Malachi 4:5 Commentary and Bible Study

The Old Testament prophets all put together the first and second returns of Christ; they do not distinguish between them. It's the day of the Lord. His first coming, his gospel age, and his second coming; it's all the day of the Lord. 'Behold, I will send you Elijah', not literally, but one who will be in the spirit of ‘Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD’, John the Baptist. Before the final age comes and the first destruction of Jerusalem and the final destruction of the world – in between which there is this great gospel age.The Jewish writers all agree that Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets, and Gill tells us that Aben Ezra calls him ‘the end of the prophets’. But here he says that the next prophet to be sent by God will be John the Baptist, and therefore all that came in between including the Old Testament apocryphal writing are to be rejected from the canon of Scripture.