Albert Barnes Commentary Malachi 4:1

"For, behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." — Malachi 4:1 (ASV)

For, behold, the day comes, which shall burn as an oven - He had declared the great separation of the God-fearing and the God-blaspheming, those who served God and those who did not serve God; the righteous and the wicked. Now he declares the way and time of the separation: 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 always spoken of as accompanying the judgment. For example, it is written, “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence, a fire shall devour before Him” (Psalms 50:3). Also, “Behold the Lord will come with fire: for by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh:” (Isaiah 66:15–16). And as the Apostle Paul states, “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” (1 Corinthians 3:13).

Peter tells us that this fire will involve the burning of the world itself (2 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 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 in it 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, like the flame of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace; for as it is written (Daniel 3:22), the “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 - This refers to all those whom the complainers pronounced “blessed” (Malachi 3:15), indeed, and all who should afterward be like them (he insists on the universality of the judgment). “Every doer of wickedness,” up to that day and those who will then exist, 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 utterly powerless, like stubble that cannot resist the fire, in an “ever-living death.”

That shall leave them neither root nor branch - That is, 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 from the depths, some hope is retained that it may again shoot up. For, as it is written (Job 14:7): “There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.”

But if it is wholly torn up from below and from its very roots, and its shoots are fiercely cut away, all hope that it can again shoot up to life will also perish. So, he says, 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.”