In the seventh month, in the twenty-first day of the month, Yahweh’s word came by Haggai the prophet, saying, “Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying, ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Isn’t it in your eyes as nothing? Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ says Yahweh. ‘Be strong, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ says Yahweh, ‘and work, for I am with you,’ says Yahweh of Armies. This is the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, and my Spirit lived among you. ‘Don’t be afraid.’ For this is what Yahweh of Armies says: ‘Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations. The precious things of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, says Yahweh of Armies. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,’ says Yahweh of Armies. ‘The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,’ says Yahweh of Armies; ‘and in this place I will give peace,’ says Yahweh of Armies.”
In the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, Yahweh’s word came by Haggai the prophet, saying, “Yahweh of Armies says: Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, ‘If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with his fold touches bread, stew, wine, oil, or any food, will it become holy?’ ” The priests answered, “No.”
Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean by reason of a dead body touch any of these, will it be unclean?” The priests answered, “It will be unclean.”
Then Haggai answered, “ ‘So is this people, and so is this nation before me,’ says Yahweh; ‘and so is every work of their hands. That which they offer there is unclean. Now, please consider from this day and backward, before a stone was laid on a stone in Yahweh’s temple. Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty. I struck you with blight, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands; yet you didn’t turn to me,’ says Yahweh. ‘Consider, please, from this day and backward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, since the day that the foundation of Yahweh’s temple was laid, consider it. Is the seed yet in the barn? Yes, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree haven’t produced. From today I will bless you.’ ”
Yahweh’s word came the second time to Haggai in the twenty-fourth day of the month, saying, “Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, ‘I will shake the heavens and the earth. I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations. I will overthrow the chariots, and those who ride in them. The horses and their riders will come down, everyone by the sword of his brother. In that day, says Yahweh of Armies, I will take you, Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel,’ says Yahweh, ‘and will make you as a signet, for I have chosen you,’ says Yahweh of Armies.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 10, 15, 20 The Prophet now states another reason why he had…
The Prophet now states another reason why he had been sent by God, in order that he might obviate a temptation which might have hindered the work that was begun. We have seen that they were all stirred up by the celestial spirit to undertake the building of the Temple. But as Satan, by his many arts, attempts to turn back the godly from their course, so he had devised a reason by which the desire of the people might have been checked. Inasmuch as the old people, who had seen the splendor of the former temple, considered this temple no better than a cottage, all their zeal evaporated; for, as we have said, without a promise there will continue in men no ardor, no perseverance. Now we know what had been predicted by Ezekiel, and what all the other Prophets had testified, especially Isaiah, who had spoken highly of the excellency of the Church, and shown that it was to be superior to its ancient state. (Isaiah 33:21.) Besides, Ezekiel describes the form of the Temple, and states its dimensions. (Ezekiel 41:1.) As then the faithful had learnt from these prophecies that the new Temple would be more splendid than the ancient, they were in danger, not only of becoming cold in the business, but also of being wholly discouraged, when they perceived that the new Temple in no respect reached the excellency and grandeur of the ancient Temple. And these things are described at large by Josephus.
But we may easily conclude, from the words of the Prophet, that there was then a danger lest they should lay aside the work they had begun, except they were encouraged by a new exhortation. And he says that this happened in the seventh month, and on the first day of the month.
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Here arises a question, How was it that they so soon compared the new with the old building. Seven or eight days had passed since the work was begun: nothing, doubtless, could have been then constructed, which might have afforded a ground of comparison. It seems then strange, that the Prophet had been so soon sent to them. An answer to this will be easily found, if we bear in mind, that what I have stated at the beginning of the first chapter, that the foundations of the Temple had been previously laid, but that there had been a long interruption: for the people had turned to their own private concerns, and all had become so devoted to their own advantages, that they neglected the building of the Temple. For it is wholly a false notion, that the people had returned from exile before the appointed time, and it has been sufficiently refuted by clear proofs; for scripture expressly declares, that both Cyrus and Darius had been led by a divine impulse to allow the return of the people. Hence, when the Jews returned to their country, they immediately began to build the Temple; but afterwards, as I have said, either avarice, or too anxious a desire for their own private benefit, laid hold on their minds. As then the building of the Temple had been for some time neglected, they were again encouraged, as our Prophet has shown to us. They had now hardly applied their hands to the work, when, through the artifice of Satan, such suggestions as these crept in—“What are ye doing, ye miserable men! Ye wish to build a Temple to your God; but what sort of Temple will it be? Certainly it will not be that which all the Prophets have celebrated. For what do we read in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel? Have not all these testified that the Temple which would be rebuilt after our return from Babylonian exile would be more splendid than the other? But we now build a shed. Surely this is done without authority. We do not then fight under the guidance of God; and it would be better for us to leave off the work; for our service cannot be approved of God, except it be founded on his Word. And we see how far this Temple comes short of what God has promised.”
We now hence learn, that it was not without reason that Haggai was sent on the eighth day to recover the people from their indifference. And hence also we may learn how necessary it is for us to be constantly stimulated; for Satan can easily find out a thousand impediments, by which he may turn us aside from the right course, except God often repeats his exhortations to keep us awake. Eight days only have elapsed, and the people would have ceased from their work, had not Haggai been sent to encourage them again.
Now the cause of this cessation, which the Prophet designed to obviate and to remove, ought to be especially noticed. The people had before ceased to work, because they were immoderately devoted to their own interest, which was a proof of base ingratitude and of profane impiety: for those who had no care for building the Temple were most ungrateful to God; and then their impiety was intolerable, inasmuch as they sought boarded houses to dwell in, being not content with decent houses without having them adorned, while the Temple was left, as it were, a wilderness. But the cause was different, when Haggai was sent the second time; for their indifference then arose from a good principle and a genuine feeling of religion. But we hence see what a subtle contriver Satan is, who not only draws us away openly from God’s service, but insinuates himself in a clandestine manner, so as to turn us aside, under the cover of zeal, from the course of our vocation. How was it that the people became negligent after they had begun the work? even because it grieved the old men to see the glory of the second, so far inferior to the first Temple. For though the people animated themselves by the sound of trumpets, yet the old among them drowned the sound by their lamentations. Whence was this? even because they saw, as I have said, that this Temple was in no way equal to the ancient one; and hence they thought that God was not as yet reconciled to them. Had they said, that so great an expense was not necessary, that God did not require much money to be laid out, their impiety should have been openly manifested; but when they especially wished that the splendor of the Temple would be such, as might surely prove that the restoration of the Church was come, such as had been promised by all the Prophets, we doubtless perceive their pious feeling.
But we are thus reminded, that we ought always to beware of the intrigues of Satan, when they appear under the cover of truth. When, therefore, our minds are disposed to piety, Satan is ever to be feared, lest he should stealthily suggest to us what may turn us aside from our duty; for we see that some leave the Church because they require in it the highest perfection. They are indignant at vices which they deem intolerable, when they cannot be corrected: and thus, under the pretext of zeal, they separate themselves and seek to form for themselves a new world, in which there is to be a perfect Church; and they lay hold on those passages in which the Holy Spirit recommends purity to the Church, as when Paul says, that it was purchased by Christ, that it might be without spot or wrinkle. As then these are inflamed with a zeal so rigid that they depart from God himself and violate the unity of the Church; so also there are many proud men who despise the Church of God, because it shines not forth among them in great pomp; and they think that God does not dwell in the midst of us, because we are obscure and of no great importance, and also because they regard our few number with contempt.
In all these there is some appearance of piety. How so? Because they would have God to be reverenced, so that they would have the whole world to be filled with the fear of his majesty; or they would have much wealth to be gathered, so that sumptuous offerings might be made. But, as I have already said, Satan thus cunningly insinuates himself; and hence we ought to fear his intrigues, lest, under plausible pretences, he should dazzle our eyes. But the best way of caution is to regard what God commands, and so to rely on his promises as to proceed steadily in our course, though the accomplishment of the promises does not immediately correspond with our desires; for God designedly keeps us in suspense in order to try our faith. Though then he may not as yet fulfill what he has promised, let it yet be our course to attempt nothing rashly, while we are obeying his command. It will then be our chief wisdom, by which we may escape all the crafts of Satan, simply to obey God’s word, and to exercise our hope so as patiently to wait the seasonable time, when he will fulfill what he now promises.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23 For the people according as Isa. 30:19 and Ezek.…
For the people according as Isa. 30:19 and Ezek. 41:1, had prophesied, thought this Temple should have been more excellent than Solomon’s Temple, which was destroyed by the Babylonians, but the Prophets meant the spiritual Temple, The Church of Christ.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–23 Hag 2:1 In the seventh [month], in the one…
Hag 2:1 In the seventh [month], in the one and twentieth [day] of the month, came the word of the LORD by the prophet Haggai, saying,
Ver. 1. In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month] This is the preface to the fourth sermon, as some reckon it; noting the exact time when it was delivered. {See Trapp on "Hag 1:1"} {See Trapp on "Hag 1:15"}
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Came the word of the Lord] This he often inculcateth, to set forth the truth of his calling, and validity of his commission. {See Trapp on "Hag 1:5"}
By the prophet Haggai] Heb. by the hand of the prophet. {See Trapp on "Hag 1:1"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–23 The seventh month, which the Hebrews called Tisri, and…
The seventh month, which the Hebrews called Tisri, and Ethanim, and it answers to part of our September and to part of October.
The one and twentieth day; some seven weeks after the first, mentioned in the first chapter, and about one month after they began to build, or at least prepared for building the temple.
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Came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai: see Hag 1:1.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 20 Here is, I. The date of this message, Hag…
Here is, I. The date of this message, Hag 2:1. It was sent on the twenty-first day of the seventh month, when the builders had been about a month at work (since the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month), and had got it in some forwardness. Note, Those that are hearty in the service of God shall receive fresh encouragements from him to proceed in it, as their case calls for them. Set the wheels a going, and God will oil them.
