TEXT [Commentary]

  VII.   Appendix: Appeals to Ideal Old Testament Figures (4:4-6)

4 “Remember to obey the Law of Moses, my servant—all the decrees and regulations that I gave him on Mount Sinai[*] for all Israel.

5 “Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the LORD arrives. 6 His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

NOTES

4:4 [3:22] remember. This imperative verb (zakar [TH2142, ZH2349]) denotes more than the intellectual activity of recalling Yahweh’s deeds in history. Rather, it is an exhortation to act upon that knowledge by harnessing one’s will in obedience to God’s commandments.

4:6 [3:24] His preaching. The phrase is interpretive for the literal “he will turn” (see the discussion of shub [TH7725, ZH8740] in the note on 3:7).

COMMENTARY [Text]

The appendixes to Malachi are an editorial conclusion containing two postscripts. The first postscript references the ideal figure of Moses (4:4) and the second the ideal figure of Elijah (4:5-6). This epilogue serves double duty, concluding both the Book of the Twelve Prophets and the collection of Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible. The purpose of the epilogue appears to be that of uniting the Book of the Twelve Prophets with the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel) and the Primary History (Torah and Former Prophets) by means of the two ideal figures representing these literary collections in the Hebrew Bible. Thus, the association of the ideal figure of Elijah with the ideal of Moses works to invest the Latter Prophets with the same divine authority accorded the Primary History.

The first postscript calls the people of God to “remember to obey the Law of Moses” (4:4). The verb “remember” (see note on 4:4) “serves primarily to express an intellectual activity that is relational and personal” (TDOT 4.65). It is this “intellectual activity” that both informs and enables the human will to submit to the truth of God’s law. But remembering in the biblical world is more than mere cognition—it involves action. The posture of obedience to the word of God is the expected human response to divine revelation, whether as in the first Testament (1 Sam 15:22, “obedience is better than sacrifice”) or the second Testament (1 John 2:5, “those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him”). The vitality of the spiritual life of the community of faith depends, in part, on the ability to “re-identify” with the past (cf. Isbell 1980:77). That is, faith in God in the present tense and hope for divine restoration in the future tense is conditioned by the ability to remember the words and deeds of Yahweh in the past tense.

Ancient Israel’s identity was rooted in the Exodus event (Exod 12–14), and her existence was inseparably joined to the law of Moses (Deut 30:15). For this reason, the Hebrews were commanded: “This is a day to remember . . . [i.e., Passover] for all time” (Exod 12:14). The same is no less true for the Christian church. Her identity is inextricably tied to the cross of Christ (1 Cor 5:7, “Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us”). Likewise, her reason for being is defined by the two great commandments: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart . . .” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:37). For this reason, the church gathers regularly at the Lord’s Table to partake of bread and wine “in remembrance” of the new covenant sealed by the death of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 11:23-26).

The second postscript highlights two key themes prominent in Malachi and the entire Old Testament prophetic corpus: the “turning” of hearts and the ministry of reconciliation (4:6). The word “turn” is the Old Testament term for repentance and indicates a complete reversal in loyalties or an “about-face” in one’s direction. Implicit in this act of repentance is turning toward God, as Malachi exhorted his audience (3:7). The practical outcome of this repentance is the “turning” of children to parents and parents to children—or inter-generational reconciliation (4:6). The postscript refers not so much to “family discord” as it does to covenant renewal with Yahweh—the “resolution of opposites” in the sense of faithful ancestors versus faithless descendants or vice versa (cf. Petersen 1995:231).

The message of repentance is still applicable to the contemporary setting. As Scott (1953:218) so ably reminds us, “today as in every age the message of the evangelist must begin with a call to repentance.” Although the reconciliation of family discord is not the focus of the postscript in context, that message is certainly relevant given the breakdown of the nuclear family unit in Western society. The dissolution of the family is manifest in the rampant dysfunction seen in parents and children alike in the form of abuse, addiction, and obsessive behavior patterns. What better word for a society disintegrating slowly due to its own self-absorption than “turn” to God and to each other?

The announcement of Elijah as a forerunner prior to the “day of the LORD” may help clarify the nature and the character of the ministry of Malachi’s “messenger of the covenant” (3:1). Typologically, John the Baptist has been identified as the iconoclastic preacher of repentance fulfilling this prophecy (cf. Matt 11:14). The Gospel of Matthew hints that John was the Elijah figure in a limited way and that Elijah both “has come” and “is coming”—perhaps in the form of one of the witnesses prior to the end of the age (cf. Rev 11:3).

The epilogue of Malachi became a summons to the people of God for watchful waiting; it became a prelude to the coming of the Messiah as recorded in the New Testament. That clarion call to be alert for the intrusion of God into human history remains appropriate, as the Christian church awaits the second advent of Jesus Christ.