Jeremiah 6:29-30

6:29 The fiery bellows of judgment burn fiercely.

But there is too much dross to be removed. ¹ 

The process of refining them has proved useless. ² 

The wicked have not been purged.

6:30 They are regarded as ‘rejected silver’ ³ 

because the Lord rejects them.”

Isaiah 1:25

1:25 I will attack you; ⁴ 

I will purify your metal with flux. ⁵ 

I will remove all your slag. ⁶ 

Isaiah 48:10

48:10 Look, I have refined you, but not as silver;

I have purified you ⁷  in the furnace of misery.

Ezekiel 22:18-22

22:18 “Son of man, the house of Israel has become slag to me. All of them are like bronze, tin, iron, and lead in the furnace; ⁸  they are the worthless slag of silver. 22:19 Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘Because all of you ⁹  have become slag, look out! – I am about to gather you in the middle of Jerusalem. ¹⁰  22:20 As silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin are gathered in a furnace so that the fire can melt them, so I will gather you in my anger and in my rage. I will deposit you there ¹¹  and melt you. 22:21 I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of my fury, and you will be melted in it. 22:22 As silver is melted in a furnace, so you will be melted in it, and you will know that I, the Lord, have poured out my anger on you.’”

Ezekiel 26:11-12

26:11 With his horses’ hoofs he will trample all your streets. He will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will tumble down to the ground. 26:12 They will steal your wealth and loot your merchandise. They will tear down your walls and destroy your luxurious ¹²  homes. Your stones, your trees, and your soil he will throw ¹³  into the water. ¹⁴ 

Zechariah 13:9

13:9 Then I will bring the remaining third into the fire;

I will refine them like silver is refined

and will test them like gold is tested.

They will call on my name and I will answer;

I will say, ‘These are my people,’

and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” ¹⁵ 

Malachi 3:3

3:3 He will act like a refiner and purifier of silver and will cleanse the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will offer the Lord a proper offering.

Malachi 3:1

3:1 “I am about to send my messenger, ¹⁶  who will clear the way before me. Indeed, the Lord ¹⁷  you are seeking will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger ¹⁸  of the covenant, whom you long for, is certainly coming,” says the Lord who rules over all.

Malachi 1:7

1:7 You are offering improper sacrifices on my altar, yet you ask, ‘How have we offended you?’ By treating the table ¹⁹  of the Lord as if it is of no importance!

Malachi 4:1

4:1 (3:19) ²⁰  “For indeed the day ²¹  is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant evildoers will be chaff. The coming day will burn them up,” says the Lord who rules over all. “It ²²  will not leave even a root or branch.

¹ tn Heb “The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed by the fire.” The translation tries to clarify a metaphor involving ancient metallurgy. In the ancient refining process lead was added as a flux to remove impurities from silver ore in the process of oxidizing the lead. Jeremiah says that the lead has been used up and the impurities have not been removed. The translation is based on the recognition of an otherwise unused verb root meaning “blow” (נָחַר [nakhar]; cf. BDB 1123 s.v. I חָרַר and HALOT 651 s.v. נָחַר) and the Masoretes’ suggestion that the consonants מאשׁתם be read מֵאֵשׁ תַּם (me’esh tam) rather than as מֵאֶשָּׁתָם (me’eshatam, “from their fire”) from an otherwise unattested noun אֶשָּׁה (’eshah).

² tn Heb “The refiner refines them in vain.”

³ tn This translation is intended to reflect the wordplay in the Hebrew text where the same root word is repeated in the two lines.

⁵ tn Heb “turn my hand against you.” The second person pronouns in vv. 25-26 are feminine singular. Personified Jerusalem is addressed. The idiom “turn the hand against” has the nuance of “strike with the hand, attack,” in Ps 81:15 HT (81:14 ET); Ezek 38:12; Am 1:8; Zech 13:7. In Jer 6:9 it is used of gleaning grapes.

⁶ tn Heb “I will purify your dross as [with] flux.” “Flux” refers here to minerals added to the metals in a furnace to prevent oxides from forming. For this interpretation of II בֹּר (bor), see HALOT 153 s.v. II בֹּר and 750 s.v. סִיג.

⁷ sn The metaphor comes from metallurgy; slag is the substance left over after the metallic ore has been refined.

⁷ tc The Hebrew text has בְּחַרְתִּיךָ (bÿkhartikha, “I have chosen you”), but the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a reads correctly בחנתיכה (“I have tested you”). The metallurgical background of the imagery suggests that purification through testing is the idea.

⁹ tn For similar imagery, see Isa 1:21-26; Jer 6:27-30.

¹¹ tn The Hebrew second person pronoun is masculine plural here and in vv. 19b-21, indicating that the people are being addressed.

¹² map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹³ tn Heb “I will put.” No object is supplied in the Hebrew, prompting many to emend the text to “I will blow.” See BHS and verse 21.

¹⁵ tn Heb “desirable.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “set.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “into the midst of the water.”

¹⁷ sn The expression I will say ‘It is my people,’ and they will say ‘the Lord is my God’ is reminiscent of the restoration of Israel predicted by Hosea, who said that those who had been rejected as God’s people would be reclaimed and once more become his sons and daughters (Hos 2:23).

¹⁹ tn In Hebrew the phrase “my messenger” is מַלְאָכִי (mal’akhi), the same form as the prophet’s name (see note on the name “Malachi” in 1:1). However, here the messenger appears to be an eschatological figure who is about to appear, as the following context suggests. According to 4:5, this messenger is “Elijah the prophet,” whom the NT identifies as John the Baptist (Matt 11:10; Mark 1:2) because he came in the “spirit and power” of Elijah (Matt 11:14; 17:11-12; Lk 1:17).

²⁰ tn Here the Hebrew term הָאָדוֹן (ha’adon) is used, not יְהוָה (yÿhvah, typically rendered Lord). Thus the focus is not on the Lord as the covenant God, but on his role as master.

²¹ sn This messenger of the covenant may be equated with my messenger (that is, Elijah) mentioned earlier in the verse, or with the Lord himself. In either case the messenger functions as an enforcer of the covenant. Note the following verses, which depict purifying judgment on a people that has violated the Lord’s covenant.

²¹ sn The word table, here a synonym for “altar,” has overtones of covenant imagery in which a feast shared by the covenant partners was an important element (see Exod 24:11). It also draws attention to the analogy of sitting down at a common meal with the governor (v. 8).

²³ sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:6 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:19 HT, 4:2 ET = 3:20 HT, etc., through 4:6 ET = 3:24 HT. Thus the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible has only three chapters, with 24 verses in ch. 3.

²⁴ sn This day is the well-known “day of the Lord” so pervasive in OT eschatological texts (see Joel 2:30-31; Amos 5:18; Obad 15). For the believer it is a day of grace and salvation; for the sinner, a day of judgment and destruction.

²⁵ tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.