II. The direction of this message, Hag 2:2. The encouragements here are sent to the same persons to whom the reproofs in the foregoing chapter are directed; for those that are wounded by the convictions of the word shall be healed and bound up by its consolations. Speak to Zerubbabel, and Joshua, and the residue of the people, the very same that obeyed the voice of the Lord (Jos 1:12) and whose spirits God stirred up to do so (Jos 1:14); to them are sent these words of comfort.
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III. The message itself, in which observe,
1. The discouragements which those laboured under who were employed in this work. That which was such a damp upon them, and an alloy to their joy, when the foundation of the temple was laid, was still a clog upon them - that they could not build such a temple now as Solomon built, not so large, so stately, so sumptuous, a one as that was. This fetched tears from the eyes of many, when the dimensions of it were first laid (Ezr 3:12), and still it made the work go on heavily - that the glory of this house, in comparison with that of the former, was as nothing, Hag 2:3. It was now about seventy years since Solomon's temple was destroyed (for that was in the nineteenth year of the captivity, and this about the nineteenth after the captivity), so that there might be some yet alive who could remember to have seen it, and still they would be upbraiding themselves and their brethren with the great disparity between this house and that. One could remember the gold with which it was overlaid, another the precious stones with which it was garnished; one could describe the magnificence of the porch, another of the pillars - and where are these now? This weakened the hands of the builders; for, though our gracious God is pleased with us if we do in sincerity as well as we can in his service, yet our proud hearts will scarcely let us be pleased with ourselves unless we do as well as others whose abilities far exceed ours. And it is sometimes the fault of old people to discourage the services of the present age by crying up too much the performances and attainments of the former age, with which others should be provoked to emulation, but not exposed to contempt. Say not thou that the former days were better than these (Ecc 7:10), but thank God that there is any good in these, bad as they are.
2. The encouragement that is given them to go on in the work, notwithstanding (Hag 2:4): Yet now, though this house is likely to be much inferior to the former, be strong, O Zerubbabel! and be strong, O Joshua! Let not these leading men give way to this suggestion, nor be disheartened by it, but do as well as they can, when they cannot do so well as they would; and let all the people of the land be strong too, and work; and, if the leaders have but a good heart on it, it is hoped that the followers will have the better heart. Note, Those that work for God ought to exert themselves with vigour, and then to encourage themselves with hope that it will end well.
3. The grounds of these encouragements. God himself says to them, Fear you not (Hag 2:5), and he gives good reasons for it.
(1.) They have God with them, his Spirit and his special presence: Be strong, for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts, Hag 2:4. This he had said before (Hag 1:13), I am with you. But we need to have these assurances repeated, that we may have strong consolation. The presence of God with us, as the Lord of hosts, is enough to silence all our fears and to help us over all the discouragements we may meet with in the way of our duty. The Jews had hosts against them, but they had the Lord of hosts with them, to take their part and plead their cause. He is with them; for, [1.] He adheres to his promise. His covenant is inviolable, and he will be always theirs, and will appear and act for them, according to the word that he covenanted with them when they came out of Egypt. Though he chastens them for their transgressions with the rod, yet he will not make his faithfulness to fail. [2.] He dwells among them by his Spirit, the Spirit of prophecy. When he first formed them into a people he gave his good Spirit to instruct them (Neh 9:20); and still the Spirit, though often grieved and provoked to withdraw, remained among them. It was the Spirit of God that stirred up their spirits to come out of Babylon (Ezr 1:5), and now to build the temple, Hag 1:14. Note, We have reason to be encouraged as long as we have the Spirit of God remaining among us to work upon us, for so long we have God with us to work for us.
(2.) They shall have the Messiah among them shortly - him that should come. To him bore all the prophets witness and this prophet particularly here, Hag 2:6, Hag 2:7. Here is an intimation of the time of his coming, that it should not be long ere he came: "Yet once, it is a little while, and he shall come. The Old Testament church has but one stage more (if we may say so) to travel; five stages were now past, from Adam to Noah, thence to Abraham, thence to Moses, thence to Solomon's temple, thence to the captivity, and now yet one stage more, its sixth day's journey, and then comes the sabbatism of the Messiah's kingdom. Let the Son of man, when he comes, find faith on the earth, and let the children of promise continue still looking for him, for now it is but a little while and he will come; hold out, faith and patience, yet awhile, for he that shall come will come, and will not tarry." And, as he then said of his first appearance, so now of his second, Surely I come quickly. Now concerning his coming it is here foretold, [1.] That it shall be introduced by a general shaking (Hag 2:6): I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land. This is applied to the setting up of Christ's kingdom in the world, to make way for which he will judge among the heathen, Psa 110:6. God will once again do for his church as he did when he brought them out of Egypt; he shook the heavens and earth at Mount Sinai, with thunder, and lightnings, and earthquakes; he shook the sea and the dry land when lanes were made through the sea and streams fetched out of the rock. This shall be done again, when, at the sufferings of Christ, the sun shall be darkened, the earth shake, the rocks rend - when, at the birth of Christ, Herod and all Jerusalem are troubled (Mat 2:3), and he is set for the fall and rising again of many. When his kingdom was set up it was with a shock to the nations; the oracles were silenced, idols were destroyed, and the powers of the kingdoms were moved and removed, Heb 12:27. It denotes the removing of the things that are shaken. Note, The shaking of the nations is often in order to the settling of the church and the establishing of the things that cannot be shaken. [2.] That it shall issue in a general satisfaction. He shall come as the desire of all nations - desirable to all nations, for in him shall all the families of the earth be blessed with the best of blessings - long expected and desired by the good people in all nations, that had any intelligence from the Old Testament predictions concerning him. Balaam in the land of Moab had spoken of a star that should arise out of Jacob, and Job in the land of Uz of his living Redeemer; the concourse of devout men from all parts at Jerusalem (Act 2:5) was in expectation of the setting up of the Messiah's kingdom about that time. All the nations that are brought in to Christ, and discipled in his name, have called him, and will call him, all their salvation and all their desire. This glorious title of Christ seems to refer to Jacob's prophecy (Gen 49:10), that to him shall the gathering of the people be.
(3.) The house they are now building shall be filled with glory to such a degree that its glory shall exceed that of Solomon's temple. The enemies of the Jews followed them with reproach, and cast contempt upon the house they were building; but they might very well endure that when God undertook to fill it with glory. It is God's prerogative to fill with glory; the glory that comes from him is satisfying, and not vain glory. Moses's tabernacle and Solomon's temple were filled with glory when God in a cloud took possession of them; but this house shall be filled with glory of another nature. [1.] Let them not be concerned because this house will not have so much silver and gold about it as Solomon's temple had, Hag 2:8. God needs not the silver and gold to adorn his temple, for (says he), The silver is mine, and the gold is mine. All the silver and gold in the world are his; all that is hid in the bowels of the earth (for the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof), all that is laid up in the exchequers, banks, and treasuries of the children of men, and all that circulates for the maintaining of trade and commerce; it is all the Lord's. Every penny bears his image as well as Caesar's; and therefore when gold and silver are dedicated to his honour, and employed in his service, no addition is made to him, for it was his before. When David and his princes offered vast sums for the service of the house of God, they acknowledged, It is all thy own, and of thy own, Lord, have we given thee, Ch1 29:14, Ch1 29:16. Therefore God needs not sacrifice, for every beast of the forest is his, Psa 50:10. Note, If we have silver and gold, we must serve and honour God with them, for they are all his own, we have but the use of them, the property remains in him; but, if we have not silver and gold to honour him with, we must honour him with such as we have, and he will accept us, for he needs them not; all the silver and gold in the world are his already. The earth is full of his riches, so is the great and wide sea also. [2.] Let them be comforted with this, that, though this temple have less gold in it, it shall have more glory than Solomon's (Hag 2:9): The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former. This was never true in respect of outward glory. This latter house was indeed in its latter times very much beautified and enriched by Herod, and we find the disciples admiring the stones and buildings of the temple, how fine they were (Mar 13:1); but it was nothing in comparison with Solomon's temple; and, besides, the Jews own that several of the divine glories of the first temple were wanting in this - the ark, the urim and thummim, the fire from heaven, and the Schechinah; so that we cannot conceive how the glory of this latter house should in any thing exceed that of the former, but in that which would indeed excel all the glories of the first house - the presence of the Messiah in it, the Son of God, his being presented there the glory of his people Israel, his attending there at twelve years old, and afterwards his preaching and working miracles there, and his driving the buyers and sellers out of it. It was necessary, then, that the Messiah should come while the second temple stood; but, that being long since destroyed, we must conclude that our Lord Jesus is the Christ, is he that should come, and we are to look for no other. It was also the glory of this latter house, First, That, before the coming of Christ, it was always kept free from idols and idolatries, and was never polluted with those abominable things, as the first temple often was (Kg2 23:11, Kg2 23:12), and in this its glory excelled all the glory of that. Note, The purity of the church, and the strict adherence to divine institutions, are much more its glory than external pomp and splendour. Secondly, That, after Christ, the gospel was preached in it by the apostles, even all the words of this life, Act 5:20. In the temple Jesus Christ was daily preached, Act 5:42. Now the ministration of righteousness and life by the gospel was unspeakably more glorious than the law, which was a ministration of death and condemnation, Co2 3:9, Co2 3:10. Note, That is the most valuable glory which arises from our relation to Christ and our interest in him. As, where Christ is, behold a greater than Solomon is there, so the heart in which he dwells, and makes a living temple, behold it is more glorious than Solomon's temple, and will be so to eternity.
