Malachi 4:4-6 “Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: 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.”
The last three verses of Malachi close the Old Testament cannon. It is undoubtedly a conclusion and gives both a warning and a promise. There would be no more prophetic words given by the Holy Spirit until the beginning of the Gospel of the coming Messiah. The intervening period of 400 years have been called, "The Silent Years." The warning was to obey the commandments given by Moses the Servant of God. The promise was that God would send Elijah before the coming of the Messiah. The Jewish doctors of the law believed that it would be the same Elijah of the Old Testament. Christians on the other hand, know that John the Baptist was the fulfillment of this prophecy. Matthew 11:13-14. “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.”
The second part of the promise in Malachi is that this Elijah would "turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” Literally: this Elijah would turn back the children of Israel to the God of their fathers to follow Him with their whole hearts, not merely the keeping of the ceremonial law.
A number of applications have been made from this passage over the centuries. Most commonly, these verses have been claimed by parents seeking to bring wayward children back into right relationships. While this is not the primary meaning of the passage, it's not wrong to claim it in such a way. And many a broken-hearted father and mother have prayed these verses asking the Lord to turn around a rebellious child. And God has honored this prayer for the Lord certainly honors the prayer of a broken and contrite heart. After all it was God Himself who says, “Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Jeremiah 33:3.
