Malachi 3:2

Malachi 3:2. But who may abide the day of his coming The LXX. read, τις υωομενει ημεραν εισοδου αυτου , who shall be able to bear the day of his coming? So also the Chaldee. “Quare hoc?” “Why this?” says Grotius: “Because he himself shall bear the cross, that he may come to the kingdom, and shall show the same way to his followers.” The day of his coming, with respect to the Jews, includes all the time from the beginning of his preaching, to the total destruction of their temple and city by the Romans: and his coming, here and in several other places, comprehends all the effects and consequences of his coming, as well the judgments which arose from it to the disobedient, as the mercy that flowed from it to the obedient. So that the meaning of the question is, Who shall be able to stand under the weight of those trials and tribulations which at that time will fall on all sorts of men? great crosses being to be borne by the believing and pious, and great calamities to be endured by the unbelieving and refractory. In the same light John the Baptist represents the effects of Christ’s coming, Matthew 3:7-12, Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? meaning, primarily, the wrath about to come on that rebellious people: whose fan, he adds, is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. For he is like a refiner’s fire As if he had said, Some men are like metals, mixed with much dross, which nothing but a fierce fire can purge away. Such a fire shall the troubles of these days be. The divine judgments are often called a fiery trial, such as separates the pure metal from the dross, purifying the former and consuming the latter. See Isaiah 1:25; Isaiah 4:4; Zechariah 13:9. Our Lord is to be understood in the same sense, Luke 12:49, where he says, I am come to send fire upon the earth, namely, a fire of trial and purgation, to try and purify the hearts and reins of men, and find out and separate the good from the bad; like as the refiner’s fire makes the dross of the metal to appear and fly off. And like fuller’s soap The word ברית , here rendered soap, and Jeremiah 2:22, according to St. Jerome, was an herb growing in Palestine, which the fullers used to take spots out of clothes,