7. THE JUDGMENT TO COME (Chap. iii. 13-21 Heb., iii. 13—iv. 2 Eng.).
This is another charge to the doubters among the pious remnant of Israel, who, seeing the success of the wicked, said it is vain to serve God. Deuteronomy was their Canon, and Deuteronomy said that if men sinned they decayed, if they were righteous they prospered. How different were the facts of experience! The evil men succeeded: the good won no gain by their goodness, nor did their mourning for the sins of their people work any effect. Bitterest of all, they had to congratulate wickedness in high places, and Jehovah Himself suffered it to go unpunished. _Such things_, says “Malachi,” _spake they that feared God to each other_—tempted thereto by the dogmatic form of their religion, and forgetful of all that Jeremiah and the Evangelist of the Exile had taught them of the value of righteous sufferings. Nor does “Malachi” remind them of this. His message is that the Lord remembers them, has their names written before Him, and when the day of His action comes they shall be separated from the wicked and spared. This is simply to transfer the fulfilment of the promise of Deuteronomy to the future and to another dispensation. Prophecy still works within the Law.
The Apocalypse of this last judgment is one of the grandest in all Scripture. To the wicked it shall be a terrible fire, root and branch shall they be burned out, but to the righteous a fair morning of God, as when dawn comes to those who have been sick and sleepless through the black night, and its beams bring healing, even as to the popular belief of Israel it was the rays of the morning sun which distilled the dew.[1060] They break into life and energy, like young calves leaping from the dark pen into the early sunshine. To this morning landscape a grim figure is added. They shall tread down the wicked and the arrogant like ashes beneath their feet.
_Your words are hard upon Me, saith Jehovah. Ye say, “What have we said against Thee?” Ye have said, “It is vain to serve God,” and “What gain is it to us to have kept His charge, or to have walked in funeral garb before Jehovah of Hosts? Even now we have got to congratulate the arrogant; yea, the workers of wickedness are fortified; yea, they tempt God and escape!” Such things[1061] spake they that fear Jehovah to each other. But Jehovah gave ear and heard, and a book of remembrance[1062] was written before Him about those who fear Jehovah, and those who keep in mind[1063] His Name. And they shall be Mine own property, saith Jehovah of Hosts, in the day when I rise to action,[1064] and I will spare them even as a man spares his son that serves him. And ye shall once more see_ the difference _between righteous and wicked, between him that serves God and him that does not serve Him._
_For, lo! the day is coming that shall burn like a furnace, and all the overweening and every one that works wickedness shall be as stubble, and the day that is coming shall devour them, saith Jehovah of Hosts, so that there be left them neither root nor branch. But to you that fear My Name the Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in His wings, and ye shall go forth and leap[1065] like calves of the stall.[1066] And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be as ashes[1067] beneath the soles of your feet, in the day that I_ begin to _do, saith Jehovah of Hosts._
8. THE RETURN OF ELIJAH (Chap. iii. 22-24 Heb., iv. 3-5 Eng.).
With his last word the prophet significantly calls upon the people to remember the Law. This is their one hope before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. But, in order that the Law may have full effect, Prophecy will be sent to bring it home to the hearts of the people—Prophecy in the person of her founder and most drastic representative. Nothing could better gather up than this conjunction does that mingling of Law and of Prophecy which we have seen to be so characteristic of the work of “Malachi.” Only we must not overlook the fact that “Malachi” expects this prophecy, which with the Law is to work the conversion of the people, not in the continuance of the prophetic succession by the appearance of original personalities, developing further the great principles of their order, but in the return of the first prophet Elijah. This is surely the confession of Prophecy that the number of her servants is exhausted and her message to Israel fulfilled. She can now do no more for the people than she has done. But she will summon up her old energy and fire in the return of her most powerful personality, and make one grand effort to convert the nation before the Lord come and strike it with judgment.