These are the last two verses of the Old Testament in the order our Bibles print it. Malachi has spent four chapters arguing with people who answer every charge with How have we? The arguing stops here. What remains is a sentence in the first person, and it begins with the word Malachi used when he first promised a forerunner: Behold. In 3:1 God said he would send his messenger. That messenger was never named. Now he gets a name.
Elijah is a fitting choice. On Carmel he asked a people limping between two opinions to choose one (1 Kings 18:21). He met God at Horeb (1 Kings 19:8), the mountain of the law that Malachi has just told the people to remember (Malachi 4:4). Moses and Elijah are the law and the prophets in shorthand. Ending the book on these two names ties the beginning of the story to its end and points ahead.
Then the work Elijah is sent to do: 6"he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers." The sentence runs both directions, so the reconciliation does too. A generation that stopped trusting those before it and a generation that stopped caring about those after it are both being turned. Families are where a covenant lives or dies, and Malachi has already spoken of faithlessness in marriage and household (Malachi 2:10-16). The promised remedy is a family one.
And then the threat, the last word: 6"lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction." The Hebrew word is herem, the ban, used of Jericho when everything in the city was devoted to destruction (Joshua 6:17). It is the final word of the book in Hebrew. Jewish practice has the reader repeat the previous verse aloud so that the book will not close on the curse. Lest means that the coming of the day is certain and the striking is not. Elijah's work stands between the two.
Gabriel tells a priest about a son who will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and to make ready a people prepared (Luke 1:17). He is quoting Malachi. Jesus says of John that, if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come (Matthew 11:14). Turn the page after Malachi, and the New Testament opens with a list of fathers and sons: Abraham the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob (Matthew 1:1-2). The Old Testament ends with the hearts of fathers and children, and the New Testament opens on fathers and children.
The previous book already carries the answer to the curse. Zechariah closes with a promise that Jerusalem will never again face a decree of utter destruction (Zechariah 14:11), the same word, herem, repealed. Paul explains how: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). The Bible's last vision says it once more: no longer will there be anything accursed (Revelation 22:3). The ban Malachi feared was carried out on one man, outside the gate of the city.
The work God says must happen before the day is the turning of hearts. Which hearts in your own family have turned away from an older generation or a younger one? A grown child who stopped calling, a parent we stopped forgiving, a grandchild we do not know how to reach. The ministry that turns such hearts was sent, has come, and is still what the gospel does. We can ask that it turn ours.
Prayer
Father, you had the last word of the Old Testament, and you made it a warning and a promise together. Thank you that you sent your messenger, that he prepared a people, and that the one he pointed to took the curse we had earned. Turn our hearts toward the ones before us and the ones after us. Where a family has grown cold, warm it, and where we hold a grudge, loosen it. In Jesus' name, amen.