The Command to Rebuild the Temple

1 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: 2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD.” 3 Then the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 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.

7 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 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. 9 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. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 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.”

The People Obey the LORD

12 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. 13 Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD’s message, “I am with you, declares the LORD.” 14 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, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.

The Coming Glory of the Temple

2 In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet: 2 “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, 3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? 4 Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the LORD. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the LORD. Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts, 5 according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. 6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. 7 And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. 9 The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.’ ”

Blessings for a Defiled People

10 On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, 11 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Ask the priests about the law: 12 ‘If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?’ ” The priests answered and said, “No.” 13 Then Haggai said, “If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?” The priests answered and said, “It does become unclean.” 14 Then Haggai answered and said, “So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, declares the LORD, and so with every work of their hands. And what they offer there is unclean. 15 Now then, consider from this day onward. Before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the LORD, 16 how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. 17 I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the LORD. 18 Consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid, consider: 19 Is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on I will bless you.”

Zerubbabel Chosen as a Signet

20 The word of the LORD came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month, 21 “Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, 22 and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders. And the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his brother. 23 On that day, declares the LORD of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the LORD, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the LORD of hosts.”

The assumption that we can enjoy Christian standards and benefits without Christian commitment is prevalent today. On the moral front, leaders in church and state and ordinary folk alike are baffled by the disappearance of norms of conduct that until recently were accepted as axiomatic. Many causes are suggested, but the truth is that these disappearing values have only a fragile rootage in fallen human nature; they are values taught by revelation, written in Scripture, embodied in the Lord Jesus Christ—and where there is no knowledge of him and commitment to him they die by starvation. The same is true of the benefits of an ordered, prosperous society.

Governments work on the assumption that a healthy gross national product is the consequence of a proper industrial base, efficient management, skilled workers, and the due operation of market forces—in other words, that economic health depends on an effective economic system. Haggai, however, rose to challenge the view that economics can be left to the economists. Here, too, we live in God’s world and unless he is given the central place and honor, the laws he created will work not for our blessing but for our bane. Thus Haggai speaks to our concern that world resources should meet world need and to our longing that not only will needs be satisfied but also that life will be satisfying. He addresses the problem of inflation more explicitly than any other prophet; his book is a tract for our times.

After the decree of the Persian emperor Cyrus in 538 B.C., exiles led by Zerubbabel returned to the land of Judah (Ezra 1). At the site of Solomon’s temple they built an altar and reinstituted the sacrifices called for by the Mosaic law (Ezra 3). They also prepared to rebuild the temple, but work stopped in response to opposition from neighboring enemies. In the sixteen years that followed, the people built themselves houses, but no work was done on the Lord’s house until the prophets Haggai and Zechariah rebuked and challenged the people (Ezra 4:24–5:2).

When personal devotion to the Lord was absent, nothing went right (2:15–17), but when devotion is renewed, when by their action in temple building, they declare that it matters to them to have the Lord in their midst, when they return to a God-centered lifestyle, the Lord responds by marking the date off on his calendar as the beginning of the blessing. Haggai’s application of his teaching is solely to the national economy; he does not make a religious application even though he saw their religion as vitiated by defilement (2:14). Had he done so, the message would be the same. In their agriculture, they sought creation’s blessings without loving the Creator; in religion, with their offerings, they sought redemption’s blessings without loving the Redeemer. In promising blessing, Haggai is not making a shrewd calculation based on reading “economic indicators.” The quantity and quality of next year’s harvest are still far beyond the human eye (see the Exegesis of 2:19). He is asserting a matter of pure spiritual essence: the first call to the people of God is to love the Lord their God with all their heart and to do all that he requires, whereby he will live at peace in their midst. This is the key to blessing.

Haggai uses a series of six symbols of the day of the Lord:

a shaking: David comes to the throne (21)

b overturning: divine judgment on a sinful world (22a)

c victory: opposing kingdoms destroyed (22b)

c′ final deliverance: all alien threat ended (22c)

b′ self-destruction of the world: secure inheritance (22d)

a′ Lord’s king: David’s house restored to divine favor (23)

The a-theme is the restoration of David; the b-theme, judgment on the opposing world; the c-theme, the full deliverance of the people of God.

Finally, how faithful to his messianic promises the Lord is! Zerubbabel, the Davidic descendant, was in reality the heir to nothing. There was no throne for him to mount or crown to wear, no empire to rule or royal acclaim to enjoy. It is not even certain that his title of governor was anything more than honorific. The whole Davidic enterprise had long since run into the sand. But to write off the Davidic promises would be to forget the faithfulness of God, who does not lie or change his mind (Num. 23:19). When the time of fulfillment came, the ground from which the messianic root sprang (Isa. 53:2) seemed if anything drier—but out of it came the glory! From Zerubbabel, Matthew (1:13–16) traced through a series of unknowns to a man named Joseph, who in due time bequeathed Davidic descent to his supposed firstborn, Jesus. In him the servant status of David (Ps. 89:4 [3]) was linked with the servant of Isaiah 52:13. The intimacy and dignity of the signet came to one who from all eternity was in the bosom of the Father and who was the effulgence of his glory and the express image of his substance (Heb. 1:3). Though on the cross he was mocked as “the chosen of God” (Luke 23:35), he was in truth the chief cornerstone, chosen and precious, the foundation of security to the believer and the ground of condemnation to those who stumble at his word (1 Peter 2:6–8). The Lord himself had suddenly come to his temple (Mal. 3:1).