Malachi 4:5-6

4:5 Look, I will send you Elijah ¹  the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord arrives. 4:6 He will encourage fathers and their children to return to me, ²  so that I will not come and strike the earth with judgment.” ³ 

Matthew 11:14

11:14 And if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, who is to come.

Matthew 17:11-12

17:11 He ⁴  answered, “Elijah does indeed come first and will restore all things. 17:12 And I tell you that Elijah has already come. Yet they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wanted. In ⁵  the same way, the Son of Man will suffer at their hands.”

Mark 9:11-13

9:11 Then ⁶  they asked him, ⁷  “Why do the experts in the law ⁸  say that Elijah must come first?” 9:12 He said to them, “Elijah does indeed come first, and restores all things. And why is it written that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be despised? 9:13 But I tell you that Elijah has certainly come, and they did to him whatever they wanted, just as it is written about him.”

John 1:21-24

1:21 So they asked him, “Then who are you? ⁹  Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not!” ¹⁰  “Are you the Prophet?” ¹¹  He answered, “No!” 1:22 Then they said to him, “Who are you? Tell us ¹²  so that we can give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

1:23 John ¹³  said, “I am the voice of one shouting in the wilderness, ‘Make straight ¹⁴  the way for the Lord,’ ¹⁵  as Isaiah the prophet said.” 1:24 (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. ¹⁶ ) ¹⁷ 

Revelation 20:4

20:4 Then ¹⁸  I saw thrones and seated on them were those who had been given authority to judge. ¹⁹  I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. These ²⁰  had not worshiped the beast or his image and had refused to receive his mark on their forehead or hand. They ²¹  came to life ²²  and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

[4:5]  ¹ sn I will send you Elijah the prophet. In light of the ascension of Elijah to heaven without dying (2 Kgs 2:11), Judaism has always awaited his return as an aspect of the messianic age (see, e.g., John 1:19-28). Jesus identified John the Baptist as Elijah, because he came in the “spirit and power” of his prototype Elijah (Matt 11:14; 17:1-13; Mark 9:2-13; Luke 9:28-36).

[4:6]  ² tn Heb “he will turn the heart[s] of [the] fathers to [the] sons, and the heart[s] of [the] sons to their fathers.” This may mean that the messenger will encourage reconciliation of conflicts within Jewish families in the postexilic community (see Mal 2:10; this interpretation is followed by most English versions). Another option is to translate, “he will turn the hearts of the fathers together with those of the children [to me], and the hearts of the children together with those of their fathers [to me].” In this case the prophet encourages both the younger and older generations of sinful society to repent and return to the Lord (cf. Mal 3:7). This option is preferred in the present translation; see Beth Glazier-McDonald, Malachi (SBLDS), 256.

[4:6]  ³ tn Heb “[the] ban” (חֵרֶם, kherem). God’s prophetic messenger seeks to bring about salvation and restoration, thus avoiding the imposition of the covenant curse, that is, the divine ban that the hopelessly unrepentant must expect (see Deut 7:2; 20:17; Judg 1:21; Zech 14:11). If the wicked repent, the purifying judgment threatened in 4:1-3 will be unnecessary.

[17:11]  ⁴ tn Grk “And answering, he said.” This has been simplified in the translation.

[17:12]  ⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[9:11]  ⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[9:11]  ⁷ tn Grk “And they were asking him, saying.” The participle λέγοντες (legontes) is redundant and has not been translated.

[9:11]  ⁸ tn Or “Why do the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 1:22.

[1:21]  ⁹ tn Grk “What then?” (an idiom).

[1:21]  ¹⁰ sn According to the 1st century rabbinic interpretation of 2 Kgs 2:11, Elijah was still alive. In Mal 4:5 it is said that Elijah would be the precursor of Messiah. How does one reconcile John the Baptist’s denial here (“I am not”) with Jesus’ statements in Matt 11:14 (see also Mark 9:13 and Matt 17:12) that John the Baptist was Elijah? Some have attempted to remove the difficulty by a reconstruction of the text in the Gospel of John which makes the Baptist say that he was Elijah. However, external support for such emendations is lacking. According to Gregory the Great, John was not Elijah, but exercised toward Jesus the function of Elijah by preparing his way. But this avoids the real difficulty, since in John’s Gospel the question of the Jewish authorities to the Baptist concerns precisely his function. It has also been suggested that the author of the Gospel here preserves a historically correct reminiscence – that John the Baptist did not think of himself as Elijah, although Jesus said otherwise. Mark 6:14-16 and Mark 8:28 indicate the people and Herod both distinguished between John and Elijah – probably because he did not see himself as Elijah. But Jesus’ remarks in Matt 11:14, Mark 9:13, and Matt 17:12 indicate that John did perform the function of Elijah – John did for Jesus what Elijah was to have done for the coming of the Lord. C. F. D. Moule pointed out that it is too simple to see a straight contradiction between John’s account and that of the synoptic gospels: “We have to ask by whom the identification is made, and by whom refused. The synoptic gospels represent Jesus as identifying, or comparing, the Baptist with Elijah, while John represents the Baptist as rejecting the identification when it is offered him by his interviewers. Now these two, so far from being incompatible, are psychologically complementary. The Baptist humbly rejects the exalted title, but Jesus, on the contrary, bestows it on him. Why should not the two both be correct?” (The Phenomenon of the New Testament [SBT], 70).

[1:21]  ¹¹ sn The Prophet is a reference to the “prophet like Moses” of Deut 18:15, by this time an eschatological figure in popular belief. Acts 3:22 identifies Jesus as this prophet.

[1:22]  ¹² tn The words “Tell us” are not in the Greek but are implied.

[1:23]  ¹³ tn Grk “He”; the referent (John the Baptist) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:23]  ¹⁴ sn This call to “make straight” is probably an allusion to preparation through repentance.

[1:23]  ¹⁵ sn A quotation from Isa 40:3.

[1:24]  ¹⁶ sn Pharisees were members of one of the most important and influential religious and political parties of Judaism in the time of Jesus. There were more Pharisees than Sadducees (according to Josephus, Ant. 17.2.4 [17.42] there were more than 6,000 Pharisees at about this time). Pharisees differed with Sadducees on certain doctrines and patterns of behavior. The Pharisees were strict and zealous adherents to the laws of the OT and to numerous additional traditions such as angels and bodily resurrection.

[1:24]  ¹⁷ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

[20:4]  ¹⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

[20:4]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “I saw thrones, and those seated on them, and judgment was given to them.” BDAG 567 s.v. κρίμα 3 says, “judging, judgment, the κρίμα ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς authority to judge was given to them Rv 20:4.”

[20:4]  ²⁰ tn Grk “God, and who.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation by supplying the pronoun “these” as subject.

[20:4]  ²¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[20:4]  ²² tn On the use of the aorist ἔζησαν (ezhsan) BDAG 425 s.v. ζάω 1.a.β says, “of dead persons who return to life become alive again: of humans in general (3 Km 17:23) Mt 9:18; Ac 9:41; 20:12; Rv 20:4, 5.”