Mark 9:4

‘And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.'

The disciples may have remembered how Elijah and Moses had both previously gone up into a mountain to talk with God at special times when they were in God's service on earth. Now it was Jesus Who had gone up into the mountain and here were Elijah and Moses also come to the mountain to speak with Him. Those who represented the Prophets and the Law, the sources of the word of God of the Old Testament, were acknowledging Jesus before chosen witnesses. This was the point Mark was seeking to get over to his readers. (Luke 9:31 tells us that they appeared in glory and spoke of His ‘exodus' which He would accomplish at Jerusalem and in view of the presence of Moses we are justified in seeing in that term the deliverance of His people through suffering and death. But that was not Mark's emphasis here).

Mark alone gives Elijah precedence (although the names are switched in the next verse). This may well have been because Elijah was the figure whose coming was constantly expected in 1st century Judaism (see Mark 9:11; John 1:21). And now he had come and had brought Moses with him, as two witnesses to the glory of Jesus. Here was evidence indeed of His Messiahship. But there may also be in mind here that Elijah and Moses were seen as figures who had never died. Elijah had been taken up into Heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11), and Moses had been ‘buried by God' (Deuteronomy 34:6), and tradition had it that the angels had taken him up to God. Thus these two came directly from the presence of God to witness to Jesus, adding their twofold testimony to the angels elsewhere.

How did they know that it was Elijah and Moses? The answer may be that it was as a result of a spiritual awareness brought about by their appearance (Elijah may well have been dressed in his distinctive garb) and also surely from the conversation that they overheard. But just as God could bring up Samuel (1 Samuel 28:12), so He could bring up Moses and Elijah in recognisable form. It tells us nothing about the afterlife or the post-resurrection body. The resurrection had not yet taken place. The impact of this appearance no doubt influenced John in his depiction of the two witnesses in Revelation 11, spoken of in terms reminiscent of Moses and Elijah. Both had also been willing to offer up their lives for the people of God (Exodus 32:32; 1 Kings 19:2; 1 Kings 19:10; 1 Kings 19:14). Who better then to discuss Jesus' ‘exodus' (Luke 9:31).

The coming of Elijah had been prophesied by Malachi 4:5, and this expectation was very much alive in the hearts of the people of Israel (Mark 6:15; Mark 8:11; Mark 9:11), being continually present in their tradition. Even today at their Passover feasts they leave an empty seat for Elijah. It is quite possible that the disciples, having not fully grasped Jesus' teaching that John the Baptiser was the coming Elijah, thought that this was Elijah now come, and what was more bringing with him Moses, and that Jesus had come up to welcome them.