When Moroni
appeared to the prophet Joseph Smith in 1823, he quoted, among other texts,
Malachi 4:5-6. Notwithstanding, he made alterations thereto, not as part of a “textual
restoration” of the original Malachi (such “expansions” do not appear in 3 Nephi
25:5-6), but to
bring out more explicitly what would happen vis-à-vis the future-coming of
Elijah. As a result, it would be beneficial to some to read them side-by-side:
Malachi 4:5-6 (KJV)
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D&C 2
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Behold, I
will send you the Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and
dreadful day of the Lord
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Behold, I
will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet,
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
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And he
shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the
children to the fathers;
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And he
shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers,
and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers.
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lest I
come and smite the earth with a curse
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If it were
not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.
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The change
that stood out to me is the use of “plant” (Heb:יסד ; LXX: θεμελιοω) instead of “turn”—the term “plant” is the language
of creation. One is reminded of Isa 51:15-16 where God is speaking to an
elevated human figure who will be the agent of the New Creation (see The
High view of "Mere Men" in Sirach, Isaiah, and the Sibylline Oracles
for a fuller discussion). I read this as God, as a result of Elijah’s coming
(see D&C 110) “planting” into the hearts of people a desire to turn to
their fathers (such
would explain the explosion of genealogical research post-1836).
On the issue
of the Latter-day Saint belief that Elijah would come in a time just before the
Second Coming and that Mal 4:5-6 was not fulfilled (at least exhaustively) by
John the Baptist, see: