Malachi 4

righteous and the wicked. Or, Tlien shall ye again discern, &c. the verb shub, to return, being often used adverbially. (See the note upon Isa. vi. 13. and Dan* ix. 25.) This will give you a new proof that I put a difference between the good and the bad, and thereby fully answer the objections you have made against Providence. (Ver. 14. and ii. 17.) The prophet foretells the general destruction of the Jewish nation, for rejecting the Messias: he comforts the welldisgosed among.them, and exhorts them to prepare themselves for his coming, by a strict observance of the law of Moses in the mean time; since no prophet was hereafter to be expected till that great one, who is to be Christ’s forerunner. Vcr. 1. Jb OR, behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven.] Tliat great and terrible day of the Lord, as it is called, Joel ii. 31. (Compare here ver. 5.) God is described as a consuming fire when he comes to execute his judgments, Deut. iv. 24. And this was remarkably verified, when, upon the taking the city and temple of Jerusalem by the Roman army under Titus the emperor, they were both destroyed by such flames as no industry could quench. (See Josephus, Boll. Jud. lib. vi. cap. 10.) And all the proud.’] Those spoken of, iii. 15. It shall leave them neither root nor branch.] A proverbial expression for utter destruction; as if a tree were plucked up by the roots, and thereupon the branches withered. (Compare Amos ii. 9.) Vcr. 2. But unto you that fear my name.] See iii. 16. Shall the Sun of righteousness arise ^with healing in his wings.] The Messias is elsewhere called the East, or sunrising: (see Isa. Ix. 1, 2.) and the Hebrew word Tsemach, translated Branch in our English, is rendered the East by the Chaldee and LXX. (See the note upon Zech. iii. 8.) So the church is described, Rev. xii. 1. as clothed with the sun; i. e. adorned with graces communicated to her by Christ. He is called here the Sun of righteousness, with healing in his wings; to signify, that his light consists in clearing up men’s understanding, and chasing away the darkness of their minds; whose rays and kindly warmth will heal all the diseases of their souls. Andye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.] You shall be warned of God to go forth of Jerusalem, before it be molested by the Roman army; (see Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 5.) by which means you shall be rescued from the common destruction that shall come upon the unbelievers, and shall continue thriving and vigorous (compare Psal. xcii. 14.) when the rest of your nation shall be consumed with divers kinds of death. Vcr. 3. And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be as ashes under the soles of your feet.] The righteous shall triumph in the destruction of the ungodly, as conquerors trample upon the carcasses of those that arc slain in battle. (Compare 2Sam.xxii. 43. Micah vii.10. Zech. x. 5.) The wicked arc compared to ashes, because the judgment that consumcth them is resembled to fire, vcr. 1. In the day that I shall do this.] Or, In the day that I shall appoint for executing my vengeance: the same phrase is used, iii. 17. Psal. cxviii. 24. children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.] It will be his office to put an end to those religious differences (such was that of the pharisces and the Sadducecs) which divided the nearest relations from each other, and to make them all join in the duties of repentance and reformation, and thereby prepare themselves for the reception of the Mcssias. (See Matt. iii. 7.) This was the design of his mission, though his preaching did not always meet with success, no more than the true Elias had in the time of Ahab. Tins seems the most probable explication of the words, taking them in that sense wherein our translation and the LXX. understand them, which is followed by St. Luke, i. 17. But a more easy sense may be given of them, if we translate the Hebrew preposition al, noWo, but with; in which sense it is often used. (Sec Noldius, p, G95.) Then the sentence will run thus, He shall turn the heart of the fathers with the children, and the heart of the children with their fathers: f. e. his pYeaching shall produce a general reformation in the minds and manners of all sorts of persons. (See Matt. iii. 5. xxi. 32.) Dr. Hammond and Lud. de Dieu arc of opinion, that the preposition iirl in St. Luke, may bo understood in the same sense. Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.] The words might be better translated, Lest I come and smite the land (of Judea) with utter destruction. So the word chefein is translated by our interpreters, Numb. xxi. 2. Dcut. vii. 2. xiii. 15. Josh. vi. 21. Zech. xiv. 11. The utter destruction of the Jewish nation and country is here threatened, upon their rejecting the preaching of John Baptist, and refusing to hearken to his testimony concerning the Messias, that should come after him. END OF MR. LOWTH’S COMMENTARY

Malachi 4:4

Remember ye tlie lata of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb, &c. You are not to expect any succession of prophets for the time to come, till the forerunner of the Messias appears: so your chief care must be to attend upon ihe instructions Moses has given to all Israel in his law, the most solemn part of which was delivered to him in an audible manner upon Mount Horeb, (Exod. xix. 9. Deut. iv. 10.) This your lawgiver plainly speaks of the Messias, and instructs you to expect his coming, and to obey his commands, (Deut. xviii. 15.) It was the sense of ancient Jews that the gift of prophecy was sealed up with Malachi: the son of Sirach, having before mentioned Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, speaks of the twelve minor prophets, as completing that part of the Old Testament canon, Ecclus. xlix. 10. and the latter Jews agree with him in this sentiment, as appears by the authorities cited in the Right Reverend the Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield’s Defence of Christianity, p. 83. Law, statutes, and judgments, are words promiscuously used; as appears from several places of the hundred and nineteenth Psalm.

Malachi 4:5

Behold, I will send.you Elijah the prophet. The same person who is called the messenger or forerunner of the Messias, iii. 1. It was the unanimous sense of the Jews that Elias should first come and restore all things, (Mark ix. 12. John i. 21.) This they understood of the coming of Elias in person, as appears from Ecclus. xlviii. 30..where the author, speaking of the true Elias, saith, Who ivast ordained (or, written of) for reproofs in aftertimes, or, for appointed times [tig tcaipovg], to pacify’the wrath of the Lord, before it break out into fury, and to turn the heart of the father to the son (alluding to this text), and to restore the tribes of Jacob; answering to the words of St. Mark. The LXX. following the received tradition among the Jews, add here the Tishbite, by way of explication. [It is in this sense that John Baptist denies himself to be Elias, John i. 21.] The Jews to this day earnestly pray for the coming of Elias, upon the supposition, that the Messias must immediately follow his appearing. This form of prayer they received from their ancestors, as it is recorded in their liturgies: (see the Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield, ibid. p. 67.) which shews that the ancient Jews understood the words of Malachi here, and iii. 1. of the coming of the Messias. Our Saviour hath interpreted this Elias to be John Baptist, Matt. xi. 14. xvii. 12, 13. who is called by the name of Elias, because he came in. the spirit and power of Elias; (Luke i. 17.) he resembled him in his office of reproving the Jews, and exhorting them to repentance; just as the Messias is called by the name of David in the prophets, because all the promises made to David were to be fulfilled in him. (See the note upon Hos. iii. 5.) Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.] Compare vcr. 1. iii. 3. Joel ii. 31. and the notes upon those texts. The words import the utter destruction of the Jewish nation (see the following verse), but they may properly be applied to the general dissolution of all things; a way of speaking usual among the prophets* (See the note upon Isa. xiii. 10.) Vcr. G. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the