Malachi 3:1

Malachi 3:1. God Himself takes up (Malachi 3:1) the challenge, "Where is the God?" &c.

my messenger They had been provided, in the priests, with a standing order of "messengers" of Jehovah (Malachi 2:7). From time to time His special "messengers", the prophets (Haggai 1:13), had been sent to them. The last of such prophets, bearing as his only name, "Jehovah's messenger", was now exercising his office among them. But a yet more special "messenger" is to inaugurate that coming of Jehovah which they profess to desire. See Matthew 11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27.

Prepare the way Comp. Isaiah 40:3; and for the nature of the preparation, "by preaching of repentance", Matthew 3:1-12.

the Lord "He who had before spoken of Himself in the first person ("I will send"), now speaks of Himself in the third person." Maurer. For a similar change of person, which is not uncommon in Hebrew, see Malachi 2:16 above. "We are sure He which spake those words was (Jehovah) the Lord of hosts; and we are as sure that Christ is that Lord before whose face John the Baptist prepared the way." Pearson on the Creed. Article, Our Lord.

ye seek… ye delight in A reference, not without irony, to the demand of Malachi 3:17, "where is" &c.

his temple He, then, who comes is the Lord of the Temple. Haggai 2:9.

even the messenger of the covenant The R.V., by printing "and" in the text instead of "even" (which however it retains in the margin), and also by the punctuation which it adopts, leaves room for the view that "the messenger of the covenant" is to be identified, not with "the Lord", but with "the messenger" spoken of at the beginning of the verse, who is to "prepare the way" before Him: "And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in, behold he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts". The weight of argument, however, seems clearly to preponderate in favour of identifying the "Messenger of the Covenant" with "the Lord", who shall "suddenly come to His temple". For thus the idea of the messenger, which pervades this prophecy (see Introd. pp. 13, 14) culminates (as do the Old Testament ideas of the prophet, the priest and the king) in the Messiah, who is in the highest sense the Messenger of God to man. The Angel, or Messenger, whose presence in the Church was recognised from the beginning (Acts 7:38; Exodus 23:20-21; Exodus 32:34; Exodus 33:2; Exodus 33:14; Isaiah 63:9), follows up these "preludings of the Incarnation" by being "made flesh and dwelling amongst us". The covenant, which was before the Law (Galatians 3:17) and yet by virtue of its later introduction "a new covenant" (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 8:7-13), He comes, in fulfilment of promise and prophecy (Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 55:3), as its Messenger and Mediator (Hebrews 12:24), to inaugurate and ratify with His blood (Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 13:20); while He vindicates His claim to be "the God of judgment" whom they desired, by the work of discriminating justice which He performs (Malachi 3:2).