Today in our journey through the 66 books of the Bible we are visiting the book of the minor prophet, Haggai.
Author
The book of Haggai gives us no personal information about the prophet whose name the book bears. Were it not for references to the prophets Haggai and Zechariah in the book of Ezra, we would not even have reason to link these two contemporary figures. Neither prophet mentions the other, though their work must have brought them together in the small town that was postexilic Jerusalem.
Haggai’s name is derived from a Hebrew word that means “to make a pilgrimage”. The goal of his life seemed to be that of rebuilding the Temple that was the destination of all ancient Jewish pilgrimage.
So, what do we know about Haggai from the book of Ezra? We know that Haggai was a prophet who, along with Zechariah, encouraged the returned exiles to rebuild the temple. (See Ezra 5:1-2; 6:14.) Haggai 2:3 suggests that the prophet may have witnessed the destruction of Solomon’s Temple. If so, he may have been in his early 70s during his prophetic ministry as reflected in the book that bears his name.
Peter Craigie has said of Haggai, “Few people, in a single lifetime, can claim to have revitalized a dispirited nation.” But Haggai was such a man.
Date
Unlike many books of the Bible, we can be unusually precise about the dating of the book of Haggai. In 538 BCE the Persian king Cyrus issued a decree allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. (See Ezra 1:2-4; 6:3-5.) Led by Zerubbabel, about 50,000 Jews journeyed home and began work on the temple. About two years later (in 536 BCE) they completed the foundation amid great rejoicing. (See Ezra 3:8-10.) Their success aroused the Samaritans and other neighbors who feared the political and religious implications of a rebuilt temple in a thriving Jewish state. These neighbors therefore opposed the project vigorously and managed to halt the work until Darius the Great became king of Persia in 522 BCE. (See Ezra 4:1-5, 24.) Darius was interested in the religions of his empire and allowed work on the Jewish Temple to continue.
Haggai and Zechariah began to preach in 520 BCE. (See Haggai 1:1 and Zechariah 1:1.) The Jews had become sluggish in their effort to rebuild the temple due to opposition. Haggai encouraged his fellow Jews to complete the work they had begun. When the governor of Trans-Euphrates and other officials tried to interfere with the rebuilding of the temple, Darius fully supported the Jews. (See Ezra 5:3-6; 6:6-12.) In 516 BCE the temple was finished and dedicated. (See Ezra 6:15-18.)
The messages of Haggai were given during a four-month period in 520 BCE. The first message was delivered on the first day of the sixth month (August 29) and the last was delivered on the 24th day of the ninth month (December 18). These messages may have been written down in the form we have them now, shortly after they were delivered orally.
According to Jewish tradition, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, were the last of the prophets. After them, prophecy ceased. According to tradition, after the death of these prophets, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel, but the “daughter of the voice” or “echo of the voice” remained available to Israel.
Themes
Next to Obadiah, Haggai is the shortest book in the Old Testament, but its teachings are none the less significant. Haggai clearly shows the consequences of disobedience (1:6, 11; 2:16-17) and obedience (2:7-9, 19). When the people gave priority to God and his temple, they were blessed. Obedience brought the encouragement and strength of the Spirit of God (2:4-5). Depending upon how one interprets Chapter 2, the book of Haggai may also contain Messianic prophecy. Like Malachi, Haggai uses questions to highlight key issues. He also makes effective use of repetition.
Structure
- First Message: The Call to Rebuild the Temple (1:1-11)
- The Response of Zerubbabel and the People (1:12-15)
- Second Message: The Temple to be Filled with Glory (2:1-9)
- Third Message: A Defiled People Purified and Blessed (2:10-19)
- Fourth Message: The Promise to Zerubbabel (2:20-23)
Key Concept—Three Terrific Truths
For the rest of our time together I invite you to meditate with me on Haggai 2:1-9, which is at the center of the prophet’s message. Listen for God’s word to you…
On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask them, ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? But now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ declares the Lord. ‘Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the Lord, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”
Three Terrific Truths
Allow me to set the scene of this second message of Haggai before we talk about the three terrific truths about glory and peace that Haggai presents in this section of his prophecy...
Almost a month has passed since the renewed effort to rebuild the Temple began. It was the twenty-first day of the seventh month, according to ancient Jewish reckoning. It was October 17, 520 BCE according to our modern reckoning. This is a significant date because it would have been the last day of the Jewish Festival sometimes called Tabernacles, or Booths, or in Hebrew, Sukkot. It was the festival when the Jews remembered their wandering through the wilderness under the leadership of Moses, when they lived in tents for forty years. Thus, there would have been many pilgrims in Jerusalem for the feast. Many of these pilgrims would undoubtedly have wanted to check out progress on the rebuilding of the Temple.
I can relate to watching a construction project. Our first house was one that we saw built from the ground up. We visited the construction site almost daily to check out the progress. Anyone who has had a house built in modern times knows there is a stage at the beginning of construction where, to the eye of the owner of the house, everything seems to go slowly. The laying of the foundation is an important step, but between that being done and the framing going up, it seems like nothing is happening.
Such was the stage in the construction of the Temple represented in Haggai 2. The foundation of the Temple had been laid some years before. Now the people, all volunteer workers, had begun the process of building on that foundation. But only a month had passed, and during that month there were two important festivals that would have proved to be a great distraction from the building process. First there was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and then the Feast of Sukkot. The pilgrims visiting Jerusalem would not have seen much progress happening on the rebuilding of the Temple.
It is in this context that Haggai addresses the people and two important leaders: Zerubbabel, the governor, who was a descendant of King David, and Joshua, the high priest. Haggai asks two important questions: “Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now?”
