Malaquías 3:23 Comentario: Tze'enah Ure'enah

“Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah” [3:23]. I will send you the prophet Elijah one day before the Messiah will come and before the day of judgment will come, in the hope that Elijah will make Israel, the fathers and the children, pious to God.

Midrash Rabbah writes. The sun has a covering and it goes out in this covering. Without it, it might burn up the whole world and that is why it has a covering. A river of water flows before the sun and when the sun is supposed to rise to shine over the world, the Holy One weakens the fire of the sun with that water so that it should not burn up all the people in the world. However, when the Messiah will come, the Holy One will allow the sun to go naked over the world. The evildoers will be burned and the sun will heal Israel.⁷Genesis Rabbah, 6.6; Yalkut Shimoni, Malachi, Remez, 593.

Tanna debe Eliyahu writes. When the Messiah will come, the Holy One will sit in His great study hall and the righteous will sit before the Holy One and study. Later, they will bring in the evildoers and they will be judged. Some for thirty days, some for three months, some for six months, but none longer than twelve months. Later, the righteous will come before the Holy One and say: Lord of the Universe, the same people that you have judged have also prayed, evening and morning, read the Shema, and fulfilled other commandments. The Holy One responded: you go and heal them. Immediately, the righteous went and stood on the ashes of those people and prayed for them. The Holy One raised them to their feet from under the feet of the righteous and they came into the life of the world to come.⁸Tanna debe Eliyahu, chap. 3; Yalkut Shimoni, Malachi, Remez, 593.