peculiar treasure unto Me above all
people,' and Malachi looks forward to that day as the epoch when God
will show by His acts how precious the righteous are in His sight. Not
the whole Israel, but the righteous among them, are the heirs of the old
promise. It is an anticipation of the teaching that 'they are not all
Israel which are of Israel,' And it bids us look for the fulfilment of
every promise of God's to that great day of the Lord which lies still
before us all, when the gulf between the righteous and the wicked shall
be solemnly visible, wide, and profound. There have been many 'days
which I make' in the world's history, and in a measure each of them has
re-established the apparently tottering truth that there is a God who
judgeth in the earth, but the day of days is yet to come.

No grander vision of judgment exists than Malachi's picture of 'the
day,' lurid, on the one hand, with the fierce flame, before which the
wicked are as stubble that crackles for a moment and then is grey ashes,
or as a tree in a forest fire, which stands for a little while, a pillar
of flame, and then falls with a crash, shaking the woods; and on the
otherhand, radiant with the early beams of healing sunshine, in whose
sweet morning light the cattle, let out from their pent-up stalls,
gambol in glee. But let us not forget while we admire the noble poetry
of its form that this is God's oracle, nor that we have each to settle
for ourselves whether that day shall be for us a furnace to destroy or a
sun to cheer and enlighten.

We can only note in a sentence the recurrence in verse 1 of the phrases
'the proud' and they 'that work wickedness,' from verse 15 of chapter
iii. The end of those whom the world called happy, and who seemed stable
and elevated, is to be as stubble before the fire. We must also point
out that 'the sun of righteousness' means the sun which is
righteousness, and is not a designation of the Messiah. Nor can we dwell
on the picture of the righteous treading down the wicked, which seems to
prolong the previous metaphor of the leaping young cattle. Then shall
'the upright have dominion over them in the morning.'

III. The final exhortation and promise point backwards and forwards,
summing up duty in obedience to the law, and fixing hope on a future
reappearance of the leader of the prophets. Moses and Elijah are the two
giant figures which dominate the history of Israel. Law and prophecy are
the two forms in which God