1 For, behold, the day is coming, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that is coming shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
Stubble (the part of the crop left after harvesting all usable parts) is totally useless and usually burned in order to dispose of it.This is what those who don't choose to follow God are like to Him.
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.
Again, God promises blessings to those who fear Him. If we truly fear Him (and yes, it means “be afraid of”) we will keep His commandments. We will also realize that though we have good reason to fear (since we are all sinners and deserve to go to Hell), we have equally good reason to love God. He provided a way to avoid Hell. It begins with fearing Him.
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, says the Lord of hosts.
4 Remember ye the Law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.
These laws (Deuteronomy 6:4) began with “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:
5 And thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sit in thine house, and when thou walk by the way, and when thou lie down, and when thou rise up.
8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”
Jesus said this was the greatest of all commandments. He said that if we keep this commandment and Love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, we have already fulfilled the whole Law. These two commandments summarize the entire Mosaic Law.
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
God promises He will send someone in the spirit of Elijah who will warn them that the time of salvation is here. Jesus tells us that this verse was fulfilled in John the Baptist. He was the one sent to get everyone’s heart ready for Christ.
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.
John brought in true repentance and a new era of love to the world, beginning with Israel.
Jesus then arrived and brought salvation to all who fear God.
Historical Wrap Up
At the time Malachi wrote his book, Judah was inhabited by some people from each of the twelve tribes, though most of the population was from either Judah or Benjamin. They were under Persian rule, probably still Artaxerxes Darius the Persian.
Alexander the Great marched into Judah in 432BC on his way to conquering Egypt and defeating Darius. The citizens of Jerusalem opened their gates and welcomed him as a liberator instead of fighting and were spared the punishment he put on most of his conquered cities, especially (so 1st century historian Josephus says) after someone showed him the prophecy in the book of Daniel about a great king of Greece conquering the region.
After Alexander’s death his empire was divided up into four parts, with his general Ptolemy getting Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula. Ptolemy gave the northern part of his kingdom to his general, Seleucid. The two empires then spent many years fighting over Palestine and the neighboring region. (For an incredibly detailed account of these struggles, see the book of Daniel. Though he lived 200 years before this time, God gave him the story of what would happen in the last few chapters of his book. See my book “History Foretold: Daniel” available at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/bettysbooks or on this blog under the lable "Daniel". Also, Josephus gives a good history of the time, especially the Maccabean Wars and AD70.)
Antiochus IV Epiphanes (174–163BC), descendant of the original Seleucid, was a bit of a nut-case (Ok, a LOT of a nut-case) and tried to impose his religion and culture on the Israelites. They revolted with what we call the Maccabean Wars and kicked the Syrians out.
Pompey conquered Jerusalem for Rome in 63BC, and in 40BC Herod the Great was appointed King of the Jews by Rome.
It is believed that Christ was actually born somewhere between 5 and 3BC. Since “BC” means “Before Christ,” this can be a bit confusing (“Christ was born three years before Christ?”) Since the sun actually takes 365.25 days to circle the earth, we have had trouble keeping the calendars straightened out over the centuries. There have been many adjustments over time to try to keep it aligned (thus our Leap Year every four years), but some things just can’t really be corrected. Christ’s birthdate is one of those things.
Jesus lived for 33 ½ years and was crucified in Jerusalem somewhere around AD30. During His ministry He warned of a great destruction coming on the city of Jerusalem (Matthew 24). This destruction happened in AD70, when Titus led the Roman armies into the country and destroyed it.
The age of Law was over. The age of Grace begun.