Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

4:4-6 Conclusion. These closing appeals summarize the main points of Malachi's prophecy: Remember the law of my servant Moses (the focus of the first three disputations) and the promised sending of Elijah the prophet before the coming day of the Lord (the focus of the last three disputations). Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (cf. Exodus 19-20; Deut. 5:2). Malachi's own thoroughgoing dependence on the Law of Moses and many allusions to Pentateuchal texts prepare the reader for the first climactic charge. In the second charge, the reason for the identification of the coming prophet as "Elijah" is less obvious. Perhaps the need for an Elijah-like ministry was suggested by a long-standing drought (Mal. 3:10; cf. 1 Kings 17:1; James 5:17). Alternatively, Malachi's concern with the corrosive effects of marriage to an idolater (Mal. 2:10-12) may have brought to mind Ahab's notorious interfaith marriage to Jezebel, which proved so troublesome to Elijah and so disastrous to Israel (1 Kings 16:31; 18:4, 19; 19:2). No doubt Malachi would have welcomed an Elijah-like challenge to religious compromise and complacency (1 Kings 18). It seems most likely, however, that Malachi recognized that of all the OT prophets, Elijah best fit the portrait of the messianic prophet "like Moses" predicted in Deut. 18:15 and 34:10-12. As such, Elijah stands alongside Moses in Mal. 4:4-6 as the representative of the entire OT line of prophets, much as he functions on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mark 9:4 and parallels). The promise to send Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome "day of the Lord" confirms the interpretation given here of Mal. 3:1-5, that the promised messenger is not Malachi himself but some future prophet. It is likely that this future prophet is identified with Elijah not because Elijah was spared from death, as if this might permit a literal return to life, but because the future messenger would have a prophetic ministry similar to that of the historical Elijah. Compare the many OT predictions of a future "David" that do not suggest David's literal return to life (Jer. 30:9; Ezek. 34:23-25; 37:24). The NT identifies John the Baptist as the fulfillment of Malachi's prophesied Elijah (Matt. 11:10-14; 17:10-13; etc.). When John the Baptist denied that he was Elijah (John 1:21, 25), it is possible either that he was denying that he was Elijah in person, or that he rejected not the ministry predicted in Malachi but misguided popular elaborations of this promise based on other notable features in the original Elijah's ministry, especially his many miracles, which pointed more to Christ than to John (John 10:41; see note on Matt. 11:14). (For more on "the day of the Lord," see note on Amos 5:18-20.)