i.e., for their good. חשׁב שׁם, to consider or value the name of the Lord (cf. Isa 13:17; Isa 33:8). This writing was done because the Lord would make them His own on the day of His coming, and show them mercy. Layyōm: for the day = on the day; the lamed denoting the time, as in Isa 10:3; Gen 21:2, etc. The day which Jehovah makes is the day of the judgment which attends His coming. Segullâh is the object, not to ‛ōseh, as we might suppose according to the accents, but to hâyū: they will be my possession on the day which I create. This is evident partly from a comparison of Mal 4:3, where the words יום אשׁר אני עשׂה recur, and partly from the original passage in Exo 19:5 : ye will be to me segullâh, i.e., a valued possession (see the comm.). The righteous will then be a possession for Jehovah, because on that day the glory of the children of God will first be revealed, and the Israel of God will reach the mark of its heavenly calling (see Col 3:4). The Lord will spare them in the judgment as a father spares his son who serves him. The expression to spare may be explained from the contrast to the punishment of the ungodly. In Mal 3:18 the prophet bids the murmurers consider what has been said concerning the righteous, by telling them that they will then see the difference between the righteous who serve God, and the wicked who do not serve Him, that is to say, will learn that it is always profitable to serve God. שׁבתּם before ראיתם is to be taken adverbially: ye will see again. The expression “again” presupposes that the difference between those who feared God and the ungodly was to be seen before, and that the Lord had already made it manifest by former judgments. This had been the case in Egypt, where the Lord had caused such a separation to be made (Exo 11:7). The words do not imply that the persons addressed had previously stood in a different relation to this question from that in which they were standing then (Koehler). ראה בין does not mean to look in between (Hitzig), but בּין is used in the sense of a substantive, signifying that which is between the two, the difference between the two. That בּין was originally a noun is evident from the dual הבּינים in 1Sa 17:4, 1Sa 17:23.
Chap. 4
Verses 1-3
This admonition to the ungodly is explained in Mal 4:1. by a picture of the separation which will be effected by the day of judgment. Mal 4:1. “For behold the day cometh
