Malachi 3

Chap. III. Ver. 1—18. Predictions of the Messiah and his forerunner.—In allusion to the custom of Eastern monarchs sending persons before them to prepare the way, and remove all obstructions when they travel, John the Baptist is now introduced as God’s messenger, preparing the way for the Messiah, who is here designated as the messenger (or angel) of God’s everlasting covenant, which he comes to publish by his ministry, and ratify by his death, as had been long before predicted by the evangelical Prophet, Isaiah. (See chaps. xl., lii., liii.) What follows respecting the severe ministry here spoken of, though undoubtedly applicable to the Messiah himself, seems to have also a reference to the severity of John’s preparatory ministry, whose object made early was, in a great measure, to “refine and purify the sons of (Leviticus 1)”

For when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to attend his preaching, he thus pointedly warns them against indifference or hypocrisy; “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” He tells them that now “the axe is laid to the root of the trees,” and (alluding to another popular figure) that the great Person, whose forerunner he was, would “thoroughly purge his floor, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” ((Matthew 3:7-12).) The following verses, (in the very spirit and power of Elias,) severely reprehend the crimes of all ranks of society among the Jews at this period; some being guilty of oppressing the poor and fatherless, with many other vices; and others even robbing God their Maker, by neglecting the commanded “tithes and offerings.”

This had already subjected them to the curse of God, withholding from them the usual fertility of their land. For this they had even dared to reproach the Lord, though it was the consequence of their own transgressions. In the conclusion of this chapter, however, a broad line of distinction is drawn between the righteous and the wicked—between those that fear God and those that fear him not. For the former “a book of remembrance was written;” the divine Being had entered, as it were, a record of their piety—he had marked with pleasure their associations for purposes of devotion—he calls them his jewels, and promises to spare them “as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.”