HEBREW
WORD
STUDY
FORETELLER OR PROPHET
–
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.