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Originally Posted by Digging4Truth

I have always wondered how much of the 2nd chapter of Malachi onward could be referring to Nehemiah since it was Nehemiah that came to Jerusalem at the time of Malachi and he saw how the tithe was being mishandled and stolen from the people and he dealt harshly with those priests who had departed from God's law.

I like what Adam Clarke said about Malachi 4:

Mal 4:1
Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven - The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

And all the proud - This is in reference to Mal_3:15 of the preceding chapter.

The day that cometh shall burn them up - Either by famine, by sword, or by captivity. All those rebels shall be destroyed.

It shall leave them neither root nor branch - A proverbial expression for total destruction. Neither man nor child shall escape.

v. 2 And ye shall go forth - Ye who believe on his name shall go forth out of Jerusalem when the Romans shall come up against it. After Cestius Gallus had blockaded the city for some days, he suddenly raised the siege. The Christians who were then in it, knowing, by seeing Jerusalem encompassed with armies, that the day of its destruction was come, when their Lord commanded them to flee into the mountains, took this opportunity to escape from Jerusalem, and go to Pella, in Coelesyria; so that no Christian life fell in the siege and destruction of this city.

But these words are of more general application and meaning; “ye shall go forth” in all the occupations of life, but particularly in the means of grace; and: -

Mal 4:3
Ye shall tread down - This may be the commission given to the Romans: Tread down the wicked people, tread down the wicked place; set it on fire, and let the ashes be trodden down under your feet.

Mal 4:4
Remember ye the law of Moses - Where all these things are predicted. The Septuagint, Arabic, and Coptic, place this verse the last.

Mal 4:5
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet - This is meant alone of John the Baptist, as we learn from Luk_1:17 (note), in whose spirit and power he came.

Mal 4:6
And he shall turn (convert) the heart of the fathers (על al, with) the children - Or, together with the children; both old and young. Lest I come, and, finding them unconverted, smote the land with a curse, חרם cherem, utter extinction. So we find that, had the Jews turned to God, and received the Messiah at the preaching of John the Baptist and that of Christ and his apostles, the awful חרם cherem of final excision and execration would not have been executed upon them. However, they filled up the cup of their iniquity, and were reprobated, and the Gentiles elected in their stead. Thus, the last was first, and the first was last. Glory to God for his unspeakable gift!

There are three remarkable predictions in this chapter: -

1. The advent of John Baptist, in the spirit and authority of Elijah.

2. The manifestation of Christ in the flesh, under the emblem of the Sun of righteousness.

3. The final destruction of Jerusalem, represented under the emblem of a burning oven, consuming every thing cast into it.

These three prophecies, relating to the most important facts that have ever taken place in the history of the world, announced here nearly four hundred years before their occurrence, have been most circumstantially fulfilled.