Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
For, behold, the day cometh, which shall burn as an oven - He had declared the great severance of the God-fearing and the God-blaspheming, those who served and those who did not serve God; the righteous and the wicked; now he declares the way and time of the severance, the Day of Judgment. Daniel had described the fire of that day, Daniel 7:9-10, "The throne (of the Ancient of days) was a fiery flame; his wheels a burning fire: a fiery stream issued and came forth from Him: the judgment was set and the books were opened." Fire is ever spoken of, as accompanying the judgment Psalms 50:3. "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence, a fire shall devour before Him Isaiah 66:15-16. Behold the Lord will come with fire: for by fire and by the sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: I Corinthians 3:13 every man' s work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire: and the fire shall try every man' s work, of what sort it is." Peter tells us that fire will be of this burning world; II Peter 3:7-10. "the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of' ungodly men; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up."
The oven, or furnace, pictures the intensity of the heat, which is white from its intensity, and darts forth, fiercely, shooting up like a living creature, and destroying life, as the flame of the fire of Nebuchadnezzars Daniel 3:22 "burning fiery furnace slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego." The whole world shall be one burning furnace.
And all the proud and all that do wickedly - All those, whom those complainers pronounced "blessed," Malachi 3:15, yea and all who should thereafter be like them (he insists on the universality of the judgment), "every doer of wickedness," up to that day and those who should then be, shall be stubble." The proud and mighty, who in this life were strong as iron and brass, so that no one dared resist them, but they dared to fight with God, these, in the Day of Judgment, shall be most powerless, as stubble cannot resist the fire, in an ever-living death."
That shall leave them neither root nor branch - " i. e. they shall have no hope of shooting up again to life; that life, I mean, which is worthy of love, and in glory with God, in holiness and bliss. For when the root has not been wholly cut away, nor the shoot torn up as from the depth, some hope is retained, that it may again shoot up. For, as it is written Job 10:4 :7, ' There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sproul again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.' But if it be wholly torn up from below and from its very roots, and its shoots be fiercely cut away, all hope, that it can again shoot up to life, will perish also. So, he saith, will all hope of the lovers of sin perish. For so the divine Isaiah clearly announces Isaiah 66:24, "their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring to all flesh."
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Malachi 4:1:
Psalms 19:13
Psalms 21:9
Haggai 2:6
1 Corinthians 4:3
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