Lesson 13 – Malachi Chapter 3 Continued 4 END
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THE BOOK OF MALACHI
Lesson 13, Chapter 3 Continued 4
END

As we near the end of our study of Malachai, we paused last week at chapter 3
verse 17, which said:

CJB
Malachi 3:17 "They will be mine," says Yehoveh Tzva'ot, "on the
day when I compose my own special treasure. I will spare them as a
man spares his own son who serves him.

We discussed how that when God said “they will be mine”, it revolved around
the Hebrew word segulla. I explained that while “they will be mine” isn’t
necessarily wrong, it doesn’t express the deeply personal and intimate nature
of the meaning. The word more leans towards “personal property”. That is, the
people of Israel are so set-apart from everyone else in the world that they are
to belong exclusively to God. Then the verse goes on to explain why He is
going to spare them. He compares it to the way a man spares his own son
who honors him.

All throughout the Prophets that we have studied, we see so many words that
we would characterize as emotions or feelings to describe God’s reactions. I
try to play that down a bit because the basis of a God-worshippers relationship
to God, and the relationship of God to His followers, is based on covenant
allegiance and obedience… and decidedly not emotions. Yet, feelings and
emotions cannot be dismissed as playing a role. For one reason, humanity did
not conjure up the attribute of emotions on our own. Emotions were built into
us by our Creator. So, the question of whether God has emotions is one that
has stirred theological debate for centuries. At its core, that question touches
on the very nature of divinity, the limits of our meager human understanding
to comprehend the nature and substance of God, and the relationship between
the Creator and His creation. While some traditions assert that God is
incapable of experiencing emotions—others argue that Scripture and human
experience point to a God who feels deeply.

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Holy Scripture is rich with references to God's responses that are described in
terms of emotions that are the same as humans use for ourselves. The chief
one is love. And that cannot ever be discounted as it is one of God’s core
attributes. God is described as loving (1 John 4:8), joyful (Zephaniah 3:17),
angry (Psalm 7:11), jealous (Exodus 20:5), and even grieving (Genesis 6:6).
These portrayals definitively tell us that God, even at our human best or worst
moments, is not a distant, detached cosmic force from us, but a personal
being who engages with humanity in meaningful and compassionate ways. For
example, in Hosea, God expresses heartbreak over Israel’s unfaithfulness,
using the metaphor of a spurned lover. In the New Testament, Yeshua, as God
incarnate, shows compassion, weeps over Lazarus, and expresses personal
anguish on his rapidly approaching march to the cross in Gethsemane. These
moments are not incidental; they reveal a God who enters into our human
suffering and joy and does not see His relationship with us through cold, hard,
rigid rules and calculation.

Classical God-worship, especially in the tradition of the great thinkers like
Augustine and Aquinas, holds that God is immutable and impassible. This
means God does not change and cannot be affected by external forces,
including emotions. The reasoning is that emotions imply vulnerability or
impulsiveness or even reaction (or over reaction) to something outside
oneself, which would compromise His divine perfection. However, many
modern theologians challenge this view, arguing that using the term
“impassibility” risks portraying God as cold or indifferent. They propose that
God’s emotions are quite real, but not like human emotions—subject to whims
or instability—but are instead expressions of His unique perfect love, justice,
and mercy. And yet these same theologians are prone to assign anger or
severity to Old Testament divine reactions only.

One way to reconcile these views is to understand divine reactions that we
label as emotions analogically. To think analogically means to relate or
compare two different things because they share similar features or functions,
even though they are not identical. It involves drawing a comparison, an
analogy, to help explain or understand something by showing its similarities to
something more familiar. That is, when Scripture says God is angry or joyful, it
communicates something true about God’s character, but we must understand

Lesson 13 – Malachi Chapter 3 Continued 4 END
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that God does not “experience” these things, but rather they are part of His
nature. And, certainly not in the same way humans are said to “experience”
such feelings as things that are often out of our control. For instance, God’s
“anger” reflects His inherent divine opposition to injustice, not a loss of His
self-control or sudden knee-jerk surge of His passion. Similarly, God’s “love” is
not actually sentimental or affectionate, but rather it is His steadfast
commitment to the good of creation, at least for those who love Him. God
doesn’t experience love; love is at the heart of His nature and explains how He
deals not only with humans but with all His created creatures. This distinction
helps us to better grasp God’s unique transcendence while affirming His
relational nature as something we mere humans can identify with.

