While modern LDS see this as a genealogical promise, and it is that, in the context of the Bountiful sermon, this turning of the fathers to the children and children to the fathers is a linking of these Nephite saints to their descendants through the words that they write as scripture. The “fathers” are represented in the Book of Mormon. The “children” are those who receive the Book of Mormon and therefore receive the teachings of those fathers. The coming forth of the Book of Mormon ties these generations. In the context of this day’s discussion of the importance of written scriptures, the Book of Mormon becomes Malachi’s book of remembrance (3 Nephi 24:16) in a very literal way.
Textual: There is no chapter break at this point in the 1830 edition.