(4.) They should see a comfortable end of their present troubles, and enjoy the pleasure of a happy settlement: In this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. Note, God's presence with his people in his ordinances secures to them all good. If God be with us, peace is with us. But the Jews under the latter temple had so much trouble that we must conclude this promise to have its accomplishment in that spiritual peace which Jesus Christ has by his blood purchased for, and by his last will and testament bequeathed to, all believers (Joh 14:27), that peace which Christ himself preached as the prophet of peace, and gives as the prince of peace. God will give peace in this place; he will give his Son to be the peace, Eph 2:14.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–22 In the seventh month,.... The month Tisri, which answers…
In the seventh month,.... The month Tisri, which answers to part of September and part of October:
in the one and twentieth day of the month; being a month, wanting three days, from the time the Jews came and worked in the house of the Lord, Hag 1:14 it was toward the close of the feast of tabernacles: see Lev 23:34,
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came the word of the Lord by the Prophet Haggai; the word of prophecy, as the Targum: this was from the Lord, not from the prophet himself; he was only the messenger sent with it to deliver it:
saying; to him the prophet, giving him orders as follow:
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23 Haggai assures the builders, that the glory of this…
Haggai assures the builders, that the glory of this house should exceed the glory of the former, ver. 1-9. That God would bless them and give them success, ver. 10-19. That he would peculiarly bless Zerubbabel, ver. 20-23.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21, 23 When this prophecy was uttered, about four years before…
CHAPTER II
When this prophecy was uttered, about four years before the
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temple was finished, and sixty-eight after the former one was
destroyed, it appears that some old men among the Jews were
greatly dispirited on account of its being so much inferior in
magnificence to that of Solomon. Compare Ezr 3:12.
To raise the spirits of the people, and encourage them to
proceed with the work, the prophet assures them that the glory
of the second temple should be greater than that of the first,
alluding perhaps to the glorious doctrines which should be
preached in it by Jesus Christ and his apostles, 1-9.
He then shows the people that the oblations brought by their
priests could not sanctify them while they were unclean by
their neglect of the temple; and to convince them that the
difficult times they had experienced during that neglect
proceeded from this cause, he promises fruitful seasons from
that day forward, 10-19.
The concluding verses contain a prediction of the mighty
revolutions that should take place by the setting up of the
kingdom of Christ under the type of Zerubbabel, 20-23.
As the time which elapsed between the date of the prophecy and
the dreadful concussion of nations is termed in Hag 2:6,
A LITTLE WHILE, the words may likewise have reference to some
temporal revolutions then near, such as the commotions of
Babylon in the reign of Darius, the Macedonian conquests in
Persia, and the wars between the successors of Alexander; but
the aspect of the prophecy is more directly to the amazing
victories of the Romans, who, in the time of Haggai and
Zechariah, were on the VERY EVE of their successful career, and
in the lapse of a few centuries subjugated the whole habitable
globe; and therefore, in a very good sense, God may be said by
these people to have shaken "the heavens, and the earth, and
the sea, and the dry land;" and thus to have prepared the way
for the opening of the Gospel dispensation. See Heb 12:25-29.
Others have referred this prophecy to the period of our Lord's
second advent, to which there is no doubt it is also
applicable; and when it will be in the most signal manner
fulfilled. That the convulsion of the nations introducing this
most stupendous event will be very great and terrible, is
sufficiently plain from Isaiah xxxiv., xxxv., as well as from
many other passages of holy writ.
NOTES ON CHAP. II
Verse 1. In the seventh month] This was a new message, and intended to prevent discouragement, and excite them to greater diligence in their work.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 15, 18, 20, 23 Hag 2:1-3. In the seventh month, &c. — For…
Hag 2:1-3. In the seventh month, &c. — For the further encouragement of the people to proceed in rebuilding the temple, Haggai was sent again to them, about a month after he had been sent the first time, to assure them from God, that the glory of this latter temple, how little appearance soever there might be of it now, should be greater than that of the former. This message, or prophecy, of Haggai, was communicated a little before Zechariah was sent to them for the like purpose. Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? — About sixty-six years had elapsed from the destruction of the former temple, (before Christ 587,) to the time when this prophecy was delivered; (see notes on Ezr 6:15, and Blair’s tables;) nevertheless, it appears by this question of the prophet, that some of the Jews there present had seen the former temple when young, before they were carried to Babylon, and could remember what a magnificent building it was. Is it not in your eyes as nothing — That is, in comparison of the former. The words are an elegant Hebraism. We learn from Ezr 3:12, (where see the note,) that when the foundation of the second temple was laid, in the second year of Cyrus, many of the ancient men, that had seen the first house, wept to see how much this second was likely to fall short of the glory of it. Undoubtedly the slender substance of the Jews at this time, and the haste they were in to rebuild the temple, that they might have a place for public worship, made them lay the foundation of it at first of much smaller dimensions than those of the former temple, and also to build it with less strength and magnificence.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 15, 17, 18, 21, 23 In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth…
In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month - This was the seventh day of the feast of tabernacles, Lev 23:34, Lev 23:36, Lev 23:40-42. and its close. The eighth day was to be a sabbath, with its “holy convocation,” but the commemorative feast, the dwelling in booths, in memory of God’s bringing them out of Egypt, was to last seven days. The close then of this feast could not but revive their sadness at the glories of their first deliverance by God’s “mighly hand and outstretched arm,” and their present fewness and poverty. This depression could not but bring with it heavy thoughts about the work, in which they were, in obedience to God, engaged; and that, all the more, since Isaiah and Ezekiel had prophesied of the glories of the Christian Church under the symbol of the temple. This despondency Haggai is sent to relieve, owning plainly the reality of its present grounds, but renewing, on God’s part, the pledge of the glories of this second temple, which should be thereafter.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 22 In, &c. This should be joined with the preceding…
In, &c. This should be joined with the preceding chapter. (Calmet) --- They began the new work at this time, and on the 21st of the seventh month the prophet had a fresh revelation. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 20 The Glory of the Second Temple
THIRD ADDRESS
The Glory of the Second Temple
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Hag_2:1-9
1In the seventh (month), and the twenty-first (day) of the month there was a 2word of Jehovah by the hand of Haggai the Prophet, saying: Speak, now, to Zerubbabel, son of Shaltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, son of Jozadak, the 3high priest, and to the rest of the people, saying: Who among you is left1 that has seen this house in its former glory? And what are seeing it (to be) now? Is not such2 (a one) as it like nothing in your eyes? 4But come! be strong, Zerubbabel, saith Jehovah; and be strong Joshua, son of Jozadak, high priest; and be strong, all the people of the land, saith Jehovah; for I am with you, saith Jehovah of Hosts, 5With the word3 which I covenanted with you when you were coming out of Egypt; and my Spirit is abiding in your midst; fear not. 6For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, Once more4—it is a little while—and I will be shaking the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land. 7And I will shake5 all the Gentiles; and the treasures of all the Gentiles shall come; and I shall fill this house with glory, saith Jehovah of Hosts. 8The silver is mine and the gold is mine, saith Jehovah of Hosts. 9The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, saith Jehovah of Hosts; and in this house I will give peace, saith Jehovah of Hosts.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The rebukes and warnings and encouragements of the Prophet having thus exerted their due influence, it might seem as if no further message were needed. But a new danger soon threatened to retard the progress of the work, a manifestation of despondency on the part of some of the people. It was natural that those of them who had beheld the first Temple in its magnificent beauty, would feel somewhat dispirited at the sight of the new structure, so inferior in outward attractions, and awakening so many suggestions of national decline and calamity, and that their feelings of dejection would soon spread through a large part of the community. These symptoms, on their very first appearance, called forth the third address of the Prophet, which, however it may be interpreted in detail, must be admitted to be a noble product of the genuine prophetic spirit, and of the highest significance in that period of their history on which the people were now entering. We may consider it in three aspects according to its three leading ideas: (1) as adapted to encourage the people in their present dejection; (2) as suggesting those characteristics, religious and moral, of the new era, which would prove it superior to any former period of Israel’s history; (3) as predicting the glory of the universal Church of God, represented by the second Temple. How these ideas are contained in the address will appear in the course of the exposition.
Hag_2:1-2. Comparing the date with the time in which the work began (Hag_1:15), it will be seen that more than three weeks had elapsed, during which the enthusiasm of the less ardent of the builders would have begun to flag. To this change of feeling, a circumstance would contribute which was noticed by Cocceius, that the 21st day of the seventh month was the seventh and last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, on which occasion, as it was the close of the ingathering, thanks were to be rendered for bountiful harvests. A certain degree of despondency would be excited by the recollection that the harvest of the present year had been so scanty (Hag_2:9-11). Hence there was all the more urgent occasion for some word of comfort and cheer. We must remember that such a state of feeling would be quite unlike that posture maintained by the people, which had evoked the first discourse. Then their selfish indifference had to be met by reproach and warning; now their fainting courage must be sustained and their feeble faith revived by encouragement and promise.
Hag_2:3. Who is he that is left among you?—Is it not such (a Temple) as this like nothing in your eyes? We have no evidence that the feeling of disappointment among the people was openly expressed, or that it was sufficient to prompt them to suspend their labors. All the greater and more considerate is seen to be Jehovah’s returning favor. He would have them not merely steadfast, but also cheerful and hopeful in their work. He first addresses those who must have suffered most keenly in reflecting upon the outward appearance of the present structure—those who had beheld the splendor of its predecessor. It was not quite seventy years since the destruction of the First Temple, and there must have been some of those still remaining, whose weeping voices had thrown such a gloom upon the ceremony of laying the foundation of the present House (Ezr_3:12-13), with whom the Kingdom of Israel was not a matter of tradition but of personal experience. If they could be comforted, much more likely was it that the younger and more susceptible portion would be encouraged and cheered. It is noteworthy that the contrast between the two temples is made by Jehovah as strong as possible. He seems to admit that their dejection was natural, and by sharing their feelings, so to speak, He gives a most winning and reassuring evidence of his condescension and sympathy. On the construction and proper rendering of the last clause, see Grammatical Note.