The only proof we need that God is relational is that He created humankind.
He already had a full and varied society in Heaven; He certainly was not alone.
Yet, He determined that He wanted yet another complementary society of a
different kind of beings: humans, meant to engage with Him in a different
way. He wanted it for relational purposes. Even so, those relations had to be
structured in a way that was acceptable to, and protective of, His holy nature.
And so, through the means of covenant, He established that relationship’s
terms, conditions, and boundaries.

The question about God and emotions is more than academic—it has profound
implications for faith and life. If God has emotion-like qualities, then He
understands our pain, celebrates our joys, and responds to our prayers not as
a cosmic AI device might, but as a personal being. There is a reason we are to
call Him Father. This makes His divine compassion towards those who love
Him reciprocally much more than only a metaphor; it becomes a source of
comfort and hope for us all. On the other hand, if God is beyond emotion-like
responses, Believers may still find solace in His unchanging nature, knowing
that divine justice and mercy, nor His standards for us to live by and therefore
how we are to relate to Him, are subject to fluctuation or serendipity.

Ultimately, whether one sees God’s emotions as literal, metaphorical, or
analogical, the consistent thread across all the faith traditions that are Bible
based, is that God is deeply invested in His creation, and at the zenith of His
earthly creation are humans. And that, perhaps, is the most resonant and

Lesson 13 – Malachi Chapter 3 Continued 4 END
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wonderful truth of all. So, as we continue today in hearing these words of
Malachai, let us always picture Yehoveh in this light.

Let’s re-read the last few verses of his little book.

RE-READ MALACHAI 3:18 to end

Verse 18 said:

18
Then once again you will see the difference between the righteous
and the wicked, between the person who serves God and one that
doesn't serve him.

This verse is in reference to the several previous verses that spoke of how God
would deal with the evil-doers among His people, versus those He views as
righteous. I’ll phrase this differently: God’s set apart people, Israel, currently
consist of two groups: evil-doers and the righteous. The righteous were
described in verse 16 as those who got together, discussed what Malachai
said, believed and took to heart God’s oracles, and acted to reform
themselves. These are those whom God called God -fearers.

You’ll notice that as I mentioned in the opening part of today’s lesson that
dealt with whether or not God has human-like emotions, His love and thus
how He deals with humanity is determined individually, based on reciprocal
love… and that is based purely on a relationship defined by covenant.
Therefore, the human expression of love towards Him cannot be emotion
based, but rather on obedience to the covenant terms and conditions. The
wicked are dealt with in one way, the righteous in another. It’s fine to say that
God is a God of love who loves everyone. But, that is only in the broadest
sense of expressing value and worth. While God says all humans… wicked or
good… have value, His love that is expressed comes in the form of blessings,
and blessings are reserved for those that He deems as righteous. And
righteousness is based on observing the universal standard of morality that He
ordained, which is most thoroughly explained and codified in the Law of
Moses. In verse 18, we are reminded of that reality that flies in the face of
almost all doctrines of Christendom, when we read: “the difference between

Lesson 13 – Malachi Chapter 3 Continued 4 END
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the righteous and the wicked, between the person who serves God and one
that doesn’t serve Him”. We are righteous ONLY when we serve God… and that
service MUST revolve around our obedience to Him. We are wicked when we
do not serve Him… which revolves around our disobedience to Him. There is no
other biblical standard.

Verse 19 says this:

CJB
Malachi 3:19 For the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when
all the proud and evildoers will be stubble; the day that is coming will
set them ablaze," says Yehoveh -Tzva'ot, "and leave them neither root
nor branch

The emphatic nature of the opening of this verse is not reflected in most
English translations (including the CJB). Rather, it mostly portrayed as rather
matter-of-fact statement. In Hebrew we read ki hinneh. If we translate these
words separately and literally, they say “for indeed” or “for behold”. I think a
nice, neat way to get the point across is the word “surely”. Thus, “for surely
the day is coming” is the proper sense of it and (I would argue) is the proper
translation. The beginning word ki (for) is used in the causal form, meaning
that something that came before it is what is causing what comes after it.
We’ve read the cause, now verse 19 gives us the effect. There’s a reason “the
day” is coming, and it has already been well revealed that it is due to the Jews
of Yehud… from commoner to priest… becoming evil -doers, with but a remnant
remaining righteous God-fearers. I’ll repeat that this is concerning only those
who claim to be God-worshippers. This is not God dealing with the pagan
world at the moment.

