| Malachi 4:1
| For behold the day shall come, kindled as a furnace: and all the proud, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall set them on fire, saith the Lord of hosts, it shall not leave them root, nor branch.
| Furnace. At the day of judgment, the difference between the just and the wicked will plainly appear. (Worthington) --- This sense is most generally given, as well as to those words where our Saviour speaks of the signs of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the end of the world together, Matthew 24:3., and Luke 21:5. Yet the prophet may also allude to the punishment of the Jews by the Romans, when all were assembled at the Passover, (Calmet) a scourge which the Christians escaped by retiring to Pella. (Eusebius, History of the Church 3:5.) --- Proud. Septuagint, "strangers." (Calmet) --- Branch. No hope shall remain. (Menochius)
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