Haggai
Notes
Transcript
What’s in a name?
What’s in a name?
We always start a new book with some background even when it’s a nice short book like this. One of the things in that background is usually a look at the meaning of the prophet’s name or something tied into names in the book. For Haggai the name is from the root khag is the word for festival or feast. As in the ones the jews have a lot of religious significance with. The ending is the Aramaic way to change a word into an adjective so it’s like saying festively… or at least related to festivals. This is the only person in the Bible with this name but it was a very common name after this time period of exile. Some think this prophet’s name is tied well with his prophecy because it looks forward to a renewed Israel that will celebrate the feats once again.
What’s happening in the world at this time? This is possibly one of the latest books we’ve read to date of the minor prophets, with one we just didn’t know a time frame on possible later than this. For the people living, their parents or at least grand parents would have lived through the takeover from Babylon, the captivity that brought Daniel and his 3 friends in 605BC. There was a resistance though God warned his people against it which led to Nebuchadnezzar sacking Jerusalem and destroying the temple in 587-586BC. I know I don’t usually through a ton of numbers at you but these will be on the test. JK It can be helpful if you build a little 100 year timeline that we’re still inside of. Then Babylon falls to the Persians in 539. It’s shortly after this that the Jews are allowed to return home. This is due in part to the fact that 210 years earlier Isaiah records a prophecy concerning this Cyrus.
Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped,
to subdue nations before him
and to loose the belts of kings,
to open doors before him
that gates may not be closed:
“I will go before you
and level the exalted places,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
and cut through the bars of iron,
I will give you the treasures of darkness
and the hoards in secret places,
that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
I name you, though you do not know me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
I equip you, though you do not know me,
that people may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is none besides me;
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness;
I make well-being and create calamity;
I am the Lord, who does all these things.
“Shower, O heavens, from above,
and let the clouds rain down righteousness;
let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit;
let the earth cause them both to sprout;
I the Lord have created it.
“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him,
a pot among earthen pots!
Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
or ‘Your work has no handles’?
Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’
or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’ ”
Thus says the Lord,
the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him:
“Ask me of things to come;
will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?
I made the earth
and created man on it;
it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,
and I commanded all their host.
I have stirred him up in righteousness,
and I will make all his ways level;
he shall build my city
and set my exiles free,
not for price or reward,”
says the Lord of hosts.
This is a prophecy that Cyrus reads at some point and sets the Jews free. That’s recorded by the Jewish historian Josephus. I tend to think Daniel was likely the one to point it out to him but that’s just my speculation.
Now this book happens in the late 500s BC, meaning between 538 and 516BC The temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians was rebuilt and completed in 515BC. This book encourages them to do that.
Now, to actually start in the book sometimes my intro is a little long. I make no apologies for that.
In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest:
This is Darius the first, not to be confused with Darius the 2nd in the book of Nehemiah or Darius the Meded from the book of Daniel. The second year of the reign would put us in 520 BC. There is actually a very specific date here which we would put at August 29th, 520BC more exact dates show up in this book. While the opening verses of books do tend to have some exact dates it’s unusual that we get so many exact dates in a book. It does lend to the historical credibility of the book as we‘ve been able to line these dates up with their real events. The message he has is from the LORD and it is addressed to two people, which is a bit different. Zerubbabel and Judah. The political and religious leader.
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.”
This now immediately feels like the open letter addressed to two very important people. THESE PEOPLE say… reminds me a lot of Jesus saying, “you’ve heard it said…” We have a contrast with what these people say with what the Lord says in verse 3.
Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?
There’s a rhetorical question that starts this in verse 4 and if we’ve learned anything so far it’s that almost every rhetorical question is an obvious NO.
Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.
Now, this whole thing has reminded me of an unrelated but kind of related story i’ve heard over and over from different people. I used to work with a guy everyone called Big Mike and when I would encourage him to go to church or join me at mine he would always talk about how he needed to get right before he could do that. He was essentially saying it’s not yet time for me to be in the house of the Lord. He had all this other stuff to do first. I think the people of Israel as voiced by their leaders were saying the same thing. Oh yes I’ll totally get with God I understand I should do that but I want to do my own thing, under the guise of getting everything together. What’s implied when God points out how they are failing across the board at life? It’s their unaligned priorities in life that have landed them into the bag full of holes savings plan. You’re never going to get good enough to then go to God like my friend Big Mike wants. Our fallen nature however doesn’t want to put God first. We want to be comfortable then let God in to stay in His lane and not upset our lives too much. Let’s see how those priorities are working out.
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”
So in this instance God is taking credit for the failures they’re experiencing because of the priorities they’ve set before God.
The people respond in faith - not often do we get to see the response in faith in the book as it happens so this is awesome.
Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord. Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord’s message, “I am with you, declares the Lord.” And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.