<p>11:10&nbsp;<em>This is he-&nbsp;</em>The emphasis is on the word &quot;is&quot;. He&nbsp;<em>was</em>&nbsp;the prophet who came to herald Messiah. And yet John had denied that he was Elijah, nor &quot;that prophet&quot; (Jn. 1:20), surely a reference to the Elijah prophet; even though he later stated that he had been 'sent before' Messiah (Jn. 3:28), and was the voice of the Isaiah 40 prophet crying in the wilderness (Jn. 1:23). The Lord is saying 'Actually, John&nbsp;<em>was</em>&nbsp;that prophet. He initially denied it in his humility, but he really was and is &quot;that prophet&quot;. Now again his humility has led him to self-denial, he's wondering whether in fact I am the Elijah prophet and the Messiah Himself is yet to be 'looked for'. But take it on My authority- he really was the Elijah prophet, even though his humility leads him to self-doubt at times'. See on :14&nbsp;<em>this is Elijah</em>.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Of whom it is written: Listen</em>- AV &quot;Behold&quot;. An invitation to perceive, and the Lord was asking them to perceive in that imprisoned man a great prophet, to see beyond his temporary, surface-level crisis of John, to perceive that &quot;this&nbsp;<em>is&nbsp;</em>he&quot;.</p>
<p><em>I send my messenger before your face; he shall prepare your way before you-&nbsp;</em>The pronouns are somewhat different from the original in Mal. 3:1: &quot;Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before [My face] ... says Yahweh of Armies&quot;. Jesus, as the face and presence of God to men, interpreted the words of His Father as being spoken personally to Him. The way was prepared before God's face, according to Malachi, but God's Son applies that to Himself. That is not to say that Jesus was God in any Trinitarian sense. He was the supreme manifestation of God, and He quotes Malachi 3 in such a way as to teach that to those with ears to hear. We have a window here onto how the Lord Jesus read Scripture; passages about His Father were applied by Him to Himself, but that is no claim by Him to be God Himself in person.</p>
<p>The Lord is reminding the crowds who had gone out to hear John in the wilderness that&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;were the way which John had tried to prepare, and He was now the face of Yahweh standing before them. But they had become side-tracked from the essence of personal transformation by a worry about the credibility and humanity of the messenger; and again, this is a principle which badly needs our attention in our own path. So often believers leave the path, the way prepared, because of the perceived weakness or plain humanity of the one who taught them.</p>
<p>The Hebrew text being quoted in Mal. 3:1 has a word play here. &quot;Prepare&quot; translates&nbsp;<em>panah</em>, meaning to turn the face (s.w. Gen. 18:22 where the Angels &quot;turned their faces&quot;), and &quot;Before [your face]&quot; translates&nbsp;<em>paniym</em>. The idea is that the messenger would turn the faces of people towards the face of God. The height of the calling was hard for Jewish minds, indeed for any human mind, to take on board; that the God whose face even Moses could not see can be seen face to face, thanks to the work of John the &quot;messenger&quot; turning men's faces to the face of Christ, who is the image of God. No wonder the people so easily became distracted from the height and wonder of the invitation, by focusing upon the fact that a depressed and humble prophet awaiting death in a dark prison cell had some crisis of Biblical interpretation. And so, so often the wonder of our calling likewise is eagerly forgotten by us and eclipsed by petty gossip and speculation about the faith and possible spiritual status of another man.</p>