We have here proper instructions given us (very
proper to close the canon of the Old Testament with), I. Concerning
the state of recompence and retribution that is before us, the
misery of the wicked and the happiness of the righteous in that
state,
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. 3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.
The great and terrible day of the Lord is here prophesied of. This, like the pillar of cloud and fire, shall have a dark side turned towards the Egyptians that fight against God, and a bright side towards the faithful Israelites that follow him: The day cometh, that is, the Lord cometh, the day of the Lord; and it has reference both to the first and to the second coming of Jesus Christ; the day of both was fixed, and should answer the character here given of it.
I. In both Christ is a consuming fire to
those that rebel against him. The day of his coming shall burn
as an oven; it shall be a day of wrath, of fiery
indignation. This was foretold concerning the Messiah,
II. In both Christ is a rejoicing light to
those who serve him faithfully, to those who fear his name and give
him the glory due to it (
1. Whence this mercy and comfort shall flow
to them: To you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness
arise, with healing in his wings. The day that comes, as it
will be a stormy day to the wicked, a day in which God will rain
upon them fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest, as he
did on Sodom (
2. What this mercy and comfort shall bring
to them: He shall arise with healing under his wings, or in
his rays or beams, which are as the wings of the sun.
Christ came, as the sun, to bring not only light to a dark
world, but health to a diseased distempered world. The Jews (says
Dr. Pocock) have a proverbial saying, As the sun riseth,
infirmities decrease; the flowers which drooped and languished
all night revive in the morning. Christ came into the world to be
the great physician, yea, and the great medicine too, both the balm
in Gilead and the physician there. When he was upon earth, he went
about as the sun in his circuit, doing this good; he healed all
manner of sicknesses and diseases among the people; he healed
by wholesale, as the sun does. He shall arise with healing in
his skirts; so some read it, and they apply it to the story of
the woman's touching the hem of his garment, and being
thereby made whole, and his finding that virtue went out
of him,
3. What good effect it shall have upon
them. (1.) It shall make them vigorous in themselves: "You shall
go forth, as those that are healed go abroad and return to
their business." The souls shall go forth out of their bodies at
death, and the bodies out of their graves at the resurrection, as
prisoners out of their dungeons, and both to see the light and be
set at liberty. "You shall go forth as plants out of the
earth, when in the spring the sun returns." Some make it to mean
the going forth of the Christians from Jerusalem, and the escape
they thereby made from its destruction. And thus the souls on whom
the Sun of righteousness arises go forth out of the world, go forth
out of Babylon, as those that are made free indeed. "You
shall likewise grow up; being restored to health and
liberty, you shall increase in knowledge, and grace, and spiritual
strength." The souls on which the Sun of righteousness arises are
growing up towards the perfect man; those that by the grace
of God are made wise and good are by the same grace made wiser and
better; and their path, like that of the rising sun, shines more
and more to the perfect day,
(2.) It shall make them victorious over
their enemies (
4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. 5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: 6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
This is doubtless intended for a solemn conclusion, not only of this prophecy, but of the canon of the Old Testament, and is a plain information that they were not to expect any more sayings nor writing by divine inspiration, any more of the dictates of the Spirit of prophecy, till the beginning of the gospel of the Messiah, which sets aside the Apocrypha as no part of holy writ, and which therefore the Jews never received.
Now that prophecy ceases, and is about to be sealed up, there are two things required of the people of God, that lived then:—
I. They must keep up an obedient veneration
for the law of Moses (
II. They must keep up a believing
expectation of the gospel of Christ, and must look for the
beginning of it in the appearing of Elijah the prophet (
1. Who this prophet is that shall be sent;
it is Elijah. The Jewish doctors will have it to be the same
Elijah that prophesied in Israel in the days of Ahab—that he shall
come again to be the forerunner of the Messiah; yet others of them
say not the same person, but another of the same spirit. It should
seem, those different sentiments they had when they asked John,
"Art thou Elias, or that prophet that should bear his
name?"
2. When he shall be sent—before the
appearing of the Messiah, which, because it was the judgment of
this world, and introduced the ruin of the Jewish church and
nation, is here called the coming of the great and dreadful day
of the Lord. John Baptist gave them fair warning of this when
he told them of the wrath to come (that wrath to the
uttermost which was hastening upon them) and put them into a
way of escape from it, and when he told them of the fan in
Christ's hand, with which Christ would thoroughly purge his
floor; see
3. On what errand he shall be sent: He
shall turn the heart of the fathers to their children, and the
heart of the children to their fathers; that is, "he shall be
employed in this work; he shall attempt it; his doctrine and
baptism shall have a direct tendency to it, and with many shall be
successful: he shall be an instrument in God's hand of
turning many to righteousness, to the Lord their
God, and so making ready a people prepared for him,"
4. With what view he shall be sent on this
errand: Lest I come and smite the earth, that is, the land
of Israel, the body of the Jewish nation (that were of the earth
earthy), with a curse. They by their impiety and impenitence
in it had laid themselves open to the curse of God, which is a
separation to all evil. God was ready to smite them with that
curse, to bring utter ruin upon them, to strike home, to strike
dead, with the curse; but he will yet once more try them, whether
they will repent and return, and so prevent it; and therefore he
sends John Baptist to preach repentance to them, that their
conversion might prevent their confusion; so unwilling is God that
any should perish, so willing to have his anger turned away. Had
they universally repented and reformed, their repentance would have
had this desired effect; but, they generally rejecting the counsel
of God in John's baptism, it proved against themselves (