^{4:1 (3:19)}¹ “For indeed the day² is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant evildoers will be chaff. The coming day will burn them up,” says the Lord who rules over all. “It³ will not leave even a root or branch. ^4:2But for you who respect my name, the sun of vindication⁴ will rise with healing wings,⁵ and you will skip about⁶ like calves released from the stall. ^4:3You will trample on the wicked, for they will be like ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the Lord who rules over all.

Restoration through the Lord

^4:4“Remember the law of my servant Moses, to whom at Horeb⁷ I gave rules and regulations for all Israel to obey.⁸^4:5Look, I will send you Elijah⁹ the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord arrives. ^4:6He will encourage fathers and their children to return to me,¹⁰ so that I will not come and strike the earth with judgment.”¹¹

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Footnotes

1 Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:6 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (), with 4:1 = 3:19 , 4:2 = 3:20 , etc., through 4:6 = 3:24 . Thus the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible has only three chapters, with 24 verses in ch. 3.
2 This day is the well-known “day of the Lord” so pervasive in OT eschatological texts (see Joel 2:30–31; Amos 5:18; Obad 15). For the believer it is a day of grace and salvation; for the sinner, a day of judgment and destruction.
3 Heb “so that it” (so , ). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.
4 Here the Hebrew word צְדָקָה (tsédaqah), usually translated “righteousness” (so , , , ; cf. “justice”), has been rendered as “vindication” because it is the vindication of God’s people that is in view in the context. Cf. 842 צְדָקָה 6; “righteousness as vindicated, justification, salvation, etc.” The expression the sun of vindication will rise is a metaphorical way of describing the day of the Lord as a time of restoration when God vindicates his people (see 2 Sam 23:4; Isa 30:26; 60:1, 3). Their vindication and restoration will be as obvious and undeniable as the bright light of the rising sun.
5 The point of the metaphor of healing wings is unclear. The sun seems to be compared to a bird. Perhaps the sun’s “wings” are its warm rays. “Healing” may refer to a reversal of the injury done by evildoers (see Mal 3:5).
6 Heb “you will go out and skip about.”
7 Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (cf. Exod 3:1).
8 Heb “which I commanded him in Horeb concerning all Israel, statutes and ordinances.”
9 I will send you Elijah the prophet. In light of the ascension of Elijah to heaven without dying (2 Kgs 2:11), Judaism has always awaited his return as an aspect of the messianic age (see, e.g., John 1:19–28). Jesus identified John the Baptist as Elijah, because he came in the “spirit and power” of his prototype Elijah (Matt 11:14; 17:1–13; Mark 9:2–13; Luke 9:28–36).
10 Heb “he will turn the heart[s] of [the] fathers to [the] sons, and the heart[s] of [the] sons to their fathers.” This may mean that the messenger will encourage reconciliation of conflicts within Jewish families in the postexilic community (see Mal 2:10; this interpretation is followed by most English versions). Another option is to translate, “he will turn the hearts of the fathers together with those of the children [to me], and the hearts of the children together with those of their fathers [to me].” In this case the prophet encourages both the younger and older generations of sinful society to repent and return to the Lord (cf. Mal 3:7). This option is preferred in the present translation; see Beth Glazier-McDonald, Malachi (), 256.
11 Heb “[the] ban” (חֵרֶם, kherem). God’s prophetic messenger seeks to bring about salvation and restoration, thus avoiding the imposition of the covenant curse, that is, the divine ban that the hopelessly unrepentant must expect (see Deut 7:2; 20:17; Judg 1:21; Zech 14:11). If the wicked repent, the purifying judgment threatened in 4:1–3 will be unnecessary.