Malachi 3:17--4:3

3:17 “They will belong to me,” says the Lord who rules over all, “in the day when I prepare my own special property. ¹  I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. 3:18 Then once more you will see that I make a distinction between ²  the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not.

4:1 (3:19) ³  “For indeed the day ⁴  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 ⁵  will not leave even a root or branch. 4:2 But for you who respect my name, the sun of vindication ⁶  will rise with healing wings, ⁷  and you will skip about ⁸  like calves released from the stall. 4:3 You will trample on the wicked, for they will be like ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the Lord who rules over all.

¹ sn The Hebrew word סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah, “special property”) is a technical term referring to all the recipients of God’s redemptive grace, especially Israel (Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18). The Lord says here that he will not forget even one individual in the day of judgment and reward.

² tn Heb “you will see between.” Cf. NRSV, TEV, NLT “see the difference.”

³ 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.

⁴ 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.

⁵ tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.

⁶ tn Here the Hebrew word צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah), usually translated “righteousness” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT; cf. NAB “justice”), has been rendered as “vindication” because it is the vindication of God’s people that is in view in the context. Cf. BDB 842 s.v. צְדָקָה 6; “righteousness as vindicated, justification, salvation, etc.”

⁷ sn The point of the metaphor of healing wings is unclear. The sun seems to be compared to a bird. Perhaps the sun’s “wings” are its warm rays. “Healing” may refer to a reversal of the injury done by evildoers (see Mal 3:5).

⁸ tn Heb “you will go out and skip about.”