Malachi 4:6

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children,.... Or "with" the children, as Kimchi; and Ben Melech observes, that על is put for עם, and so in the next clause: and the heart of the

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.

And he; John the Baptist, who comes in the spirit and power of Elias. Shall turn; it shall be his office and work to turn, as it is the office of every preacher. The success is of God, who also gives it as he pleaseth, and did give it to John’ s ministry; and so the words include the event of John’ s preaching, which did, as here it is foretold he should, convert many. The heart of the fathers to the children: there were at this time many great and unnatural divisions and quarrels among the Jews, in which fathers studied mischief to their own children; they were divided and spitefully bent against them, in civil matters and on account of religion, and these turned their hearts from the dearest relations. Some by fathers and children understand Jews and Gentiles, whose souls being converted to Christ, their hearts were turned one to another. And the heart of the children to their fathers; undutiful children estranged by the same means and on the same accounts from their fathers, but now, by obeying the call to repentance, embracing the doctrine of the Messiah immediately to be revealed, and baptized into it, religious quarrels cease, and both parents’ and children’ s hearts unite to Christ first, and then to each ofher, and all to God. Lest I; God or Christ, who indeed first tenders the blessings of grace and peace, and gives them to such as accept; but this the Jews would not, the rulers, the priests, the body of the people, refused them: the next thing Christ (Lord and King, rejected and disowned) will do, is to curse and destroy. Smite the earth, the land of Judea, and the inhabitants of it, with a curse; which brings with it and ends in utter destruction; as at this day we read in the story of the Romans invading, subduing, captivating the Jews, and razing their city and temple. That time is past now one thousand six hundred and forty-four years since a stone was not left upon a stone, as was foretold by Christ, , since those unparalleled hardships and miseries befell the Jews, which no heart almost can read and not bleed at reading, (though at this distance of time,) and the sufferers so deservedly endured such a curse as leaveth Jerusalem a desolate heap, and a perpetual monument of God’ s displeasure against a people that finally sin against his sovereignty and his mercy. END OF VOL. II

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.Ver. 6. And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, &c.] John Baptist’ s office and efficacy is here described; he shall, as a powerful instrument (by preaching repentance, Matthew 3:2, and prevailing, as he did, with all sorts, even to admiration; so that all men mused in their hearts, whether he were the Christ or not, Luke 3:10; Luke 3:12; Luke 3:14-15), convert sinners from the errors of their way, reduce them to the faith of the old patriarchs, make them unanimous in the love of God and of one another, and tie them up together, as it were, by his baptism. For the multitude of believers "were of one heart and one soul," Acts 4:32 ( animo animaque inter se miscebantur, as Tertullian phraseth it), neither was there any controversy at all among them, as one ancient Greek copy subjoineth there. Controversies there were great store among the Jews, when the Baptist came. As Joseph found his brethren in Dothan, which signifieth defection, so did he. They were all gone out of the way; and, being led aside by the error of the wicked, they were fallen from their own steadfastness. Many strange opinions and dotages they had taken up, and were woefully divided; specially by those three different sects, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes; which the prophet Zechariah calleth three shepherds: that were to be destroyed in one month, at John’ s coming, Zechariah 11:8. The Pharisees were held the best of those three, si ad legem respexeris, saith Tremellius, if you look to the law; and St Paul, who was once a Pharisee of Pharisees, calleth them the most strict sect of the Jewish religion, Acts 26:5 (like those districtissimi Monachi among the Papists); and yet there were seven sorts of Pharisees, as we find in their Talmud. Hence much alienation of affection among them, and great animosities; father hating son, and son father, for truth’ s sake, as Matthew 10:35. So powerful should John be in his ministry, that although the leprosy were gotten into their heads, and were therefore held incurable, Leviticus 13:44, yet he should "turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord," Luke 1:17. All headstrong and brutish affections should be calmed and corrected, as Isaiah 11:6-8, and the peaceable wisdom from above instilled, James 3:17, so that they shall "endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," Ephesians 4:8. And albeit some jars may fall out (as between Paul and Barnabas), yet God’ s people can soon piece again, and reunite. Ut aer percussus non laeditur, imo ne dividitur quidem, sed refundit sese, et spissior redit, &c. As the air, divided by a stone or stroke, soon closeth and thickeneth the more.

