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.
For, behold, the day cometh that shall burn - (Malachi 3:2; 2 Peter 3:7). Primarily is meant the judgment coming on Jerusalem; but as this will not exhaust the meaning, without supposing, what is inadmissible in Scripture, exaggeration, the final and full accomplishment, of which the former was the earnest, is the day of general judgment. This principle of interpretation is not double, but successive fulfillment. The language is abrupt, 'Behold, the day cometh! It burns like a furnace!' The abruptness imparts terrible reality to the picture, as if it suddenly burst on the prophet's view.
As an oven - (cf. Matthew 6:30, "The grass of the field ... today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven").
All the proud - in opposition to the cavil above (Malachi 3:15), "now we call the proud (haughty despisers of God) happy."
And all that do wickedly, shall be stubble - (Obadiah 1:18; Matthew 3:12). As Canaan, the inheritance of the Israelites, was prepared for their possession by purging out the pagan, so judgment on the apostates shall usher in the entrance of the saints upon the Lord's inheritance, of which Canaan is the type-not heaven, but earth, to its utmost bounds (Psalms 2:8), purged of all things that offend (Matthew 13:41), which are to be "gathered out of his kingdom," the scene of the judgment being that also of the kingdom. The present dispensation is a spiritual kingdom, parenthetical between the Jews' literal kingdom and its antitype, the coming literal kingdom of the Lord Jesus.
It shall leave them neither root nor branch - proverbial for utter destruction (Amos 2:9); as the whole tree consists of a root, including the central stem, and branches.