Malachi continue to warn of a coming visit from God, one in which the priests and leaders will not be happy!
The Hebrew manuscripts do not have a chapter 4 but include these six verses as part of chapter 3.
Malachi 4:1, A day like a furnace
"Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire," says the LORD Almighty. "Not a root or a branch will be left to them. In that future day the evil and arrogant will be consumed like dry stubble. Evil will no longer exist.
Malachi 4:2-3, The sun of righteousness
But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things," says the LORD Almighty.
"Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.
"See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."
Horeb is Mount Sinai; God looks back to the giving of the covenant to Moses in Exodus 34 and promises to send a prophet to turn the hearts of parents to their children and that of children to their parents. In the New Testament, in Luke 1:17, the angel speaking to Zechariach, future father of John the Baptist, looks back to the promise of this passage.
These last three verses act as an appendix for the book of Malachi, summarizing the importance of the past covenant and the future renewal of Israel. (Some suggest these words are an appendix for the entire Old Testament!) Elijah, the prophet, will appear before this great -- but dreadful -- future day!
Since the last verse ends with a curse, it was a Jewish tradition, says Alden, to repeat verse 5 after verse 6, so that the scroll of the prophets ended on a positive note!
Some Random Thoughts
And so, as we end the year, and the three years of Old Testament blogging, we too might wish to focus on a positive note. Let's repeat verse 2:
"[F]or you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves."
May you frolic like a well-fed calf in 2026! 😃
I will end 2025 by preparing to recycle these blog posts, improving them and editing them as we go. So tomorrow, in the new year, we will begin again, with Genesis 1!
First published December 30, 2025; updated December 30, 2025
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