Malachi 4:6

Malachi 4:6 in other versions

• King James Version (KJV)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.
• New International Version (NIV)He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
• English Standard Version (ESV)And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction."
• New King James Version (NKJV)And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

Context of Malachi 4:6

4‘Remember the rules that I gave to my servant Moses at Sinai mountain. Those rules and laws were for all the Israelites to obey. 5Look! I will send my prophet Elijah to you. He will come before that great day of the Lord arrives. That will be a day that makes people afraid. He will speak my message, so that fathers and their children return together to me. Then I will not have to come and bring punishment on the land.’

Malachi 4:6 word by word

וְהֵשִׁ֤יב לֵב־אָבוֹת֙ עַל־בָּנִ֔ים וְלֵ֥ב בָּנִ֖ים עַל־אֲבוֹתָ֑ם פֶּן־אָב֕וֹא וְהִכֵּיתִ֥י אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ חֵֽרֶם׃Read the interlinear

Words taken from the KJV.

• And he shall turnשׁוּבshûb · to return: turn backH7725
• the heartלֵבlêb · heartH3820
• of the fathersאָב'âb · fatherH1
• to the childrenבֵּןbên · son: childH1121
• lest I comeבּוֹאbô' · to come (in): comeH935
• and smiteנָכָהnâkâh · to smiteH5221
• the earthאֶ֫רֶץ'erets · land: country/planetH776
• with a curseחֵ֫רֶםchêrem cherem · devoted thingH2764

Cross-references for Malachi 4:6

• Luke 1:16He will teach many people in Israel. Then they will turn their lives back to the Lord their God and they will obey God again.
• Isaiah 61:2He has sent me to say, ‘This is the year when the Lord will be kind to his people.’ It is the time when our God will punish our enemies. He has sent me to comfort people who are weeping because they are sad.
• Daniel 9:26After the 62 weeks have passed, people will kill the ruler that God had chosen. He will have nothing. Then a foreign ruler and his army will attack the city and the temple. He will destroy them quickly, like a flood of water. War and terrible trouble will continue until the end that God has decided.
• Zechariah 11:6The Lord says, ‘The people in this country were my people, but they are not my people now. I will not go on being kind to them. I myself will give them to their enemies and to foreign kings. The foreign kings will do very bad things to the country, but I will not come to help.’
• Zechariah 13:8In the whole country,’ says the Lord, ‘two thirds of the people will die. But one third will still be living there.
• Zechariah 14:2I will bring soldiers from all countries to fight against Jerusalem. They will go into the city and they will rob the houses. They will have sex with the women. They will lead away half the people to other countries. They will let the other half stay in Jerusalem.
• Matthew 22:7The king was very angry. He sent his soldiers to the city where those people lived. They killed the people who killed the king's servants. They destroyed their city with fire.
• Matthew 23:35Because of all this, God will punish you for all the good people that you and your ancestors have killed. Long ago, Abel was the first of those good people. You also killed Zechariah, the son of Berekiah. He died in the yard of the temple near the altar.
• Matthew 24:27Lightning shines quickly and it lights up the whole of the sky from one side to the other. It will be like that when the Son of Man returns.
• Mark 13:14There will be a time when you will see in the temple a disgusting thing that causes trouble. You will see it in a place where it should not be. (When you read this, you must understand what it means.) At that time, people in Judea must run away to the hills to hide.
• Luke 19:41When Jesus got near to the city, he looked at it. He cried because he felt very sorry for the people in it.
• Luke 21:22This is when God will punish Israel's people. Then all the things will happen that his servants wrote about in the Bible.
• Deuteronomy 29:19Nobody who hears the message of this covenant should think that they can go against it. Someone might say to himself, ‘I do not have to obey this covenant. I will be safe, whatever happens. God will still bless me.’ A person who thinks like that will bring trouble on everyone and on everything.
• Isaiah 24:6That is why a curse is destroying the land. The people who live on it are guilty and God is punishing them. They become fewer and fewer. Only a very few of them remain.
• Isaiah 43:28So I caused the priests of your temple to become ashamed. I caused enemies to destroy Israel. I let them insult Jacob's descendants.’
• Isaiah 65:15My own people will use your names when they curse others. The Almighty Lord will kill you, but he will give to his servants another name.

Commentaries on Malachi 4:6

• Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 6And he shall turn (convert) the heart of the fathers (על al, with) the children - Or, together with the children; both old and young. Lest I come, and, finding them unconverted, smote the land with a curse, חרם cherem, utter extinction. So we find that, had the Jews turned to God, and received the Messiah at the preaching of John the Baptist and that of Christ and his apostles, the awful חרם cherem of final excision and execration would not have been…Read the comment
• Barnes’ Notes on the Bible · v. 6And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children - Now they were unlike, and severed by that unlikeness from each other. Yet not on earth, for on earth parents and children were alike alienated from God, and united between themselves in wickedness or worldliness. The common love of the world or of worldly pursuits, or gain or self-exaltation, or making a fortune or securing it, is, so far, a common bond of interest to those of one family…Read the comment
• Matthew Henry Concise Commentary · v. 4-6Verses 4-6 Here is a solemn conclusion, not only of this prophecy, but of the Old Testament. Conscience bids us remember the law. Though we have not prophets, yet, as long as we have Bibles, we may keep up our communion with God. Let others boast in their proud reasoning, and call it enlightening, but let us keep near to that sacred word, through which this Sun of Righteousness shines upon the souls of his people. They must keep up a believing expectation…Read the comment
• Tyndale Open Study Notes · v. 6he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children: Two key themes in Malachi and the Old Testament prophets are turning hearts and reconciliation. In the Old Testament, turn means repentance and a complete change of loyalties. Turning toward God results in reconciliation between generations (see 2 Corinthians 5:18–20). strike the land with a curse: The word curse means total destruction (see Deuteronomy 7:26; 1 Samuel 15:18; Zechariah 14:11). The…Read the comment
• Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 66. turn ... heart of ... fathers to ... children, &c.--Explained by some, that John's preaching should restore harmony in families. But Lu 1:16, 17 substitutes for "the heart of the children to the fathers," "the disobedient to the wisdom of the just," implying that the reconciliation to be effected was that between the unbelieving disobedient children and the believing ancestors, Jacob, Levi, "Moses," and "Elijah" (just mentioned) (compare Mal 1:2; 2:4…Read the comment

Topics related to Malachi 4:6

• John
• Malachi
• Messenger
• Parents
• Prophecy
• Quotations and Allusions

In the dictionaries

• Dreadful
• Malachi
• Wickedly
• Accursed
• Eschatology of the New Testament
• Eschatology of the Old Testament
• Jesus Christ
• Restoration
• Vulgate
• Messiah

Commentaries on Malachi 4

• Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
• Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
• Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
• Tyndale Open Study Notes
• Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
• Calvin’s Commentaries
• Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
• John Wesley’s Notes
• Darby Translation Notes
• Geneva Bible Translation Notes
• Kingcomments
• Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
• Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
• Scofield Reference Notes, 1917 Edition
• Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
• EGW Writings