4:5–6 Behold, I will
send you Elijah the prophet, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord
comes. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of
the sons to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with anathema.
Septuagint: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the Thesbite, before the
great and glorious day of the Lord comes; who shall turn the heart of the
father to the son, and the heart of a man to his neighbor, lest I come and
strike the land completely.”
After Moses—whose commands, we pointed out, must be observed
spiritually—he says that Elijah must be sent. In Moses he is signifying the
law, in Elijah, prophecy, since Abraham says to a certain rich man dressed in
purple: “They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them.” And when
the Lord and Savior was transfigured on the mountain, he had Moses and Elijah
speaking with him in bright garments, who were also telling him the things he
was about to suffer in Jerusalem. For the law and the whole choir of the
prophets predict the passion of Christ. Therefore, before the Day of Judgment comes and the Lord strikes the earth with
anathema, either “wholly,” or “suddenly,” as the Septuagint translated
it—for this is what ἄρδην
means—the Lord will send in Elijah—who means “my God,” and he is from the town
of Thisbe, which means conversion and repentance—the whole choir of prophets,
who turns the heart of the fathers to the
sons, namely Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and of all the patriarchs, so that
their descendants may believe in the Lord and Savior, in whom those former ones
also believed: “For Abraham saw the day of the Lord and he rejoiced”; or “the
heart of the father to the son,” that is, the heart of God to everyone who will
receive the spirit of adoption. And the
heart of the sons to their fathers, so that both the Jews and the
Christians, who now disagree among themselves, may be of the same mind equally
worshiping Christ. Whence it is said to the apostles, who scattered the seedbed
of the gospel in the whole world: “In place of your fathers, sons were born to
you.” For if Elijah will not first have turned
the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to their
fathers, when the great and dreadful day of the Lord will come—great for
the saints, dreadful for the sinners—the true and the just judge will strike; not the heaven, nor those
who dwell in heaven, but the earth with
anathema, those who do the works of the earth. Jews and Judaizing heretics
think that their ἠλειμμένον
Elijah will first come and restore everything. Whence also the question is
posed to Christ in the Gospel: “Why do the Pharisees say that Elijah will come
first?” To whom he answers: “Indeed, Elijah will come, and if you
believe, he has already come,” understanding John in Elijah. (Jerome,
Commentaries on the Twelve Prophets, ed. Thomas P. Scheck, 2 vols. [Downers
Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2017], 2:147)
