And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers - explained by some, that John's preaching should restore harmony families. But Luke 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 (cf. Malachi 1:2; Malachi 2:4; Malachi 2:6; Malachi 3:3-4).
Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. The threat here is, that if this restoration were not effected, Messiah's coming would prove a "curse" to the "earth," not a blessing. It proved so to guilty Jerusalem and the "earth" - i:e., the land of Judea-when it rejected Messiah at His first advent, though He brought blessing (Genesis 12:3) to those who accepted Him (John 1:11-13). Many were delivered from the common destruction of the nation through John's preaching, and were a "seed" or "remnant, according to the election of grace" (Romans 9:29; Romans 11:5). It will prove so to the disobedient at His second advent, at the same time that He comes to be glorified in His saints (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).
Curse - Hebrew [ cheerem ], 'a ban;' the fearful term applied by the Jews to the extermination of the guilty Canaanites. Under this ban Judea has long lain. Similar is the awful curse on all of Gentile churches who "love not the Lord Jesus" now (1 Corinthians 16:22). For if God spare not the natural branches, the Jews, much less will He spare the unbelieving professors of the Gentiles (Romans 11:20-21). It is deeply suggestive that the last utterance from heaven for 400 years before Messiah was the awful word "CURSE." Messiah's first word on the mount was "Blessed" (Matthew 5:3). The law speaks wrath: the Gospel blessing. Judea is now under the "curse," because it rejects Messiah; when the spirit of Elijah or a literal Elijah, shall bring the Jewish children back to the Hope of their "fathers," blessing shall be theirs; whereas the apostate "earth" shall be "smitten with the curse" previous to the coming restoration of all things (Zechariah 12:10-14).
Bengel remarks that the apocryphal books were first appended to the canonical by a blunder of the seventy Greek translators at Alexandria. The note that marked their apocryphal character was in course of time omitted. How great mistakes have originated from a little oversight!
May the writer of this Commentary and his readers have grace "to take heed to the sure word of prophecy, as unto a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn!" To the TRIUNE YAHWEH be all glory ascribed forever!
Remarks:
(1) The prospect of the day of judgment is a powerful stimulus to awaken sinners from their fatal slumber, and to stir up believers to increased diligence in the work of the Lord. The fire of God's wrath shall "burn up" utterly the proud transgressors, so as to leave them "neither root nor branch" (Malachi 4:1). The kingdom of this earth, so long usurped by Satan, shall be forever rid of him, and of all that do his bidding.
(2) The same Lord who shall be as a consuming fire to the ungodly, shall arise unto them that fear His name as "the Sun of righteousness, with healing in His wings" (Malachi 4:2). He is already their sun and shield (Psalms 84:11), and the Lord their righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6). He shall then crown the perfected work of grace in them with glory put upon them. They shall "go forth" emancipated from all the bonds of their present corruption, and "shall shine forth as the sun," reflecting Christ's brightness, "in the kingdom of their Father" (Matthew 13:43).
(3) The ungodly shall be "as ashes under the soles of the feet" of the saints in the great day of triumph of the Lord and His people (Malachi 4:3). The seeming prosperity of the ungodly, and the adversity of the godly, which are so perplexing to account for now, shall then be reversed forever.
(4) John the Baptist, in the spirit and power of Elijah, preached to the Jews the need of repentance, and of a return to the law of Moses, and to the obedience of their believing ancestors (Malachi 4:4-6). Conversion to God is the best preparation for the coming judgment, and that minister is the most efficient one who most resembles John the Baptist in turning "the disobedient to the wisdom of the just," and so "making ready a people prepared for the Lord" (Luke 1:17).
(5) Both John and the Lord Jesus announced the kingdom of heaven as at hand. But the unbelief of the Jews caused an adjournment of it for a time fixed in the counsels of God, just as the inheritance of Canaan, which was designed by the grace of God for the Israelites immediately after the exodus from Egypt, was through the perversity of the people deferred for 40 years. Compare Matthew 23:37-39 with Numbers 14:34. When Israel shall turn to the Lord, at the Lord's second coming, the kingdom shall then be no longer delayed, but shall come visibly, in manifested glory and blessedness, to the godly. But all who have not passed from under the condemnation of the law, through faith in the justifying righteousness and blood of Christ, shall be "smitten with a curse." This awful closing word of the Old Testament should ever ring in the ears of the unconverted, until they have found deliverance from the curse, in the Saviour, who has redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us. Then shall we realize, by blessed experience the closing prayer of the New Testament, "The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, Amen" (Revelation 22:21).