As always “the day” is but another term for The Day of Yehoveh or The Day of
the Lord or The Day of Judgment. And clearly “is coming” means it is in some
indefinite future… a week, a month, a year, a millennium… who knows? But,
no matter when it occurs, it is 100% guaranteed to occur. It had been
understood for centuries, already, that “the day” would bring with it both
disaster and deliverance as concerned Israel, but essentially entirely disaster
for the nations.

Lesson 13 – Malachi Chapter 3 Continued 4 END
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It is at this point in some Bibles that a 4
th
chapter begins. While it makes no
sense at all to end a chapter and begin a new one here, nonetheless it causes
no real harm as the words remain the same. The problem is that chapters
have meaning in the Western world and thus what is being said in chapter 3
gets separated from what is being said in chapter 4. A different setting or a
different topic is inferred when chapters change or advance. That is simply not
what is happening here in Malachai.

We’ll again look at the Hebrew because of the nuance that it adds. Whereas in
the English we read: “burning like a furnace”, in Hebrew it is boer kattannur.
Boer means to burn up, or to set ablaze or to consume by fire. A tannur is a
fixed or portable stove or oven. The most common usage of this term in
Malachai’s era and earlier, referred directly to an earthenware oven…
sometimes called a fire-pot, used to bake bread. So, one is to imagine a great
heat so hot that it can bake bread. The fuel for the fire is a different matter.

The fuel for heating the oven is the stubble. Thus, the proud and evil-doers
will be treated as though they are that stubble. The picture to be imagined is
of the heat generated for the refining oven, or the refiner’s pot, that was
spoken of back in verses 2 and 3 as coming from the human stubble of evil-
doers. Remember that this is somewhat poetic, so we shouldn’t take this
perfectly literally. Thus, the refining process to bring purity to the Jews is
metaphorically envisioned as the wicked being destroyed as though they were
worthless stubble, used only in order to further perfect (refine) the righteous.

To destroy the wicked so thoroughly that they cannot return or reemerge is
what is meant by destroying them root and branch. Not just that which shows
and is apparent above the ground (the branches), but also what is unseen
below the ground (the roots), will be burned up. Before we move to verse 20,
note how these last couple of verses are extensions of verse 18 that explains
“the difference between the wicked and the righteous” in the sense of their
very different fates.

Verse 20 is:

Lesson 13 – Malachi Chapter 3 Continued 4 END
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CJB
Malachi 3:20 But to you who fear my name, the sun of
righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will break
out leaping, like calves released from the stall.

Verse 20 is all about the righteous… those who fear God’s name. It is better to
look at this verse more literally as we find it in the YLT.

YLT
Malachi 4:2 And risen to you, ye who fear My name, Hath the sun
of righteousness -- and healing in its wings, And ye have gone forth,
and have increased as calves of a stall.

The opening word in Hebrew is: wezareha. It means to rise or shine and is
used to speak about the actions of the sun. Next is lakem yire shemi. And,
as the YLT says, it denotes that what is to rise is intended for those few who
fear God’s name. So, this rising object is meant to illuminate ONLY a certain
group; in this case, it’s the righteous. The object that is to rise is now
identified as the sun of righteousness. This is the s-u-n sun, and not the s-o-n
son. This use of the sun in this verse, that lights our planet by day, has caused
a fair amount of disagreement in theologians. Is it really referring to that solar
object, or it is just an expression that combines metaphor to speak of a
dawning of a new day in God’s creation, when as the day breaks a new era of
righteousness (at least among the righteous) dawns. It should be noted that
the Constantinian Christians of Rome used the title from Malachai “sun of
righteousness” to apply to the pagan Sol Invictus… the victorious Sun God…
which they commemorated on December 25
th
. I have spoken on a number of
accounts how Constantinian Christianity immediately threw off the Jewish
observances as the Bible called for, and replaced them with icons and
observances many of which were taken from the Mithrain Sun God religion
that was a highly popular cult in the Roman Empire. This is where, for
instance, the entire idea of haloes came from (haloes were merely the sun disc
of the Sun God religion placed behind the heads of those whom the Church
deemed as holy).

But, now, what is the meaning of the next words that speak of this rising sun
providing healing “in its wings”? This gets a bit unsettling, but I hope to
explain it well enough so as to calm those feelings. The phrase about the

Lesson 13 – Malachi Chapter 3 Continued 4 END
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wings is biknapeha. The first part “bi” means “in”. The noun form of the next
word is kanap and it means wings. What makes this difficult is that we find
such a thing as a sun with its wings nowhere else so explicitly stated in the
Bible. So, what is this saying about? What were people envisioning? This
phrase comes from pagan symbolism concerning the winged sun disc that is
ancient Assyrian in its origin.

