From Isaiah’s covenant theology, Malachi’s prophecy of the hearts of the fathers turning to the children and the hearts of the children turning to their fathers before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord—lest he should come and smite the earth with a curse (Malachi 4:5–6)—defines the formula for obtaining God’s divine protection under the terms of the Davidic Covenant. The Hebrew word the KJV translates as “children” (banim) literally means “sons.”
The added function of the holy priesthood in the context of “the promises made to the fathers” (Doctrine & Covenants 2:1–3) within this end-time scenario again attests to a covenant context. Those “promises” constitute blessings pertaining to God’s covenants with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with King David and his heirs, and others. The “curse” in Malachi’s prophecy, on the other hand, speaks of the misfortunes or curses that form a part of every covenant God makes.
The terms “fathers” and “sons,” moreover, denote the roles of proxy saviors and those to whom they minister in order to obtain their physical protection in the face of a mortal threat. Malachi identifies that threat as “the great and dreadful day of the Lord”—God’s end-time Day of Judgment upon the world that precedes Jesus’ second coming. While Latter-day Saints have focused on temple ordinances’ fulfilling Malachi’s prophecy, are there parts we have missed?
Scriptural patterns of proxy saviors operating under the terms of the Davidic Covenant include King David himself—as when “all these men of war, who could keep rank, came with a perfect heart to Hebron to make David king over all Israel; and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart to make David king” (1 Chronicles 12:38). From then on, Israel grew powerful. The Lord reversed their subjection to the Philistines and they overcame all their enemies (2 Samuel 3:18).
A second scriptural pattern—one from Isaiah’s day—were the people of King Hezekiah when Hezekiah spoke to his people at the time Assyria threatened them with destruction: “Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel that his fierce wrath may turn away from us. My sons, be not now negligent: for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him, to serve him, and that ye should minister unto him, and burn incense. (2 Chronicles 29:10–11).
As the great and terrible day of the Lord approaches, most applicable to Malachi’s scenario are the covenants God makes with end-time proxy saviors—“fathers” who minister to “sons” who are of the house of Israel, as Isaiah predicts (Isaiah 49:22–23; 61:6–7). As kingly intercessors and as priestly offerors of an acceptable sacrifice of their whole souls to God, they restore them spiritually to God’s covenant and deliver them physically out of destruction to lands of promise.