Hag_2:4-5. But come! be strong Zerubbabel—fear not. The depressing tendency of the present circumstances was admitted; but this was no reason why the people should repine. In the first place, they might plead with perfect confidence the gracious promise which they had a little before so joyfully received (Hag_1:13). And if God was indeed with them, not only would the possession of his favor and the enjoyment of his presence compensate for all past distresses, and be all-sufficient for the new and untried future, but his help, his working with them, would establish the work of their hands, and in his strength they would be strong. He declares to them besides, that, as the Covenant is still in force, they are as much the object of his care as when that Covenant was first ratified, and that in the power of his Spirit resident with and among them, they would continually enjoy his presence and support.
Such is the general sense of Hag_2:4-5, and it is not materially affected whatever be the true construction of the latter verse, concerning which there has been much difference of opinion. The chief difficulty lies in the ambiguity of אֶת־הַרָּבָר. The solutions that have been proposed under the supposition that אֶת is the sign of the definite object will first come under review. Some, notably Ewald and Hengstenberg, suppose that the governing word (probably זִכְרוּ: remember), is understood at the beginning of the verse. (Remember) the word which I covenanted with you, when you came forth from Egypt and my spirit dwelt in the midst of you: fear not. Besides the obvious objection, that this construction does not readily suggest itself, it may be remarked that a reference to Exo_20:20, which Hengstenberg regards as establishing his view, seems out of place, not only from the improbability in general of an allusion to a comparatively unimportant expression uttered so many ages before, but also from the utter want of analogy between the present circumstances of the people and the situation supposed to be compared with them here. Moreover (it is not too much to say), on that special occasion the Spirit of God was not resting upon the people, as their conduct immediately thereafter abundantly proves (Exo_32:7-8). Finally, there would seem to be not merely a certain incongruity between such a reference and the whole drift of the discourse, but the allusion would absolutely weaken the latter in its well-sustained and lofty flight. Equally unsatisfactory upon exegetical, though preferable on grammatical grounds, is the opinion (of Aben Ezra, D. Kimchi, Œcolampadius, Rosenmüller) that אֶת־הַרָּבָר is the object of וַעְַשׂוּ, either repeated from ver 5 or with the last clause of that verse parenthetical: perform the word (covenant) which I concluded with you.… then will my spirit abide with you. As Hitzig remarks, they were not to fulfill the commands of the Law, but to build the Temple. Others again (Ruckert, Hitzig, Koehler, Keil, Henderson, and Pressel) take אֶת as the “sign of the definite nominative of the subject.” It is not to be denied that in spite of the elaborate attempt made by Maurer in his Commentary to throw doubt upon the existence of this construction, there are a few cases which seem to prove its occasional though rare occurrence. The methods, however, that have been suggested by its ablest supporters to account for it here, virtually make it the sign of the definite object—another form of the view last mentioned. It is supposed either that אֶת־הַדּֽבֽר is attracted into the case of אְשֶׁר, a usage unknown to the Hebrew language, a single example of which is wrongly claimed in Zec_8:17 (see Ewald, § 277 d), or that the Prophet had intended to write הֶעֱמַדְתִּי instead of צֹמִרֶת after רוּחִי making all that precedes the object of that verb: (I have established the word.… and my Spirit among you). Why he should have abandoned his original intention we are not told. If he had done so, he would probably have erased the שֶׁת as any other writer would do under like circumstances. More precarious still is the notion of De Wette, who regards את as = ipse, according to the meaning which Gesenius has attributed to that word as the primary one. He renders: this word, etc., referring to the last clause of Hag_2:4 : I am with you. Maurer has been more successful in combating this theory with regard to אֶת, since he has shown clearly that it need never be taken as a distinctive or demonstrative pronoun. Luther, Calvin, Eichhorn, Maurer, Newcome, Noyes, Moore, and Fausset regard אֶת־הֵרָּבר as the “accusative of the norm or standard.” So our E. V.: according to the word, etc. It may be admitted that the accusative is sometimes used absolutely in Hebrew to express such a notion; but if it had been so employed here, it is hardly conceivable that the אֶת, which would have been certain to be misunderstood, and moreover, superfluous, would have been inserted. No example can be found of its occurrence in such a construction. We are therefore compelled to assume that אֶת is here a preposition: with, as Cocceius, Marckius, J. D. Michaelis, and Stier have also done. The first member of Hag_2:5 would thus be an adjunct of the last clause of Hag_2:4, and the second member parallel to it. Hag_2:4-5 might then be thus paraphrased: “Be strong, my people, for henceforth I am with you. I come into your midst with the Covenant which I made with you, when first you became my people. I renew it with you now that you have returned to Me; I will support and aid you as I have ever done towards my faithful people; My spirit is resting upon you; behold in this my faithfulness proved and my promise of help fulfilled.” The only objection of any weight that can be brought against this view is that the repetition of “with” in a clause which is not appositive would create a certain degree of awkwardness in the sentence. This must be admitted; and yet it is probable that the matter has been regarded too much according to the standard of our Occidental analytical and flexible languages, and that the locution would be less offensive to the taste of an ancient Hebrew. Koehler makes the objection, which is repeated by Keil, that if the אֶת of Hag_2:5 had been a preposition, we should have had in Hag_2:4, for the sake of euphony, צִמְּכֶם instead of אִתְּכֶם. But in such cases as this it is merely the close recurrence of similar sounds that offends; the fact that the words are identical in meaning is quite without influence. It is therefore a sufficient answer to these objections to say that the obnoxious sound is repeated here, where, according to the construction held by these critics, the word את, representing it, is at best superfluous. In accordance with what has been said, the word which I covenanted with you, etc., must be understood as the promise of God’s continuing presence and favor, suspended upon the obedience of the people, which expressed his obligations with respect to the Covenant made at Sinai, whose validity was to be perpetual. That the words my Spirit refer to the sustaining and comforting influence of the Holy Spirit upon the people, and not to the gift of such special qualifications for the present work as were imparted to Bezaleel and his assistants, Exo_31:1 (Osiander, Koehler), or to that of the spirit of prophecy (Targum, J. D). Michaelis, Newcome, Henderson), is plain if we consider, (1) that the exhortations are addressed to the whole people, and (2) that only through an immediate and widely spread influence could their incipient despondency be removed and exchanged for cheerful courage. Such inspiration received and operating, just as it might be sought and prized, would soon cause them to forget their fallen fortunes, in their efforts to speed the coming of the promised triumph.
They might expect even more than this. Not only would the loss of Israel’s ancient glory be more than made up to the little colony by the abiding presence and help of their Covenant God: the very structure on which they were then engaged, though unadorned by the gilded magnificence of the former Temple, would yet, in its purer and more spiritual worship, possess a glory all its own, to which its predecessor had never attained, and would thus prefigure that everlasting Temple, whose transcendent and ever-increasing glory would be displayed in the pilgrimage thither of worshippers from every nation, laden with their choicest offerings, and still more in the unrestrained and continuing presence of the indwelling Spirit. The verses which contain these promises are so closely connected that we must expound them as a whole.
