Malachi 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
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.
If one foretells the future and the events come true, he has succeeded. If a prophet foretells the future and the events come true, he has failed. Old Rabbinic teaching.
Someone recently pointed out to me that the word turn and curse are not your usual words in Hebrew for turn and curse. I feel I would have to agree. The word turn used in Malachi 4:6 is hashiv which means a turning in the sense of restoration rather than just turning around or turning to look at something. It is in a Hiphal perfect form. Initially I felt it was an infinitive construct but grammatically that would not fit, so I would agree with Davidson who points out that this is in a Hiphal perfect form. It is Elijah the prophet who will come and turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. This is a prophetic event that speaks of a certain time.
In Christianity we teach that this was fulfilled with John the Baptist. Although I had problems with the birth of Christ as a dreadful day. That word dreadful in the Hebrew is yara which could also mean marvelous or glorious. That softens it a little.
The reference is also to the house of Israel and it is generally agreed by Biblical scholars both Christian and Jewish that this is a reference to the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob returning to the beliefs of their fathers. Some believe that the sharp divisions caused by the school of Hillel and Shammai were restored at the coming of Jesus. The early Christians were Jews who forgot their petty differences created by the contradictory teaching of Hillel and Shammai and were united under their love for Jesus their Messiah.
Today the Jews are looking for the literal return of the Elijah to herald the coming of the Messiah. They will even open a door during the ceremony of the Passover to symbolically welcome the coming of Elijah who will unite all the Jews of the world.
What gets my attention in these passages is the fact that the prophet is prophesying that Elijah is going to come to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers and if this does not happen, the earth is going to be smitten with a curse. I will smite the earth with a curse in the text is hikethi eth ha’arets charam. Hikethi is a Hiphal perfect form of nakah. Hence the earth is already smitten with this curse. It is like, you know, too late, we’ve got the disease, what we need now is the cure. The cure is the uniting of the hearts of the children with their fathers.
The hearts of the father to the children should be read a little differently. There is considerable debate of the rendering of the Hebrew word al. The word is commonly rendered as with but many translators insist it should be to. There is a subtle difference between restoring the hearts of the fathers to their children rather that with their children. I believe we should go with the traditional rendering of the word al as with. Hence the hearts of the fathers are restored with the children and the children with the fathers. This would be more in keeping with an old Semitic idiom, the child’s heart is with his father. This is to say, he is in agreement. It is often said that the best settlement to a business deal is where neither party walks away happy but are in agreement. In other words, neither party got all that they wanted but they met somewhere in the middle and found acceptable terms which they could agree upon. This is kind of the idea behind that Semitic idiom. The hearts of the fathers are in agreement with the hearts of the children, he may not go along with everything, but they do agree on the important issues, we call it a compromise.
Compromise is a dirty word among many Christians. Unless you believe exactly the way I believe you are going to hell and don’t you even try to get me to bend on my dispensational view of the rapture. Yet when we stand in the presence of Jesus who came on that great and glorious day it is not going to matter whether we are dispensational theology, covenant theology, replacement theology, orthodox theology or whatever theology. All that matters is that we love Him. It won’t matter if He turns out to be a Capulet or a Montague, that Rose by any theology still smells as sweet.
Yet, if we do not unite under one common bond of love in Jesus Christ, we will come under the curse that has smitten this earth. The word curse is a very unusual word to be rendered as curse. It is the word charam in Hebrew. In its Semitic origins it comes from a Canaanite word meaning to flatten one’s nose. As it passed through the Semitic languages it took on the idea of tearing off one’s nose or mutilating. It became known as defacing, scorched earth, making something ugly. The nose is really the focal point of one’s beauty. If someone does any cosmetic surgery usually the first thing to be changed is the nose. You rip off someone’s nose and they will instantly become ugly. I believe that is the curse that God is speaking of here. The reference is to petty doctrinal issues like those that arose between the schools of Hillell and Shammai. The infighting becomes so great within the church that they can rip the nose off of God and turn Him into something ugly.
One of the greatest curses charams or making ugly on the church today is all it’s infighting over petty theological issues. People on the outside watching all the infighting, arguing, and petty disputes will say, “I cannot be a part of your God, he is too charam, ugly.”
The wonderful thing about a prophet foretelling the future as opposed to a foreteller of the future is that the prophet’s prediction does not have to come true if you follow certain rules. In this case if the heart of the father is with the heart of the child, that is if they agree on the most important issue that the great and marvelous day of the Lord has come with the loving appearance of Jesus Christ, then this charam, curse, or ugliness will not fall upon the church.
I fear with many parts of the church today, the prophet Malachi has failed, his prediction has come true.
Recent Comments