The fact that Elias is given precedence is explained in the best way by far if it is a matter of the office of the eschatological prophet. For the Old Testament is already familiar with the idea of a return of Elias (Mal. 3:23f.), while the conception of an eschatological prophet like Moses is already developed, but a carrying away and personal return of Moses was reckoned with only gradually and in assimilation to the expectation of Elias. The view of a return together of Elias and Moses has precipitated itself more clearly in the Jewish Vorlage of Rev. 11:3ff.
Ferdinand Hahn, The Titles of Jesus in Christology
(trans. Harold Knight and George Ogg; London: Lutterworth press, 1969), 342 n.
16.