NOTES for Mal 4:5-6
The prophet Malachi says that Elijah will come to turn the hearts of children to their fathers and the hearts of fathers to their children. And for some reason Elijah must come for this... After all, it would seem that what could be more natural than love between children and parents? Yet each of us, if not in our own family, then in the families of friends, has surely encountered the fact that loving the closest and dearest people is hardest of all. It is in the family that the most cruel wounds are inflicted, because the closest person causes far more pain than a stranger. And the Lord wants to heal these relationships. One must prepare for the day of the Lord, and reconciliation in the family is one of the chief works He expects from us.