Passage
Behold, I send unto you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and terrible day of Jehovah.
Behold, I send unto you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and terrible day of Jehovah.
Malachi 4:3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I prepare, saith Jehovah of hosts.
Malachi 4:4 Remember the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, the statutes and ordinances.
Malachi 4:5 Behold, I send unto you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and terrible day of Jehovah.
Malachi 4:6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
The verse centers on "behold", "send", "elijah", "prophet", "before", "coming", "great", and "terrible". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "behold" and "send", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 4's "Remember the law of Moses my servant..." into verse 6's "And he shall turn the heart of...", so "behold" and "send" belong inside that flow. In Malachi context, the local focus is covenant faithfulness, priestly corruption, divine justice, and the coming day of the LORD.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "behold" and "send" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.