There might have been some in the crowd that day who remembered the first Temple, Solomon’s Temple, before its destruction. According to all accounts, that first Temple was magnificent. Perhaps it was one of the great wonders of the world at that time. So, when Haggai asks how the new temple looks to the gathered pilgrims, he knows what the answer is going to be. This new temple seems like nothing—a mere trifle. Nonetheless, Haggai challenges Zerubbabel and Joshua and all the volunteer laborers to be strong and get to work because the Lord is with them.
Jesus issues a similar challenge at the end of Matthew’s Gospel. He challenges his disciples to get to work on building the kingdom of God, making disciples of all nations. And Jesus gives a similar promise. He says, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) The promise of the divine presence assures that the power to get the work done will be provided and that the resulting work will be glorious.
Returning to the book of Haggai, we see how the prophet moves from talking about the present to forecasting the future. Haggai delivers this word from the Lord Almighty: “In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea, and the dry land. I will shake all nations.”
Haggai does not spell out whether this shaking will be physical or spiritual in nature, or perhaps a mix of both. Hebrews 12:26-27 in the New Testament relates this verse to a future judgment, presumably the final judgment at the Second Coming of Christ.
Now that I have set the scene, let’s look at the three terrific truths about glory and peace that follow, after the shaking of heaven and earth.
The first terrific truth that the Lord enunciates through Haggai is that: what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory.
This raises at least two questions. First, what does Haggai mean by “what is desired by all nations”? There are at least two possibilities…
- The word “desired” can refer to individuals, as in 1 Samuel 9:20, Daniel 9:23 and Daniel 11:37. In Daniel 9:23 the same Hebrew verb is translated as “highly esteemed”.
- The same Hebrew word can refer to articles of value such as the contribution of King Darius to the temple. (See Ezra 6:8.)
The second question is: what does Haggai mean when he quotes God as saying, “and I will fill this house with glory”? Again, there are two possibilities:
- “Glory” can refer to material splendor. (See Isaiah 60:7,13.)
- Or “glory” can refer to the presence of God as in the case of the glory cloud that guided the Israelites in their wilderness wanderings. (See Exodus 40:34-35 and 1 Kings 8:10-11.)
I believe that “the desired of nations” refers to a person and that the “glory” refers to God’s presence. One day a very important person will enter this very temple that Zerubbabel, Joshua, and all the others are building. When Jesus comes to this earthly second temple, 500 years after Haggai’s prophecy, God’s presence will be evident as never before.
The first time Jesus entered the Temple was shortly after his birth. We read about it in Luke 2, beginning with verse 22…
When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him [Jesus] to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”, and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”
Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:
“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of your people Israel.”
This leads to the second terrific truth related by Haggai: The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house.
Wow! Haggai is making an astounding claim, namely that the glory of the second temple will be greater than the first temple built by Solomon. That is amazing! Certainly, everyone listening to Haggai would have agreed that Solomon’s temple was a physically glorious place. How could the glory of the second temple be greater? It took seven years to build the first temple. Solomon employed professional builders and purchased from afar precious materials to build the first temple. The second temple, by contrast, took only four and a half years to build, and all the construction was performed by volunteer people working in greatly diminished conditions compared to the glory of Solomon’s reign.
Now, there is a physical sense in which Haggai’s prophecy will come true. In the time of Jesus, Herod the Great will spend many years beautifying the second temple. He will perfect it to a point where it will be possible to claim that the physical glory of Herod’s temple is equal to or greater than that of Solomon’s temple.
But again, I interpret Haggai’s prophecy spiritually and not physically. The glory of the second temple will be greater than that of the first temple because the person that the temple was designed to worship will enter physically into it. Jesus brought with him a greater glory than Haggai or any other prophet could have ever imagined.
Think of it! What god, worshiped in any temple that has ever existed, what god physically entered the temple where he was being worshipped? And yet, if Jesus was and is God in human flesh, then when he entered the Temple in Jerusalem, he brought the glory of God into that Temple.
The third terrific truth conveyed by Haggai is the word of the Lord that: In this place I will grant peace. Though we can conceive of how the first two parts of Haggai’s prophecy have already been fulfilled, it is hard for us to imagine how the third part of Haggai’s prophecy will be fulfilled.
Yes, one might argue that the Temple in Jerusalem became a place of peace in a limited way for limited periods of time. But has it not also been a flashpoint for war? A later Greek ruler named Antiochus Epiphanes entered this same temple in 164 BCE and desecrated it. This led to an armed response on the part of the Jewish people led by Judas Maccabeus, Judas “the hammer”. That whole event is remembered today in the Feast of Hanukkah.
Then in AD 70, the temple and all of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the temple has not been rebuilt to this day. We have seen in our own time how the temple mount in Jerusalem has continued to be a flashpoint for war. And so, we rightly wonder: will peace ever come to Jerusalem? Will peace ever come to our world?
I believe that the answer is “yes”. Peace will come to Jerusalem and to our world when the Prince of Peace comes. I believe, along with the Church through the ages, that one day Jesus will return physically to this world of ours and with him he will bring peace forevermore.
In the meantime, we can become peacemakers in Jesus’ name by inviting Jesus into the temple of our hearts and souls. He can bring us peace and glory when he lives within us.
John 1 summarizes for us what happened when Jesus came to his people 2000 years ago…
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
Can you imagine that? The God of the universe came into the world and came to the Temple that was built for him, but his own people who had been taught to worship him for over a thousand years, his own people did not recognize him, they did not receive him. Thankfully that is not the end of the story because John goes on to say…
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
You and I can receive Jesus into the temple of our hearts and lives today and when we do, he makes us children of God. He gives us a peace that passes all understanding. And one day he will give us a glory that will never fade away.
Comments