Malachi 3:13 to Malachi 4:3. The Final Triumph of Righteousness. The prophet here returns to the complaint of those who thought that religion did not pay (with Malachi 3:14; cf. Malachi 2:17). They had kept God's charge, faithfully observing their religious duties, and even wearing the sackcloth and ashes which marked humiliation and penance. Yet it is the arrogant and lax members of the community (cf. Psalms 119:21; Psalms 119:51, etc.) that do well; they challenge God's judgment by their evil-doing, yet it does not fall upon them. Such were the words of pious Jews in Malachi's day (the first word of Malachi 3:16 should be thus or these things (LXX) instead of then), and Yahweh, ever mindful of His people, prepared a record (cf. the custom referred to in Esther 6:1 f.) so that He may not fail to do them justice when the hour strikes. In the day of His action (the day on which I do or act) they, the true Israel, will be His peculium or special private possession, and while the sons who have been rebellious and disloyal are punished, those who have been faithful in service will be protected. Men will return and discern (i.e. they will once more, as in the good old times, see) virtue rewarded and vice punished; the moral distinctions will no longer be obliterated or blurred. Indeed, the arrogant and wicked will be totally destroyed like a prairie or a forest on fire. But the righteousness of the God-fearers (or of God Himself) will shine forth conspicuous to all, like the sun, and in its beneficent rays all their affliction will be healed. We may note that the Babylonian Shamash, the sun-god, was conceived of as the god of justice, and that Assyrian, Persian, and Egyptian monuments represent the solar disc with wings issuing on either side, his (Malachi 4:2) is simply the archaic form of its; Malachi is not definitely predicting Christ, or indeed any personal agent. Exulting in their vindication, the godly will be as vigorous and joyful as young calves turned out from the dark stall to the sunny meadow. Alongside this picture is the grimmer one of the fate of the wicked (cf. Isaiah 66:24).
Malachi 3:13-18
13 Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee?
14 Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance,d and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts?
15 And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up;e yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.
16 Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.
17 And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels;f and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
18 Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.