Hag_2:6-9. For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts.… I will give peace, saith Jehovah of Hosts. The phrase צוֹר אָחַת מְצַטֹ הִיא In Hag_2:6 has always been the occasion of much dispute. Taking a survey of the different views, we find that the rendering: it is yet a little (while), of the Targum (צוֹר חַרָא זְצֵירָא הִיא) and the Vulgate (ad huc unum modicum est) has been adopted by Luther, Calvin, Grotius, and by later expositors, as Ruckert, Maurer, Hengstenberg, Ewald, Umbreit, and Moore, אַחַת being regarded by most of them as = the indefinite article, but by Hengstenberg as strictly a numeral adjective. Reference is made, in support of this view, to Exo_17:4; Psa_37:10; Hos_1:4, and other passages, in all of which cases, however, מְצַט is either unaccompanied by an attributive or followed by מִזְצָר—an entirely different construction. Insuperable grammatical difficulties attend this view, whichever of its abovementioned, modifications be adopted, as may be seen from the grammatical note on this verse; and the laws of the language must be suffered to decide against it. This consideration has led the majority of modern expositors to regard the sentence as made up of two members: צוֹר אַחַת and מְצֵט הִיא. But among these again there is a disagreement as to the true force of אַחַת. The greater number (including most of the later Anglo-American expositors, after the E. V., Cocceius, Marckius, Koehler, Keil, and Pressel), follow the LXX. (ἔτι ἅπαξ), who, however, left מְצַט הִיא untranslated. They understand פַּצַם, which is often feminine, with אחת, and make the expression = once, as in Eze_30:10; 2Ki_6:10; Job_40:5; Jos_5:2. They accordingly translate the sentence: once more—it is a little while, etc. Hitzig, Hofmann ( Weissagung und Erfüllung, 1:330), Delitzsch (Comm. zum Briefe an die Hebräer, Heb_12:26), understand צֵת instead of פַּצַם, and render: one period more—a brief one is it, etc. The Prophet is then supposed to have declared (1) “that the period between the present and the predicted great change of the world, will be but one period, i. e., one uniform epoch, and (2) that this epoch will be a brief one” (Delitzsch). But it cannot be shown without overworking the passage that this idea possesses any pertinency to the Prophet’s design; it seems strange in the connection. Its advocates also ignore the distinction between prophecy and history. It must therefore be decided that פַּצַם is the word to be supplied, which is distinguished from צֵת as occasion is from period, and that the proper rendering is: Once more—it is a little (while)—and, etc. The use of וְ to mark the consequent clause of the sentence after a statement of time is in accordance with Hebrew usage; see Green, § 287, 3. הִיא in the parenthetical clause is the copula (Green, § 258, 2) and not the predicate, as Koehler asserts. It is conformed in gender to אַחַת, which it represents. It is natural to assume that צוֹר preserves here its usual sense: yet, again, more. Koehler, however, takes it to mean: henceforth, in the future, and the whole sentence as announcing that from this time forward the world would be shaken once, and only once. This he does not rest upon linguistic grounds, referring, as he does, to 2Sa_19:36; 2Ch_17:6, only to show that the meaning proposed is admissible. Now, without maintaining the untenable position (as we think it) of Keil, that צוֹר always retains its primary sense of repetition or return, it is yet undeniable that it invariably preserves such a force when connected with a temporal term or phrase, such as אהת has been shown to be in our passage. Koehler bases his opinion upon the notion that repetition cannot be implied here, because no such commotions of nature as are here predicted had ever occurred before this time, not even during the delivery of the Law at Sinai, which is usually supposed to be alluded to in the passage. In disproving this statement there is no necessity of referring to the sense of צוֹר as understood by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb_12:26-27) or even to the inference which he draws from the words “once more” of our Prophet; for there we have simply the authority of the LXX., which is quoted and applied after the custom of the New Testament writers. We may, however, cite the opinion of that inspired Writer, that it was the shaking of Sinai that the Prophet had in mind—an opinion evidently held without the least reference to the interpretation of צוֹר אַחַת, one, in fact, assumed by him as unquestioned. This any one will perceive on even the most superficial examination of the passage Heb_12:18-29. Koehler asserts that the shaking of Sinai cannot be alluded to here, because the commotions here foretold were to affect all nature, while the descriptions of the giving of the Law do not refer to any disturbance beyond the Sinaitic region. But such passages as Jdg_5:4-5; Psa_68:8-9; Hab_3:6, represent all nature as having been then moved at the coming of God. If it should be urged that such poetical conceptions are largely figurative, it may be replied that the convulsions here alluded to are themselves largely figurative, as will be presently shown. The force of the Prophet’s allusion to the phenomena at Sinai we conceive to be this: He is now holding out to the faith of his desponding people the prospect of a new era, which was to be prefigured by their present Temple. The former dispensation, out of which they were soon to pass, and of which the former Temple was the symbol and crown, had been announced and prepared by the shaking of Sinai and the other wonders wrought in the realm of nature during the disciplinary experience of their fathers previous to their entrance into the Promised Land. This second, final dispensation was also to be ushered in by shakings and convulsions. These, in accordance with the more spiritual character of the new era, were to occur not so much in the physical as in the moral sphere, the former class, however, not to be excluded. In accordance with the wider enjoyment of the new economy, its portents, so far as they were to occur in the external world, would affect all nature, so far as they were to affect human thought and action, were to affect all nations. It remains to be seen how this universal shaking is effected. That the words: I will be shaking the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, have chiefly a figurative application, becomes clear from a comparison with such passages as Psa_60:2; Psa_18:7-15; Isa_13:13; Isa_64:1-3, where God’s judgments are represented under images drawn from the phenomena of nature; also from others such as Isa_65:17 (comp Isa_66:22, and with this the words “once more” in our verse), in which, as the context shows, the blessed results upon humanity are compared to a new heaven and a new earth. We do not even need to go beyond our own book for illustration. In Hag_2:21 we have expressions similar to those here employed, which must have largely a figurative significance, since the overthrow of the surrounding nations was all that the convulsions there predicted were to accomplish, as our exegesis of the passage will show. The various departments of nature are particularized so as to present a vivid picture of the universal commotions and of the consequent transformation of the world. The prediction has its literal fulfillment also, in so far as remarkable natural phenomena have a portentous significance, in the divine dealings with man,—a truth recognized both by the Scriptures and by profane writers. We must remember, however, that the representation is here of a very general nature. With these conclusions in view it will appear that Hag_2:6-7 describe the working of God with its resulting marvelous change in the aspect of the world in general, and more especially in its influence upon mankind nationally and individually,6 preparing them for the universal reception of the blessings of the promised epoch. The allusion must therefore be to all movements in the history of humanity, either before or since the coming of Christ, which have disposed men to own Christ as their Lord and Saviour. And of these it is most natural to consider as more immediately intended, those various political convulsions which changed the aspect of the civilized world and adjusted the nations for the ready reception and rapid spread of the Gospel—the conquests of Alexander, and the wars of his successors, with their tendency to combine and equalize the nations involved, and to weaken the spirit of national exclusiveness, to promote mutual intercourse through the medium of a common language, in which at first the Old Testament and at last the New were given to the world; followed by the gradual but irresistible progress of Roman supremacy uniting the East and the West, and resulting, on the one hand, in the decline of paganism or national religion, and on the other, in the prevalence of a long and universal peace, so favorable to the spread of the religion of mankind.—Such was the immediate fulfillment of the prediction. But we are not warranted in stopping here. In accordance with the true interpretation of the second clause of Hag_2:7 (to be given presently), we must regard the convulsions as coextensive with their influence. All nations were to contribute to the glory of the Church of Christ, and whatever exercise of the divine power in the external world or in the spiritual sphere, should dispose man to the service of Jehovah, must be included in that moving of the world which should lead to its transformation. Hence we need not restrict the fulfillment of the prediction to the political changes which prepared the way for the reception of Christianity, as has usually been done, but may behold it also in those subsequent events in the world’s history, political, social, or moral, which have subserved (and never more conspicuously than in our own day) the growth and glory of the Church of Christ. We may even admit the partial correctness of Calvin’s explanation, that the shaking denotes that marvelous supernatural and violent impulse by which God compels his people to betake themselves to the fold of Christ. The view of Hengstenberg and Keil, at all events, is beside the mark, who suppose that the shaking of the nations is intended to set forth the punitive judgments of God upon the heathen, as leading them to submit themselves to his rule. As a matter of fact, it was not, to any great extent, the judgments of God that led the heathen to accept the Gospel. When, therefore, Hengstenberg attempts to apply his theory to the preparation for Christ’s coming, he naturally fails. Appeal is made to Hag_2:21-23, where a shaking of heaven and earth is predicted in connection with the overthrow of surrounding nations. But the passages are not parallel. Hag_2:21-23 are not in the strict sense Messianic; our passage is. The subject there is the opposition between the heathen and God’s people; and no hint is given of the conversion of the former. The subject here is the honor to be put upon the Church of Christ (represented by the Second Temple) by its reception of worshippers from all nation’s. The notion of the punishment of the heathen is remote from the idea of the promise and irrelevant to the discourse as a whole.
The consequence of this divine influence upon mankind is next given: וּבָאוּ חֶמְרַּת כָל־הַגּוֹים. But what is meant by חֶמרַּת חַגּוֹיִם? The rendering of the E. V.: The desire of all nations, according to which the Messiah is referred to as the object that should satisfy the universal longings of men, has always been a favorite interpretation. The translation of the Vulgate was: “et venit desideratus cunctis gentibus,” and this was followed by the Reformers (except Calvin), by the older orthodox Commentators generally, and among English Expositors, last by Fausset. So confidently has their opinion been held, that Ribera suspected the later Jews of having corrupted the passage by changing a singular verb into the plural (וֹבָאוּ), with the design of throwing difficulties in the way of the true interpretation. It has been accepted so widely by the Christian Church through the influence of the various Versions that it is still everywhere daily heard in their hymns and prayers. It is natural, moreover, that many should have been unwilling to give up a prediction which seemed to embody such a great and inspiring truth. But such an interpretation cannot stand the test of correct criticism. In the first place, we must have regard to the aim of the discourse, the encouragement of the people in building the Temple, by assuring them that its glory would yet be great. This object would not have been subserved by foretelling the coming of a Person for whom all the Gentiles were longing. Such a promise would give no special comfort to the Jews. The only reason why the “nations”1 were referred to must have been that they themselves would contribute to the future glory. Secondly, it is impossible to see what connection the silver and the gold of Hag_2:8 can have with the coming of the Messiah, though that verse is evidently introduced as confirmatory of this. But, finally, the view in question is untenable grammatically. בָּאוּ is plural, while its subject חֶמְרַּת is singular. That subject, therefore, cannot be a person. It is impossible to evade the force of this argument; and when we discover that such expedients have been adopted as to assume that Christ’s two Natures are referred to, the hopelessness of the attempt becomes evident. It has indeed been urged that when a plural noun depends upon and follows a singular, the verb may in Hebrew agree with the plural. This is true in certain cases, namely, when the predicate may naturally be referred to the governed word as containing the controlling idea of the sentence (comp. Green, § 277). This is of course not the case here. It is not the nations themselves who are represented as coming, but their חֶמְרָּת. More admissible grammatically is the modification proposed by Cocceius, who translates: I will shake all nations, that they may come to the desire of all nations.” But the first argument adduced against the preceding view is decisive also against this. It only remains that we take חֶמְרַּת as a collective,—which its originally abstract sense renders natural, and as the plural verb demands.7 The true sense of חמרת here may be readily deduced from the usage of its primitive חמר: to desire, to take delight in. The derivation means, first, the emotion of pleasure, and next, an object of desire or delight (1Sa_9:20; Dan_11:37). We have now only to decide whether it relates to persons or to things. The former sense with the explanation: what is valuable or worthy among the heathen— i. e., the best of the Gentiles—has been adopted by Theodore of Mopsuestia, Cappellus, Rückert, Hitzig, Umbreit, and Fürst (in his Wörterbuch). But here, also, all connection with Hag_2:8 fails us. The only meaning which satisfies all the conditions of the passage is: the desirable things of the nations; not: the things desired by the nations realized in the blessings of the Messiah’s reign, as Henderson holds,—an explanation which like those previously noticed should be discarded because of its want of connection with the context, and its irrelevancy to the discourse as a whole. We accordingly translate: the desirable or precious things, the treasures of the nations, as most of the later Commentators have done. So the LXX. appear to have understood it (ἥξει τὰ ἐκλεκτὰ πάντων τῶν ἐθνῶν not ἥξονσι, not persons but things). Their explanation was adopted in the Itala and Vulgate, and by Kimchi, and was completely established by Calvin, the most judicious and penetrating of Commentators. Since the Reformation it has been held, among others by Drusius and Vitringa, by Rosenmüller, Maurer, Hengstenberg, Hofmann, Koehler, Keil, Ewald,8 and among English Expositors, by Adam Clarke, Newcome, Noyes, Moore, and Cowles. Hengstenberg, indeed, followed by Moore, assumes untenably that הֶמִרַּת properly means beauty, but both writers adopt the usual explanation in their exposition. From whatever stand-point we regard this interpretation, its correctness becomes apparent. Grammatically it is unassailable. If we revert to the occasion of the discourse, we find that it contains the very ground of encouragement which the desponding people required. They had no need to be disheartened because of the present condition of the Temple. The outward adornments which had rendered the former structure so attractive were indeed absent, but these would be more than surpassed in splendor by the precious gifts which all nations should yet bring, to make glorious Jehovah’s dwelling-place. If we regard the immediate context, the interpretation becomes self-evident. The display of the precious metals in the first Temple was mournfully remembered by the people in their poverty. But the silver and gold of the whole earth were God’s, much more glorious would be that Temple which should be adorned by the treasures of all nations which He should dispose to his worship and service.
