Malachi 4 - Great day of the LORD

The great day of the LORD was often mentioned across the Old Testament and New Testament.

Old Testament : Zeph 1:14-18, Isa 2:12-21, 13:6-13, 34:8; Joel 2:1-11, 31; Jer 46:10; New Testament : Acts 2:20, 1 Thess 5:2; 2 Pet 3:10; Rev 6:17, 16:14;

A friendly reminder, to read the surround texts around the quoted scriptures to get the context.

The clear contrast in between the evil and the righteous paint two entirely different pictures of the consequences on the great day of the LORD. It will be a day of vindication, healing & restoration for those who walk in righteousness following our Lord Jesus Christ but it will be a day of destruction for those who continue to defy the Lord, arrogant, doing all sorts of evil things intentionally harming others. Thru Malachi, we are exhorted to remember the teachings of Moses’ teachings, the statutes and ordinances at Horeb/ Mount Sinai for all Israel. When one read carefully the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 that the Lord gave Moses and then read the expounded rules & regulations in the book of Exodus 21 & Deuteronomy 6 onwards, it derives from one great commandment.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” God gave all the rules and regulations to help them live harmoniously and peacefully in a community as they were assimilated by the culture of Egypt. They were given a purpose to become a priestly nation so that all other nations may know the Lord. That doesn’t mean that they are more important or esteemed higher than others but they now hold a responsibility to help others to know God, to become a blessing to others & fulfill the will of God. God is God of patient, love, kindness, mercy, just & righteous, He is also extremely generous & selfless. Take a look at Jesus Christ and I believe also in our lives, occasionally we come across people who have those character as well.

This is to prepare a ground for an understanding how the rules & regulations derives from that one great commandment. If one love the Lord with all the heart, soul and might, everything that the person does will be for the Lord’s sake and there’s no space for any other thoughts or evil intent. So the principle is vital when following the Lord by focusing on our Lord and to live a life that does not harm others. If one truly loves the Lord, they will be able to love others as well and when the heart is pure and wants to do good to others, those rules don’t even bind them nor even trouble them because they won’t have those evil intention. That’s what it meant by the laws & rules are meant to protect and not to oppress. The foundation or the root is important, in this case we call it principle of God. Such as mercy over sacrifice, what’s beneficial and good for a life from God’s perception. We may know everything about God neither can we ever … but from reading the Bible and the teaching of Jesus Christ, it is clear what please the Lord.

So the whole book of Malachi recorded the prophecy of the Messiah to come, God will send the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. This part of the prophecy was fulfilled in the New Testament. John the Baptist was known for his strict diet & moral values, he had the spirit of Elijah, his disciples also followed strict regulations of prayers and fasting. John the Baptist came to prepare the way for the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, Iēsous (Ἰησους) in Greek, yĕhôšûa in Hebrew. This excerpt may help to view Mal 4:6 from another perspective :

The JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot Text and Comments

He shall reconcile parents with children The language is difficult and ambiguous. The act of reconciliation is literally “restore the heart” (heshiv lev), but the preposition ʿal leaves open whether the prophet envisions the reconciliation of parents “with” their children or “along with” them. In the first case, the divine wrath will be forestalled by intergenerational reconciliation; in the other, all members of that time (both generations) will be restored to God. The double action in verse 24a seems to suggest that Elijah will work to bring harmony between the generations, reciprocally; but this formulation may simply be a rhetorical flourish. On either reading, events on a family level bring to a climax the figure of divine-human (father-child) relations found elsewhere in the book (Mal. 1:6; 3:17). Healing between parents and children is thus part of the nation’s reconciliation with their God, and the textual ambiguity imbeds a profound and double-edged point. The earthly interventions of Elijah after his ascension to heaven (2 Kings 2:11) show a new turn in prophecy. Another work of the Persian period mentions a “letter” of reproof sent by Elijah in God’s name to king Jehoram (2 Chron. 21:12–15).9 In rabbinic literature, many new roles were imagined for Elijah upon his earthly advent (see below). Anticipating these, Ben Sira (180 B.C.E.) says that the prophet will not only “reconcile” parents and children (and so “assuage” God’s wrath); he will also restore the exilic tribes to their homeland (Ecclus. 48:10–11). In this he has given a midrashic twist to the verb heshiv and understood it to refer to an act of national “return” (cf. Deut. 30:3 and Targum Jonathan to v. 4).

When we read more about the New Testament, we’ll know how Jesus Christ has a clear boundary in between love and hate. He loves righteousness and hate evil. He called out the pharisees because of their hypocrisy, dine with the tax collectors & touched a man with skin disease and heal him. He accepts the tax collectors for they were despised by the community because of their greed, but Jesus Christ befriend them and lead them to repentance. The man with skin disease had no social life due to the isolation from his condition, but Jesus Christ did not shun him away, He touched him and healed him. That’s our Lord Jesus Christ, one who is compassionate, full of love & mercy, but also know to call out evil in order that they reach repentance.

In summary, the chapter encourages us focus on God and to seek Him, remember what Peter said in 2 Peter 3:1-13 “The Lord is not slow about His promises, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.” Let us be encouraged to continue to do righteousness & wait for the Lord.

Bibliography :

1. New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition. 2021. Friendship Press.
2. Meyer, Ben F. 1992. “Jesus (Person): Jesus Christ.” In The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday.
3. Fishbane, Michael A. 2002. Haftarot. The JPS Bible Commentary. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.