The Assyrian winged sun disc carried the idea of its wings representing the
protective presence of its deity (represented as the sun), usually protective of
the king. So, under the shadow of its wings (a phrase we find also in the
Psalms), it is referring to that same idea.

CJB
Psalm 17:8 Protect me like the pupil of your eye, hide me in the
shadow of your wings

CJB
Psalm 91:1-4 You who live in the shelter of 'Elyon, who spend your
nights in the shadow of Shaddai,
2
who say to Yehoveh, "My refuge!
My fortress! My God, in whom I trust!" -
3
he will rescue you from the
trap of the hunter and from the plague of calamities;
4
he will cover
you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his
truth is a shield and protection.

So, in Malachai and in the Psalms, while the intent is to speak about Yehoveh’s
divine protection over His people, the image of the wings of the Assyrian sun
god is the source of this concept. While it is true that the Hebrews did not see
God as having wings, nonetheless the pagan expression of divine protection
being described as “being under a god’s wings”, and because in Assyrian
mythology when that god’s shadow that came from his outstretched wings
passed over an earthling, it was an indication that you were under that god’s
protection. From there it morphed into the Hebrew vocabulary. It’s just a great
illustration of how false religious doctrines and symbols and practices can
sneak into our faith, without our being much aware of it. And the Hebrews,
from their inception, had always been drawn towards elements of pagan
religions. So, it’s no wonder we find these things in the Bible, spoken by even
some of our greatest Bible heroes.

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As a result of God arriving with His protection over the Jews of Yehud, they will
emerge joyful and energetic as stall-fed calves. It has the sense of being
carefree once liberated. The same Hebrew word that is often translated as
stall-fed calves, also in other instances is translated as fattened calves. So,
when we read of the fattened calf, this is what is being related. It is a calf that
has been put into a stall, protected, cared for, and given plenty of food. So,
part of the benefit of being under God’s wings is abundance of food
(something that the Jews of Yehud have struggled with ever since their
return). And this abundance is what makes them leap around so joyfully.

Verse 21 is:

CJB
Malachi 3:21 You will trample the wicked, they will be ashes under
the soles of your feet on the day when I take action," says Yehoveh -
Tzva'ot.

God continues to make a contrast between the treatment of the wicked as
opposed to the righteous. The righteous will finally trample upon the wicked.
An accusation of the evil-doers that we dealt with earlier in Malachai was that
the wicked seemed to always trample on the ashes of the righteous. But, this
situation will be vividly reversed such that no one can deny it. The “ashes” are,
of course, all that remains of the stubble that has been burned up to heat the
oven of refining of the righteous.

Whenever we read in the Bible of something or someone being “under the
soles of your feet”, the picture is of people being taken captive. It is equal to
the mental picture of a victor placing his foot on the neck of the defeated.
When is this going to happen? On “the day”. The Day of Judgment that is
coming. The End Times. So, what the people of Malachai’s day, and what we in
the 21
st
century have to accept, is that more often than not the current
condition on earth of the wicked seeming to triumph over the righteous will
continue. This will not change until the Day of Yehoveh arrives. Therefore,
Believers, we must always keep in mind that the happening of the End Times
is going to impact both the righteous and the wicked. We’ll all “feel the heat”
so to speak. It is NOT going to pleasant as we go through the process. The joy

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and relief only come at the final moments of victory. The path to getting there
is going to be painful, and many of us will not survive it.

The next verse is:


CJB
Malachi 3:22 "Remember the Torah of Moshe my servant, which I
enjoined on him at Horev, laws and rulings for all Isra'el .

This statement at the end of Malachai precisely sends the same message as
Yeshua will 5 centuries later in Matthew 5:17:

CJB
Matthew 5:17 "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah
or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete.

God didn’t abolish or change the Torah in Malachai’s time, and He didn’t in
Yeshua’s time, nor has He now while the current heavens and earth still exist.
What is the Torah of Moses? It’s another expression for the Covenant of
Moses. So, this once again reminds us all that it is a covenant relationship that
we have with God, if we hope to have any relationship with Him at all. The
Church loves to sing “Victory in Jesus”. But this victory only occurs within the
framework of covenant obedience; not instead of it. Walter Kaiser, Jr. said this
about this passage in Malachai:

New Testament Believers must also be careful not to erect a giant wall
of partition between the Law and the promises of God, for Paul asked
whether the promises of God had, as a matter of fact, abolished the
Law. Paul sprang back with a resounding negative; instead, faith had
“established” the Law of God. Let us be careful not to pronounce more
than three-fourths of God’s revelation in the Bible obsolete.

