction to the Church in prospect of the four centuries which would elapse, before any other prophet should arise and the promise (Malachi 4:5-6) be fulfilled. To the more careful study of the law, in the wider sense of the O. T. Scriptures, to which this exhortation led, may be traced much of the advance in theological knowledge which we find among the Jews in the time of our Lord. which I commanded unto him in Horeb] A statement like this, put by an inspired prophet into the mouth of God Himself, has an important bearing on the historical character and date of composition of the Pentateuch. with the statutes and judgments] Rather (consisting in) statutes and judgments: “even statutes and judgments”, R.V.: “(Nempe) statuta et judicia.” Calv. The words are explanatory of the nature of the law. Comp. Deuteronomy 4:8; Leviticus 26:46.

Remember ye the law of Moses, My servant - Galatians 3:24. “The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.” They then who were most faithful to the law, would be most prepared for Christ.

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