We have next to inquire into the fulfillment of this remarkable prediction. And the question first suggests itself: is the promise to be fulfilled in a literal or in a figurative sense, or in both? The answer will throw additional light also upon the concluding words of Hag_2:7 : I will fill this house with glory.9 Let us now see to what extent the Gentiles did bring of their treasures to the second Temple. The command of Darius Hystaspes, given soon after, that abundant supplies should be allowed the Jews to forward their labors, cannot properly come into consideration here, because it was not a consequence of any such shaking of the nations as that just predicted. The same remark applies to the presents of Artaxerxes Longimanus and his councillors through Ezra. We must look beyond the mighty political convulsions of the age of Alexander and his successors, in which, as we have seen, the shaking of the nations first actually began. And here, as Calvin has shown, and Hengstenberg more fully, the renewal of the second Temple by Herod must be excluded from consideration. Herod was a foreigner, it is true, but his labors were not prompted by reverence for Jehovah, but by worldly policy.10 But the case was different with the offerings of those proselytes who, in the decline of polytheism sought to satisfy their religious aspirations by paying their homage to the one true God in his Temple. These gifts, however, were little more than a pledge of the higher, more glorious fulfillment. Otherwise the prophecy would have remained unfulfilled. The Temple (in its true idea and divine purpose) must be merged into the Church of Christ, the offerings of whose worshippers must have that predominantly spiritual character which should mark the Messianic times. (1.) Because the prediction is given as a revelation from God. Its fulfillment is certain.11 A literal fulfillment has been shown to be untenable; we have therefore to seek a spiritual one. (2.) This promise is but one of a large class of similar predictions in the Old Testament whose spiritual realization is assured by the New. Comp. Isa_60:5; Isa_60:9-11; Mic_7:13; Zec_14:14, with Rev_21:24-26. The harmony and connection of our passage with these is convincing. (3.) After the restoration the outward splendor of the Temple was never a matter of Divine cognizance. The rebukes of the prophets directed against the people were not due to any failure on their part to enhance its external glory. Indeed we have good reason to think that they were encouraged to make this of little account. It is at least certain that the spirit cherished by the Jews, which ultimately led to their rejection, and to the destruction of the Temple, was the sentiment that found expression in the reverence for the gold of the Temple, which called forth so scathing a denunciation from the lips of Jesus, and that, in his refusal to admire the grandeur of that structure, He was moved by something more than the mere prevision of its coming ruin, that He recognized in that terrible calamity the divinely just result of the loss of spiritual worship which universally prevailed. And if the failure to discern that the Temple was only the embodiment and symbol of spiritual truths marked the decline and fall of Judaism, it was necessary that the Church of God, the true Temple beneath the gold, and outward adornings, should without losing its identity, divest itself of external form, to invite and receive spiritual worshippers from all nations. Upon these grounds we claim the fitness and necessity of a spiritual fulfillment of this prediction. What the treasures are which all nations were to bring to the Church of God is not far to seek. All material offerings presented since the establishment of Christ’s kingdom, for the purpose of advancing its extension or inward growth, are of course included. But the offerings of the heart—the prayers and praises of the multitudes that throng more and more about the gates of Zion, as the nations are shaken more and more by forces of the Spirit’s moving, and their self-renouncing devotion of soul and life to her service,—mainly constitute the perpetual and progressive fulfillment of the prediction. And in the presence of God among his adoring people we have the idea embodied in the ancient Temple realized, and the crowning promises of this prophecy fulfilled: I will fill this House with glory.… In this place I will give peace. It is the presence of Jehovah that sheds glory upon the Church, his Temple and dwelling-place, that imparts inward peace and joy, and outward peace and prosperity [שָׁלוֹם] to its members in ever-increasing measure; but that Presence is vouchsafed to meet and reward the submission and service of his people, gathered from every nation under heaven.
There is another important point in connection with this subject which needs to be discussed. The fact that all these promises are applied directly to “this house,” and that, as the subject of such glorious predictions the second Temple is sharply contrasted with the first, proves that there must have been something connected with the former, as compared with the latter, constituting it a more fit representative of the Church of Christ. This feature of the discourse is worthy of a much fuller treatment than is here practicable. We only remark at present that the cardinal distinction must have consisted in the more spiritual character which life, and faith, and worship assumed in the best times of Judaism after the Restoration, the Temple being of course understood to represent then, as of old, the theocratic community of which it was the centre. Rites and ceremonies retired more into the background; and prayer began to assume its true place in public worship. The religious knowledge of the people was kept up through the regular public reading and distribution of the Scriptures, which were early collected into their present canonical form. Synagogues were established, the people having learnt at Babylon that God’s presence might be enjoyed in their assemblies in any place or circumstances. Thus there was kept alive throughout the nation a higher and purer type of religion than it had known in the days when the first Temple with its outward splendor and gorgeous ritual excited the admiration of the people, but too seldom led their thoughts to the contemplation of the truths it expressed and prefigured. These we regard as some of the characteristics of the second Temple, which on the one hand exalted it above its predecessor, and on the other assimilated it to the Church of Christ, of which it thus became the fit representative in the Divine promises. This was the true glory of the Second Temple.
The question finally suggests itself: If this exposition be correct, why were these promises veiled in such a material form? The same difficulty must be equally felt in the consideration of the similar passages in the Prophets already cited. It is not a sufficient answer to say that such is the uniform drapery in which prophetic promise is clothed. The answer which exhibits the inner fitness and necessity of the mode of communication, is that such a form was the only one suited to the conditions under which the promise was given. Its recipients would have been dissatisfied with the full and clear revelation as not meeting their immediate needs, and moreover could neither have grasped its meaning nor appreciated its worth. They were not as yet prepared to receive the doctrine of an invisible Temple and a universal Church, as the nations themselves were not prepared for the coming and reign of their common Redeemer. Hence it was best that the glories of his kingdom should be described in words suited to their apprehensions and requirements. He also, when He came, in his predictions as well as in his other instructions, taught as his hearers were able to bear them. And even we are under the same tutelage with respect to the mysteries of the New Jerusalem; for we read that it has its Temple too (Rev_7:15), and yet we are told that it has no Temple (Rev_21:22); and the announcement of the final and complete fulfillment of our prophecy (Rev_21:24-26) is little more than a repetition of the prophecy itself in a material form identically the same.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The only hope of the Church of God lies in his favor. If at any time it is weak and languishing, its sad condition is directly due to the withdrawal of God’s presence. But his attitude towards his people is not the result of caprice or of change of purpose. He is bound to them by a Covenant (Hag_2:5) to which He ever remains faithful. It is their unfaithfulness that banishes Him from among them, and a return to obedience that restores his favor and help. The latter result is as assured as the former (comp. Hag_2:4-5, with Hag_1:12-13). These truths furnish an antidote to despondency, and a ground of confidence as well as a motive to renewed consecration.
2. The World is the tributary, and the minister of the Church. All revolutions, political, social, or moral, that affect the nations, are harbingers and preparations of that spiritual and inward but no less powerful influence which is to impel them within the boundaries of the kingdom of Christ. And the treasures of the nations, all that is desirable and valuable in the achievements of human labor, all the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of the ages, and all that is pure and lofty in human motives and purposes, are the offerings which the world has brought, or is yet to bring to the Church—“the glory and honor of the Gentiles” presented in the courts of Zion (Rev_21:26).
3. The development and progress of the Church of God are not marked by an increase of external splendor. Its true glory does not consist in the magnificence of its houses of worship, or in the pomp and impressiveness of its ceremonies and rituals. The First Temple was distinguished by these outward attractions; but the Second Temple in which they were so inferior, is by the Prophet contrasted with the former, and chosen as the fit representative, nay even as the partial realization of the promised Church of Christ. Christians know, as the pious worshippers in the second Temple were taught, that the glory of the Church is derived from the purity of her worship, the devotion of her ever-increasing members, and the abiding presence of God through his Spirit. Even the Shekinah was wanting in the second Temple; but the faithful worshippers there, like those who now in every nation worship God in spirit and in truth, could rejoice that they did not need among them his visible glory, while his presence was felt in their hearts.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Hag_2:3 (comp. with Hag_2:9). Long life is a blessing and happiness to a servant of God, if at its close he is permitted to behold the revival of God’s kingdom and increasing signs of its coming glory.
