Malachi 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.

And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet. It shall be a great reversal. He that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he, that humbleth himself shall be exalted - Here the wicked often have the pre-eminence. This was the complaint of the murmurers among the Jews; in the morning of the Resurrection Psalm 49:14, "the upright shall have dominion over them." The wicked, he had said, shall be as stubble, and that day Psalm 4:1, "shall burn them up;" here, then, they are as the ashes, the only remnant of the stubble, as the dust under the feet. "The elect shall rejoice, that they have, in mercy, escaped such misery. Therefore they shall be kindled inconceivably with the divine love, and shall from their inmost heart give thanks unto God." And being thus of one mind with God, and seeing all things as He seeth, they will rejoice in His judgments, because they are His. For they cannot have one slightest velleity, other than the all-perfect Will of God. So Isaiah closes his prophecy Isaiah 66:24, "And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men, that have transgressed against Me, for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring to all flesh. So Psalm 58:10. The righteous shall rejoice, when he seeth the vengeance;" and another Psalmist Psalm 107:42, "The righteous shall see and rejoice; and all wickedness shall stop her mouth; and Job JObadiah 22:19. The righteous see and are glad, and the innocent laugh them to scorn."

4:3 Tread down the wicked - When believers by faith overcome the world, when they suppress their corrupt appetites and passions, and when the God of peace bruises Satan under their feet, then they indeed tread down the wicked.