Malachi 3

Malachi 3:1-18 . MESSIAH'S COMING, PRECEDED BY HIS FORERUNNER, TO PUNISH THE GUILTY FOR VARIOUS SINS, AND TO REWARD THOSE WHO FEAR GOD.

1. Behold--Calling especial attention to the momentous truths which follow. Ye unbelievingly ask, Where is the God of judgment ( Malachi 2:7 )? "Behold," therefore, "I send," &c. Your unbelief will not prevent My keeping My covenant, and bringing to pass in due time that which ye say will never be fulfilled.
I will send . . . he shall come--The Father sends the Son: the Son comes. Proving the distinctness of personality between the Father and the Son.
my messenger--John the Baptist; as Matthew 3:3 , 11:10 , Mark 1:2 Mark 1:3 , Luke 1:76 , 3:4 , Luke 7:26 Luke 7:27 , John 1:23 , prove. This passage of Malachi evidently rests on that of Isaiah his predecessor ( Isaiah 40:3-5 ). Perhaps also, as HENGSTENBERG thinks, "messenger" includes the long line of prophets headed by Elijah (whence his name is put in Malachi 4:5 as a representative name), and terminating in John, the last and greatest of the prophets ( Matthew 11:9-11 ). John as the representative prophet (the forerunner of Messiah the representative God-man) gathered in himself all the scattered lineaments of previous prophecy (hence Christ terms him "much more than a prophet," Luke 7:26 ), reproducing all its awful and yet inspiriting utterances: his coarse garb, like that of the old prophets, being a visible exhortation to repentance; the wilderness in which he preached symbolizing the lifeless, barren state of the Jews at that time, politically and spiritually; his topics sin, repentance, and salvation, presenting for the last time the condensed epitome of all previous teachings of God by His prophets; so that he is called pre-eminently God's "messenger." Hence the oldest and true reading of Mark 1:2 is, "as it is written in Isaiah the prophet"; the difficulty of which is, How can the prophecy of Malachi be referred to Isaiah? The explanation is: the passage in Malachi rests on that in Isaiah 40:3 , and therefore the original source of the prophecy is referred to in order to mark this dependency and connection.
the Lord--Ha-Adon in Hebrew. The article marks that it is JEHOVAH ( Exodus 23:17 , 34:23 ; compare Joshua 3:11 Joshua 3:13 ). Compare Daniel 9:17 , where the Divine Son is meant by "for THE Lord's sake." God the speaker makes "the Lord," the "messenger of the covenant," one with Himself. "I will send . . . before Me," adding, "THE LORD . . . shall . . . come"; so that "the Lord" must be one with the "Me," that is, He must be GOD, "before" whom John was sent. As the divinity of the Son and His oneness with the Father are thus proved, so the distinctness of personality is proved by "I send" and He "shall come," as distinguished from one another. He also comes to the temple as "His temple": marking His divine lordship over it, as contrasted with all creatures, who are but "servants in" it ( Haggai 2:7 , Hebrews 3:2 Hebrews 3:5 Hebrews 3:6 ).