Hag_2:4-5. God’s people should dwell much upon their past history. They will thus find that whatever checks and distresses they have experienced were due to their own unfaithfulness, and that God never failed to fulfill his part in the Covenant, whether He chastened or blessed. In the adversities of the present they may be assured that their true hope lies in the presence and power of the Spirit, who dwells with them according as they fulfill their part in the Covenant.
Calvin: God is present with his own in various ways; but He especially shows that He is present when, by his Spirit, He confirms weak minds.
Hag_2:6-7. In the midst of the changes, political, social, and moral, that affect the nations, by what methods may God’s people best seek to attract them with their priceless treasures within the Church of Christ?
Henry: The shaking of the nations is often in order to the settling of the Church and the establishing of the things that cannot be shaken.
Moore: The kingdoms of the world are but the scaffolding for God’s spiritual Temple, to be thrown down when their purpose is accomplished.—The uncertainty and transitoriness of all that is earthly should lead men to seek repose in the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.—The glory of the New Testament dispensation is the conversion of the heathen.
Hag_2:8. Since the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s, his people need never fear either that they will be left destitute, or that the “riches of the Gentiles” will not be converted to the use of his Church.
Henry: Every penny bears God’s superscription as well as Cæsar’s.
Moore: The comparative poverty of the Church is not because God cannot bestow riches upon her, but because there are better blessings than wealth that are often incompatible with its possession.
Hag_2:9. Calvin: Though they should gather the treasures of a thousand worlds into one mass, such a glory would still be perishable.
Moore: The New Testament in all its outward lowliness has a glory in its possession of a completed salvation, far above all the outward magnificence of the Mosaic dispensation.—The kingdom of Christ makes peace between God and man, and in its ultimate results will make peace between man and man, and destroy all that produces discord and confusion, war and bloodshed on the earth.
Pressel: Every house of God is a place where God gives peace, and every place of peace is also a house of God.
—On the whole discourse: The glory of God’s kingdom: (1.) Its conditions—the faithfulness of his people to all their covenant obligations and duties, their obedience, their faith, and their courage, securing his favor and help. (2.) Its nature—the constant reception of increasing multitudes of “Gentile” with their “treasures” of devotion and service; and the abiding presence of God’s Spirit diffusing peace and joy.
Footnotes:
[1]Hag_2:3.—הַנִּשְׁאָר. The article is employed here (=who is the one that is left) because the predicate is made definite by the description which follows (that has beheld this House, etc.); comp. Jer_49:36, and see Green § 245, 2, Ewald, § 277 a.
[2]Hag_2:3.—מָה (=qualem) agrees with אוֹתוֹ as the attributive of the object, Ewald, § 325 a, ad finem. This use of מָה (as suggesting the character of the object) seems to justify the explanation of כָּמֹהוּ כְאַֹיִן after the analogy of Joe_2:2 : Is not such (a one) as it as nothing in your eyes? See Ewald, § 105 b, 1. So Rückert, Maurer Hitzig, Moore. To this Koehler, and after him Keil, object that then it would not be the Temple, but something like it that is compared to nothing, which would be very tame. But every one knows that in expressions of this kind “such” refers to the subject of discourse with an allusion at the same time to its character. Here כָמֹהוּ (= a temple like this) would naturally refer back to מָה (= what sort of Temple?). Hence we prefer this view to the one more commonly entertained, and upheld by these critics, that we have here an inversion of the usual order of the particles of comparison: Is not as nothing so it?=Is it not as nothing; comp. Gen_18:25; Gen_44:18 (as Pharaoh so thou). The rendering adopted by Rosenmuller, Eichhorn, et al., as well as by E. V. and most English expositors, is indefensible.
[3]Hag_2:5.—אֶת־הַוָּבָר. See the exegesis, which involves in this passage so much, grammatical discussion that We remit the latter to that section.
[4]Hag_2:6.—The reasons decisive against the opinion that אַחַת is joined as a numeral adjective to מְעַט are (1) that the latter is never feminine, and (2) that in such a construction the numeral always follows the substantive. See the exegesis, where other grammatical difficulties connected with the passage are discussed.
[5]Hag_2:7.—The perfects in this verse have the force of the future perfect and not of the prophetic perfect: I shall have shaken, etc. So in Hag_2:22.
[6]Nations are named here in accordance with the guarded and partial representation of the salvation of the Gentiles peculiar to the old Testament. But individuals are not therefore excluded; they are rather plainly and specially regarded; for the constraining force is ultimately not outward compulsion, but the influence of the Spirit upon the heart, as the discourse itself implies.
[7]Even in Psa_119:103 the subject is collective; in Jer_11:14 it is distributive.
[8]Ewald, who formerly (in his Comm.) maintained that the “choice (persons)” of the Gentiles were meant (see above), now seems to agree with this opinion. In his Sprachlehre (§ 317 b), he explains the word by Kostbarkeiten.
[9]Compare for the idea of glory imparted by material treasures, Nah_2:10 (9).
[10]It has been said that Herod really erected a third Temple instead of repairing the second. But this mode of expression show a want of perception of the divine and prophetic idea of the institution. Herod’s Temple must still be regarded as the second, even through it be conceded that he erected a new structure. A new Temple must introduce a new era.
[11]Some of the Jewish Commentators would not readily agree with this. Philippson (Israelitische Bibel ii. 1489), after showing that Herod’s Temple, was with all its splendor still inferior to Solomon’s and after admitting that Hag_2:7, which he renders correctly, has not been literally fulfilled, remarks as follows: “The Prophets give promises for the future, not in order to predict, but in order to ameliorate the present and to incite to holy actions. Israelites have themselves made the fulfillment of these prophecies impossible by refusing to rise to those higher conditions in which alone, according to the declarations of the Prophets themselves, the promises would be fulfilled.” Comp. p. 922. This is the logical result of the Jewish theory; for though some of their Commentators (e. g., Isaaki, Abarbanel) interpret the passage as predicting a future Temple, comparing Ezekiel 43. etc., yet as this view is in plain contradiotion of the Prophet’s announcement of speedy fulfillment, others are, in consistency, driven to renounce the idea of any true fulfillment whatever.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv3–23 Who is left . . . that saw .…
Who is left . . . that saw . . . first glory--Many elders present at the laying of the foundation of the second temple who had seen the first temple (Ezr 3:12-13) in all its glory, wept at the contrast presented by the rough and unpromising appearance of the former in its beginnings. From the destruction of the first temple to the second year of Darius Hystaspes, the date of Haggai's prophecy, was a space of seventy years (Zac 1:12); and to the first year of Cyrus, or the end of the captivity, fifty-two years; so that the elders might easily remember the first temple. The Jews note five points of inferiority: The absence from the second temple of (1) the sacred fire; (2) the Shekinah; (3) the ark and cherubim; (4) the Urim and Thummim; (5) the spirit of prophecy. The connection of it with Messiah more than counterbalanced all these; for He is the antitype to all the five (Hag 2:9).
how do ye see it now?--God's estimate of things is very different from man's (Zac 8:6; compare Sa1 16:7). However low their estimate of the present temple ("it") from its outward inferiority, God holds it superior (Zac 4:10; Co1 1:27-28).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 11, 12, 17, 20 THE GLORY OF THE NEW TEMPLE, Hag_2:1-9.
THE GLORY OF THE NEW TEMPLE, Hag_2:1-9.
These verses contain the second address of Haggai, a message of encouragement to the builders. The prophet promises, in the name of Jehovah, that the new temple, enriched by the wealth of the Gentiles and blessed with peace, shall be more glorious than that of Solomon.
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Hag_2:1 gives the date of the utterance.
Seventh month — Named Tishri, covering the latter part of September and first part of October.
The one and twentieth day — Less than a month after the beginning of the work. We must assume, and the assumption finds support in the contents of the message, that during the interval, when the first enthusiasm had died down, people began to think more soberly about the obstacles to be encountered. Their numbers were small, the building material was costly, some of it had to be brought from a distance, there were no resources such as Solomon could draw upon, and no allies to assist in the work; instead, they had to suffer much from their neighbors. Under these discouraging conditions the fervor of some grew cold, and some malcontents, who perhaps had held aloof from the beginning, found ready listeners. What was the use of it all? They could never expect to equal the temple of Solomon. Why not quit work? Haggai saw that the enterprise was threatened with complete failure unless he could revive the former courage and enthusiasm. This he sought to do by bringing to the discouraged builders a new message of hope and inspiration. Hag_2:2 is similar to Hag_1:1; Hag_1:12 (see there).
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23 1–5. The Circumstances out of which the Prophecy arose
1–5. The Circumstances out of which the Prophecy arose
1. In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month] It has been pointed out that this was the seventh and last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev_23:33-36; Lev_23:39-43); and it has been suggested that the depressing contrast between the former Temple and the present would be heightened and brought home to the people by the rites and services of the festive season. “The return of this festal celebration, especially after a harvest which had turned out very miserably, and showed no signs of the blessing of God, could not fail to call up vividly before the mind the difference between the former times, when Israel was able to assemble in the courts of the Lord’s house, and so to rejoice in the blessings of His Grace in the midst of abundant sacrificial meals, and the present time, when the altar of burnt sacrifice might indeed be restored again, and the building of the temple be resumed, but in which there was no prospect of erecting a building that would in any degree answer to the glory of the former temple.” Keil’s Minor Prophets, Clark’s Theol. Libr. See also Pusey ad loc.
