Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Mark 9:11

"And they asked him, saying, [How is it] that the scribes say that Elijah must first come?" — Mark 9:11 (ASV)

Apparently the disciples did not feel free to ask Jesus what he meant by his “rising from the dead” (v.10). Instead they asked him about Elijah. No doubt the fact that three of them had seen Elijah at the Transfiguration reminded them that he would come before the Messiah and restore all things (Malachi 4:5–6). Restoring all things involved, among other things, leading the people to repentance. Now if Elijah comes first and does his preparatory work, how is it that when the Son of Man comes he finds people so unprepared for him that they completely reject him and, indeed, kill him? They were still perplexed by the idea of a suffering Messiah.