“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.
Malachi ends an argument. The people had sneered that God did not care about evil, and this verse is His reply. It announces two comings: a herald who clears the road, and the Lord Himself arriving at His own house. How much of that happened when Jesus walked into the temple? How much still waits?
The Answer to a Taunt
It answers the complaint that closes the previous chapter.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThis last bold question came from their arrogant pride and their false sense of safety, and it opens the way for the prophetic message in this chapter. "Where is the God of judgment?" The answer is, "Behold, I send my messenger… And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple."
So God Himself answers them in person. But His coming would test them:
Other AuthorsThe Lord they kept asking about — "Where is He?" — would suddenly come. But who could endure His coming? Who would stand when He appeared? A refiner's fire burns away the waste metal. In the same way He would purge away everything that offended Him, so that only what pleases Him would remain.
Three Figures in One Sentence
The verse names three: a messenger, a "Me" whose road he prepares, and a Lord who is Himself called the messenger of the covenant.
F. B. HoleIn the first verse we have, first, "My messenger," or "angel." "He is to prepare the way before Me" — the "Me" here clearly being Jehovah. Then, third, there is the "Lord," or "Master," who is the "Messenger," or "Angel of the covenant." He is clearly a different person from the angel mentioned first. In this very close way the coming Messiah is identified with the Jehovah who sends Him. This remarkable verse predicts the two comings, though it does not clearly separate them.
The New Testament uses the verse the same way:
J. N. DarbyAll Scripture confirms the truth, that Jesus is Jehovah. John the Baptist was "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord" — that is, Jehovah (Isa. 40): so Luke 7:27, from Malachi 3:1: so Luke 1:76.
The Titles He Bears
The verse uses two different Hebrew words for "Lord." The title "messenger of the covenant" also has its own background.
Edward DennettIt is Jehovah who speaks: "I," He says, "will send My Messenger." And the One who sends His Messenger is also Adonai. The word "Lord" in "The Lord, whom you seek" is Adonai, not Jehovah… He is also the "Messenger of the covenant" whom the Jews claimed to delight in. A verse in Exodus helps explain this title: "Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way … my name is in Him." That proves He was a divine Person, because in Scripture a name always expresses the truth of what the Person is.
The Messenger Is John — and Not Elijah
The New Testament names this messenger, and it also draws a line:
F. B. HoleAt His first coming the messenger sent ahead was clearly John the Baptist. He prepared the way of the Lord, and came in the spirit and power of Elijah. But he was not the Elijah of Malachi 4:5, for that one is to come before the great and dreadful day of the Lord in judgment. John came in the manner of Elijah, but before the coming of the Messiah in grace.
Jesus Himself applied this verse to John. One writer notes how far He took the quotation:
William KellyIn Matthew 11:10 the Lord allows us to apply Malachi 3:1 to John the Baptist himself. But He stops short of the verses that follow, which wait for His coming again.
"Suddenly to His Temple" — Then and Still to Come
He came, and a few waiting hearts were there.
Edward DennettHe comes "suddenly" — suddenly to His temple. That is where the small group of godly people in Jerusalem found Him. Simeon "came by the Spirit into the temple," and there he met the Lord's Christ in the baby of Mary… Again and again the Lord came to His temple while He lived on earth (John 2; Matthew 21), yet His people did not know Him. This prediction still waits to be fulfilled when He returns in power and glory.
The verse is not finished yet:
Other AuthorsThe prophecy has been partly fulfilled. God sent the messenger to prepare the way of the Lord, and the Lord Himself did come to His temple. But the prophecy looks on to His coming again. It passes over the whole period of grace in between.
Summary
- Question — The people asked where the God of judgment was. He answers by promising to come in person.
- Herald — "My messenger" is John the Baptist, named by Jesus Himself. He is not the Elijah of Malachi 4, who comes before the day of judgment.
- Identity — The One who sends says "before Me." The One who arrives is Lord, Messenger of the covenant, and God. The verse ties the sent Messiah to the God who sends Him.
- Suddenly — He came suddenly to His own temple. Waiting hearts like Simeon knew Him; His own people did not.
- Unfinished — The first coming fulfilled part of the verse. The rest waits for His return in power and glory.