(6) And he shall turn . . . to their fathers.—This does not refer to the settlement of family disputes, such as might have arisen from marriage with foreign wives. “The fathers are rather the ancestors of the Israelitish nation, the patriarchs, and generally the pious forefathers . . . The sons, or children, are the degenerate descendants of Malachi’s own time and the succeeding ages.”—Keil. “The hearts of the godly fathers and ungodly sons are estranged from one another. The bond of union—viz., the common love of God—is wanting. The fathers are ashamed of their children, and the children of their fathers.”—Hengstenberg. (Comp. particularly Isaiah 29:22-24, and the paraphrastic citation of Mal 4:6 in Luke 1:17.) Curse.—Better, ban. (Comp. Zechariah 14:11.) As with the conclusion of Isaiah, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes, so here the Jew read in the synagogue the last verse but one over again after the last verse, to avoid concluding with words of ill omen, thus: “Behold I send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of JEHOVAH.”

Verse 6. And he shall turn (convert) the heart of the fathers (על al, WITH) the children] Or, together with the children; both old and young. Lest I come, and, finding them unconverted, smite the land with a curse, חרם cherem, utter extinction. So we find that, had the Jews turned to God, and received the Messiah at the preaching of John the Baptist and that of Christ and his apostles, the awful חרם cherem of final excision and execration would not have been executed upon them. However, they filled up the cup of their iniquity, and were reprobated, and the Gentiles elected in their stead. Thus, the last was first, and the first was last. Glory to God for his unspeakable gift! There are three remarkable predictions in this chapter: - 1. The advent of John Baptist, in the spirit and authority of Elijah. 2. The manifestation of Christ in the flesh, under the emblem of the Sun of righteousness. 3. The final destruction of Jerusalem, represented under the emblem of a burning oven, consuming every thing cast into it. These three prophecies, relating to the most important facts that have ever taken place in the history of the world, announced here nearly four hundred years before their occurrence, have been most circumstantially fulfilled. In most of the Masoretic Bibles the fifth verse is repeated after the sixth - "Behold, I send unto you Elijah the prophet, before the great and terrible day of Jehovah come;" for the Jews do not like to let their sacred book end with a curse; and hence, in reading, they immediately subjoin the above verse, or else the fourth - "Remembering ye the law of Moses my servant." In one of my oldest MSS. the fifth verse is repeated, and written at full length: "Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." In another, only these words are added: "Behold, I will send you Elijah." It is on this ground that the Jews expect the reappearance of Elijah the prophet, and at their marriage-feast always set a chair and knife and fork for this prophet, whom they suppose to be invisibly present. But we have already seen that John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord, was the person designed; for he came in the spirit and power of Elijah, (see on Malachi 3:1), and has fulfilled this prophetic promise. John is come, and the Lord Jesus has come also; he has shed his blood for the salvation of a lost world; he has ascended on high; he has sent forth his Holy Spirit; he has commissioned his ministers to proclaim to all mankind redemption in his blood; and he is ever present with them, and is filling the earth with righteousness and true holiness. Hallelujah! The kingdoms of this world are about to become the kingdoms of God and our Lord Jesus!

6. he shall turn the heart of the fathers] The “fathers” here are the patriarchs, whom the prophet regards as estranged from their degenerate “children”, or descendants, and ceasing to acknowledge them on account of their unworthy character and conduct. (Comp. Isaiah 63:16; Matthew 3:9.) When “the heart of the children is turned to their fathers”, so that they seek to imitate their example and walk in their ways, or, in other words, when “the disobedient” are turned “to walk in the wisdom of the just” (Luke 1:17, R.V.), then the heart of the fathers will turn to them again in paternal recognition and love. Some think (and the rendering with, R.V. margin, instead of to, favours the view), that the prophet refers to a state of discord and dissension between contending sections of the Jewish people, the old conservative, the young revolutionary, such as would need the intervention of a powerful prophet to correct. But is there any proof that this was the state of society with which John Baptist had to deal? Was not rather the whole nation corrupt and in need of being restored to its pristine purity? with a curse] The Masoretic direction is to read again at the end of this Book the last verse but one (Malachi 4:5), in order to avoid concluding with the ominous word “curse” or “ban”; and the LXX., presumably with the same object, place Malachi 4:4 after Malachi 4:5-6. Yet the dark close of the Old Testament, “Lest I come and smite with the curse”, rightly understood, is the truest preparation for the bright opening of the New, “Behold, I am come to bless!”

And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children - Now they were unlike, and severed by that unlikeness from each other.

CLOSING , Malachi 4:4-6.The last three verses of the book of Malachi have no immediate connection with the preceding section; they must be understood rather as closing admonitions belonging to the