Something positively astounding is said in Malachai 3:23.

CJB
Malachi 3:23 Look, I will send to you Eliyahu the prophet before
the coming of the great and terrible Day of Yehoveh.

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This prophecy was partially fulfilled by John the Baptist. But, only partially. He
came in the spirit of Elijah, but he was not Elijah. And, after his appearance,
the terrible Day of Yehoveh did not happen. So, to understand prophecy about
the End Times, in some ways we have to work backwards… we start with the
future and go back towards the past. The milestone that we can use as the
truest marker of history is The Day of the Lord. The world will be one way
before it, and entirely different after it. All else that comes before is
preparation for our final redemption. All that comes after is the culmination of
that full redemption.

Elijah did not die, as all mankind is relegated to do, once. Rather, he was
translated into some other place and form (and I dare not offer conjecture on
what that is). Upon the Day of Yehoveh… that block of time that is the final
stage of the world as we know it… God will send the true, real Elijah back as
the harbinger of Yeshua’s return, just as The Baptist was for His advent. And
God said this was going to be a wonderful and joyful day… right? NO! The day
will be terrible! It is terrible for all, just as the Prophets warn over and over
again, and the Church either intentionally obfuscates or flat out teaches the
opposite.

The ending verse to the Book of Malachai is this:

CJB
Malachi 3:24 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children
and the hearts of the children to their fathers; otherwise I will come
and strike the land with complete destruction."

Some Bibles will add a few more words to that final verse. They are: [Look, I
will send to you Eliyahu the prophet before the coming of the great
and terrible Day of ADONAI. ] (Mal. 3:24 CJB)

This is what is called a gloss. It is something that a Bible editor added many
centuries ago. While some glosses actually do harm the meaning (they are
more often than not a blatant attempt of the editor to include their own
thoughts or interpretations as though they were inspired Scripture), here this
is but something that has already been stated. So, it is rather harmless.

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The meaning of verse 24 is that it is the coming of Elijah that will turn the
hearts of the fathers to the children and vice versa. The “fathers” don’t mean
fathers of families. This is a rather standard term used for the Patriarchs
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The children are the Israelites who sprang from
them, and now are in rebellion against God and the covenants that were made
with the Patriarchs. From Malachai’s perspective, these children were the evil-
doers of his generation; those who have perverted the Hebrew faith, polluted
it with manmade doctrine, and become disobedient to the Covenant of Moses.
Thus, in a poetic sense, the Patriarchs are estranged from their children, the
Israelites. The coming of Elijah fills in the giant canyon that currently
separates them.

Elijah comes to call apostate Israel back to the true biblical Hebrew faith. It is
that last opportunity before Israel gets separated once and for all time and
eternity between the wicked and the righteous.

The accusation of the corrupted Jews of Yehud and their Priesthood was that
to serve God is meaningless. The response is that eventually the righteous will
not only be vindicated but they will also be rehabilitated… purified. The wicked
however are NOT put into a rehabilitation program. They are simply judged as
they are and destroyed. There is no in between.

We are all a product of the age in which we live. Moses lived in one set of
circumstances, Malachai in another, we of the 21
st
century yet one more. But
at each stage along the way Malachai teaches us that while we might mold
ourselves to our generational circumstances, God suffers no such thing. God
remains unchanged, uninfluenced by circumstances. His rules and commands
are the same because His is the same. And, human nature never changes as
well. The historical trend of humanization that kicks against the spiritual,
assures that the idea that human goodness will someday rise up and save the
world is the utmost folly. Bad fruit doesn’t turn itself into good fruit by its own
will and efforts.

Each age has found excuse to try to remold and reshape God’s laws… the
Natural Laws that were codified and expanded into the Law of Moses… to suit
themselves, and in accordance with what was believed to be their advanced

Lesson 13 – Malachi Chapter 3 Continued 4 END
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wisdom and knowledge relative to previous generations. The Israel of the Bible
is a prime example of this. Malachai, as the final of a long series of Prophets
sent by God to warn and correct His people, explained (once again) that their
humanization of God’s laws had led them into a state of perversion and evil.
And, the consequences are catastrophic. Yet, for those who will repent and
return to sincere faith and obedience to His laws and commands, blessings can
be restored.

This concludes our study of the Book of Malachai.