Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Elias. Septuagint add, "the The bite "and St. Jerome (in Matthew xvii.) says, that Elias shall indeed come and restore all things.
Dreadful. Christ's first coming was in all meekness; but he will judge in terror. Hence the prophet's meaning is not that St. John , but that Elias shall come before the great day of the Lord. (Worthington)
Yet we may understand it of Christ coming into the world to preach, and again to judge. His first coming proved terrible to the perfidious Jews, whose ruin presently ensued. The destruction of Jerusalem was a figure of that which the world shall experience. (Calmet)
This shall be preceded by the preaching of Elias. (N. Alex. Diss. vi.)
This interpretation seems very striking and natural, though the prophet may have had the first coming of Christ and the ruin of the city chiefly in view. Our Saviour testifies that the Elias whom the Jews expected was already come, Matthew xi. 14., and xvii. 11., and Luke ix. 8. (Calmet)
But since the Savior was the beginning of the resurrection of all people, it was fitting that the Lord alone should rise from the dead, by whom too the judgment is to enter the whole world, that they who have wrestled worthily may be also crowned worthily by him, by the illustrious Arbiter. [That is, he] himself first accomplished the course, and was received into the heavens, and was set down on the right hand of God the Father, and is to be manifested again at the end of the world as judge. It is a matter of course that his forerunners must appear first, as he says by Malachi and the angel, “I will send to you Elijah the Tishbite before the Day of the Lord, the great and notable day, comes; and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, lest I come and smite the earth utterly.” These, then, shall come and proclaim the manifestation of Christ that is to be from heaven; and they shall also perform signs and wonders; in order ...
I fully expect these heretics to seize upon the example of Elijah as reincarnated in John the Baptist, and thus they would have become our Lord espousing the doctrine of reincarnation. “Elijah indeed has come, and they knew him not.” And again, “And if you are willing to receive it, here is Elijah who was to come.” Was the question of the Jews to John, “Are you Elijah?” to be understood in a Pythagorean sense and not in reference to the divine pronouncement: “Behold, I send you Elijah, the Tishbite”? But their theory of transmigration refers to the recall of a soul that had died long before and to its insertion in some other body. Elijah, however, is to return not after leaving this life by death, not to be returned to his body, since he never left it, but he will come back to the world from which he has been removed. He will return not to take up a life he had left off but for the fulfillment of a prophecy. He will come back as Elijah, with the same name. How, then, could John be Elij...
“And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God.” He speaks of Elijah the prophet, who is the precursor of the times of the antichrist, for the restoration and establishment of the churches from the great and intolerable persecution. We read that these things are predicted in the opening of the Old Testament and the New Testament, for he says by Malachi, “Lo, I will send to you Elijah the Tishbite, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, according to the time of calling, to recall the Jews to the faith of the people that succeed them.”
