Section VII Final Triumph of the Righteous
Malachi 3:13—4:3
The prophet had previously given a penetrating analysis to those who failed to make a distinction between good and evil (2:17). He now returns to the same theme. Before, he said, “You have wearied the Lord with your words … By saying, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them’” (RSV). Now he repeats this more fully.
Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord (13). The attitude of the people seems to have been one of growing skepticism. Their criticism is now vocal. They say, What have we spoken so much against thee? This is not a question in good faith. It implies a denial of Malachi's charge and challenges him to further proof (cf. 1:2, 6; 2:14; 3:7-8). Spoken so means talking together. “When have we so spoken among ourselves?” is the sense. They seem to have been in the habit of conversing together and comparing the promises of God with their unhappy state. Yet they professed to be ignorant of criticizing God.
The prophet delivers his charge. Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? (14) Remembering the proud and prosperous heathen of Babylon and noting the nations around them abounding in all things while they themselves were languishing in poverty and misery, they said, “What does it benefit us, that we worship the one true God, abominate idols, and pricked with a consciousness of sins, walk penitently before God?”
Who are these doubters and critics? Perowne calls their words “the open blasphemy of those who 'sat in the seat of the scorner.’” 1 But J. M. Powis Smith calls them “Yahweh-worship-pers who have begun to lose faith and are in danger of apostasy from Yahweh.”2 Outwardly at least they served God and kept his ordinance. Their tendency, however, to regard mere outward observance as true religion smacks of the Pharisaism of New Testament times. The phrase walked mournfully has the same connotation. Although it does not exclude a genuine inner grief, the Hebrew phrase refers primarily to the outer garb these people wore as a sign of their humiliation and contrition. This calls to mind Jesus’ warning in Matt. 6:16-18.
Verse 15 sums up their case against God. Jones has given a free translation of their beatitudes:
Blessed are the arrogant and godless;
Blessed are the evil-doers, for they prosper;
Blessed are those who put God to the test, for
they escape all punishment. 3
“Stout” words indeed! This seems to be what is meant earlier by their question, “Where is the God of judgment?” (2:17) Bitterly they were compelled to congratulate wickedness in high places, with the Lord himself permitting it to go unpunished.
B. MEN WHO BELIEVE GOD, 3:16-18
Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another (16). Some interpreters, following the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Targum, would read, “Thus (or such things) spake they that feared the Lord to each other.”4 But most interpreters see the persons in v. 16 as another group: Jones writes: “Over against the arrogant doubters are those who, despite the problems, feared the Lord. They are those who retain the spirit of humble reverence and awe. It is possible that the then they. …spake often one to another, refers to the discussion roused among the faithful by the prophet's forthright analysis of the situation. If so, the prophet now supplies them with the divine assurance they need.”5 If this is the correct view, then, as the godless in Israel conversed together (vv. 13-14), so did the godly. Their conversations, however, differed greatly. What the pious remnant said to one another is not recorded, although it is hinted in the statement that they thought upon his name. They may have witnessed to each other about the goodness of the Lord they had experienced in spite of their sufferings. In any event, we are told that the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord. Those who fear the Lord may know that their names are recorded indelibly in the divine writing. “This is a permanence, which, associated with the Old Testament faith in the Living God, leads to the authentic biblical belief in the blessed life of the hereafter.”6
And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels (17). The word translated jewels (segullah) is used in Exod. 19:5, where it is better rendered “peculiar treasure.” The segullah was that part of the property which a person claimed to himself as his own special treasure. “This is what Israel is to God in relation to the world; it is what those who fear him are in relation to Israel.”7 In the New Testament the Church is a people for God's own possession (I Pet. 2:9-10). And I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. The word spare is a remarkable one. It teaches us that those who are to God a peculiar treasure are so, not on their own merits, but by His great mercy. Pusey expresses this thought in an extended paraphrase: “I will spare them, although formerly sinners; I will spare them, repenting, and serving Me with a service of a pious confession, ‘as a man spareth his son which serveth him.’ For the Lord said of the son who refused to work in his Father's vineyard, and afterward repented and went, that ‘he did the will of his Father.’” 8 This is Malachi's doctrine of salvation by grace.
Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not (18). On the day of judgment people will be able to distinguish the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the tares. God's final decision is the only ultimate solution to the problem raised in this section (cf. Dan. 12:2; Matt. 25:32-46).
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch (1). The oven is a figure of fierce heat (cf. Hos. 7:4-7). The word is still used for an oven in which bread is baked in Palestine. A large hole is made in the earth, the sides are plastered, and a fierce fire is made at the bottom with twigs and thorns (stubble). After the embers are removed, bread is stuck to the plastered sides and quickly cooked.9
The proud are all those whom the murmurers called “happy” (3:15), and all who should thereafter be like them. Malachi insists on the universality of the judgment; “all the arrogant and all evildoers” (Berk.) shall be stubble (cf. Isa. 5:24; Obad. 18; Zeph. 1:18). To build a doctrine of the final annihilation of the wicked on this figure is to go beyond the limits of the metaphor as well as to contradict the specific teaching of Jesus (Matt. 25: 46; Luke 16:23-28; cf. Rev. 20:10, 14-15). Pusey quotes an early authority who has caught Malachi's true point: “The proud and mighty, who in this life were strong as iron and brass, so that no one dared resist them, but they dared to fight with God, these, in the Day of Judgment, shall be most powerless, as stubble cannot resist the fire, in an everliving death.”10
The further statement that this fire shall leave them neither root nor branch means that they shall have no hope of sprouting again to life, that life which is promised the righteous. “There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease” (Job 14:7), but there is no hope for those who are condemned on the Day of Judgment.
But unto you that fear my name, God says, shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings (2). Malachi's beautiful figure used here is unique in the Old Testament, although it is close to the thought of Isa. 60:1-5. The fathers and early commentators understood Christ to be the Sun of righteousness. They were right insofar as it is the period of His advent which the prophet foresees. Though Sun is feminine, both ASV and RSV render the phrase, “with healing in its wings.” The Berkeley Version has “the sun of righteousness” with the footnote, “There is no fulfilment of this prophecy in any person or event as complete and satisfying as in the coming of Jesus Christ, who is for us 'the righteousness of God.’” Moffatt renders it, “But for you, my worshippers, the saving Sun shall rise with healing in his rays.” And ye shall… grow up ( “gambol,” ASV) as calves of the stall. The picture is of a happy, carefree existence. The glory of God in Christ disperses the darkness of sin and sorrow and makes glad the people of God. Pusey reminds us that the title “the Sun of righteousness” belongs to both of Christ's comings. “In the first, He diffused rays of righteousness, whereby He justified and daily justifies any sinners whatever, who will look to Him, i.e., believe in Him and obey Him, as the sun imparts light, joy and life to all who turn toward it.”11 Then he adds, “In the second, the righteousness which He gave, He will own and exhibit, cleared from all the misjudgment of the world, before men and angels.”12
On v. 3, Jones makes the pertinent observation, “The Old Testament is the record of God's patient preparation of His people for the New. We must therefore expect to meet sentiments needing our Lord's correction.”13 For this correction read Matt. 5:38-48. As Christians, we must always read the Old Testament through the eyes of Christ, for the Old Testament is a progressive and preparatory revelation which finds its fulfillment in Him (see Heb. 1:1-2).
In 3:13—4:3, we may see reasons for the exhortation, “Keep Your Faith in God.” (1) When faith fails, 3:13-15; (2) How faith grows stronger, 3:16-18; (3) God's last word, 4:1-3 (A. F. Harper).