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Ch. Hag_2:1-9. The Second Prophecy
The first prophecy had been one of severe rebuke and earnest call to duty. The second is one of encouragement to those, who having promptly obeyed the first, were in danger of being depressed and disappointed by the comparative meagreness and unworthiness of the results of their labours. When the foundations of the second Temple were laid some years before this, we read of the distress which its character and dimensions occasioned, to those of the returned captives who were old enough to remember the former Temple in its glory. The joyous shouts of the younger portion of the assembly, who rejoiced to see the sanctuary of their faith restored, blended strangely with the sad lamentations of their elders, who mourned over the departed splendour of the past. Now that a month of vigorous work was beginning to tell, and the contrast which had been apparent even in the foundations stood out in bolder relief in the rising walls of the edifice; now that many an “ancient man,” laudator temporis acti, had passed his disparaging comment on each new feature of the growing structure, and told with fond regret of the “exceeding magnifical” house (1Ch_22:5) that had once been there, the danger of dejection and discouragement on the part of the people was increased. With the gracious design of counteracting this, Haggai is directed to deliver a prophecy, which stimulates them to carry on and complete their undertaking, not only by the assurance of the divine presence and favour, but by the promise that in God’s good time that house, so mean and despised, should be filled with a glory that should exceed that of Solomon’s Temple in the days of its greatest magnificence.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23 (1) In the one and twentieth day.—Here, again, the…
(1) In the one and twentieth day.—Here, again, the day selected is significant. The twenty-first day of the seventh month (Tisri) was the seventh and last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. This was the festival of harvest thanksgiving, and its occurrence had always been marked by observances of a peculiarly joyous character. Moreover, the sacrifices on this occasion were very numerous—the number prescribed by the Talmud for the first day exceeding that of any other day in the year. Thus the scanty harvest and the small beginnings of the Lord’s House would both be brought into prominence. It would be but natural if feelings of despondency were excited among those who were old enough to remember the Temple of Solomon, with its costly accessories and elaborate ceremonial, and the festive rites wherewith the “joy in harvest” had expressed itself in a more prosperous time. There is no ground, however, for supposing that the prophet was himself one of these aged persons-
II.
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(1-9) The Third Utterance.—This utterance treats of the glory which, in a later time, is to attach itself to the sacred spot whereon the returned exiles are labouring. It was intended more especially as a message of consolation to those who remembered Solomon’s magnificent structure, and who now gazed sadly on the humble proportions of its successor.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–23 Ver. 1-ch. 2:9Part II THE SECOND ADDRESS: THE GLORY…
Ver. 1-ch. 2:9Part II THE SECOND ADDRESS: THE GLORY OF THE NEW TEMPLE.
Vers. 1-51. The prophet comforts whose who grieve at the comparative poverty of the new building with the assurance of the Divine protection and favour.
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In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month. The seventh month is Ethanim or Tisri, answering to parts of September and Ootober. The twenty-first was the last and great day of the Feast of Tabernacles, (Lev_23:34, etc.) when It was the custom to celebrate the ingathering of the harvest. The joyous nature of this festival was sadly marred on this occasion. Their crops were scanty, and they had. no temple in whose courts they might assemble to pay their vows and offer their thank offerings. The building which had begun to make some progress only the mere showed its poverty. Everything tended to make them contrast the present with the past. But God mercifully relieves their despondency with a new message. By the prophet Haggai. (see note on Hag_1:1)
HOMILIES BY T. WHITELAW Vers. 1-9Returning despondency and renewed stimulus.
In these verses we have the third of the earnest addresses delivered by the devoted seer to these temple fbuilders. In the first (Hag_1:3-11) he reproved them for their neglect and stimulated them to the performance of their duty. In the second, (Hag_1:13) in few words, a single pregnant sentence, indeed, he assured them of God"s presence with them now that they had repented of their negligence and were prepared to consecrate themselves to the important enterprise. In this third address (vers. 1-9) he expatiated upon the glory of the second temple. The people had again, become discouraged and depressed, despondent and downcast, and he sought to impel them to fresh endeavour by indicating the brightness and blessedness of the coming times. Consider
I THE CAUSES OF THEIR DESPONDENCY. This despondency very soon again took possession of them. They had been less than a month engaged in earnest endeavour to carry on the great work when they gave way once more. It was "on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month" that, stirred up by the word of God through the prophet, they devoted themselves afresh to the service of rearing the sanctuary for the Lord, and now on the twenty-first day of the seventh month their hands tired and their hearts grew faint. Why?
1. The failure of their harvests. This was brought conspicuously before them by the fact that "the Feast of Tabernacles" was now going on. This festival stood out amongst the Jews as "the feast," and is described by Jewish writers as "the holiest and greatest feast" of the nation. It served a double purpose, for whilst it commemorated the goodness of God as manifested to the fathers during their desert wanderings, it also commemorated his goodness in the harvest just gathered in, and was therefore not only called "the Feast of Tabernacles," but likewise "the Feast of Ingathering." In prosperous times, during its celebration, the holy city wore quite a holiday aspect. It became converted into a vast camp for all the people, and, with a view to make more vivid to them the tent life of their ancestors in the wilderness, they dwelt for the time being in booths, which they constructed of boughs of olive and palm, pine and myrtle; all the courses of the priests were employed in the religious exercises, bullocks were offered in sacrifice, the Law was read, the trumpets were sounded daily, and each who took part in the commemoration bore in the left hand a branch of citron, and in the right a palm branch entwined with willows and myrtle. When we remember how that on this occasion, in celebrating this feast, they would have, of necessity, to dispense with many of the usual accompaniments, and also that the blight had been upon their crops, and hence the ingathering had been only scanty, (Hag_1:6) we need not be surprised at the depression from which they were suffering.
2. There was, however, another cause of their despondency, viz. the unfavourable contrast presented as they compared the structure they were rearing with the first temple. (Ver. 3.) There were old men among these returned exiles who had seen the temple of Solomon, and who, when the foundations of this second temple were laid, conscious that the new structure would be very inferior in character to the former building, gave way to demonstrations of grief. (Ezr_3:11-13) And it would seem that, as the work of reconstruction proceeded, these hoary-headed men continued to revert to the glories of the past, and instituted so many unfavourable comparisons between that age and the times as they were now, that the builders grew weary and faint hearted in their work.
II THE CONSIDERATION URGED BY THE PROPHET SO AS TO STRENGTHEN THEIR HEARTS AND TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO RENEWED CONSECRATION. Haggai was aged, yet, unlike his contemporaries, instead of dwelling despondingly upon the past, he looked on hopefully to the future. With prophetic insight he saw the golden age as lying, not in the days of yore, but in the coming time. His thoughts were centred upon Divine blessings to be bestowed richly and bountifully upon the true and faithful, and he sought to animate the drooping faith and hope of the workers by directing their minds to these. He reminded them of:
1. The abiding presence with them of the Lord of hosts, in fulfilment of the covenant made with their fathers (ver. 5).
2. The national upheavings which should take place, and which should be overruled to their good (vers. 6, 7).
3. The halo of glory which should eventually rest upon the shrine they wererearing (vers. 7, 9).
4. The Divine proprietorship of all material resources (ver. 8).
5. The deep and durable tranquillity which should be experienced as theresult of the development of the Divine purposes (ver. 9). The sense of despondency is experienced still by those engaged in holy service, and the way to get roused out of this is by anticipating the brighter days that are in store, when rectitude shall mark every character, and truth be on every tongue; when holy virtue shall adorn every life; when the heavenly fruits of "love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance," shall everywhere abound, and the Lord of hosts shall have a home and dwelling place in every heart. S.D.H.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
Vers. 1-5God"s message to his people by Haggai.
the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month, came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai, saying, Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, Governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people," etc. Here is the second Divine message addressed by Haggai to Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the residue of the people. Observe:
1. The Divine message often comes from one man to many. It now cameby Haggai.
2. All temples but the temple of nature are to be built by man himself. God could have studded the world with temples; but he has honoured human nature by leaving it to men to do.
3. Any postponement of duty is opposed to the will of God. All duty requires the utmost promptitude. The Jews were now dallying with duty. The subject of these verses isGod requires human labour purely for religious objects. We have to labour for many things for material subsistence, for intellectual culture and scientific information, but in all for a religion. True labour in every form should be religious. Whatsoever we do in word or deed, we should do all to the glory of God. Three thoughts are here suggested in relation to this subject
I THAT THIS LABOUR SHOULD BE STIMULATED BY THE VIEW OF RELIGIOUS DECADENCE. The temple, once the glory of the country, was now in ruins, etc. "Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now?" Into what a low state has genuine religion sunk in our country! It is cold, formal, worldly, conventional.
II THAT THIS LABOUR SHOULD BE PERFORMED BY THE MOST VIGOROUS EXERTION. "Be strong, O Zerubbabel,... be strong, O Joshua be strong, all ye people of the land." All the powers of our nature should be concentrated in this work, the work of resuscitation. Why?
1. Because it is right, and therefore you may throw your conscience into it.
2. Because it is worthy of all your faculties. Call out and honour all the faculties of your nature.
3. Because it is urgent. The highest interests of your countrymen and your race depend upon it.
III THIS LABOUR SHOULD ENLIST THE COOPERATION OF ALL. All are called upon here to work. The men in office, and the people. All should unite in this work. It concerns all young and old, rich and poor. The energies of all should be enlisted in this grand work of religious revival.
IV THIS LABOUR HAS A GUARANTEE OF DIVINE ASSISTANCE. "For I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts," etc. Those who are engaged in this work are labourers together with God. He is with them, inspiring, directing, encouraging, energizing. Christ says to his disciples, "Lo, I am w ith you alway, even unto the end of the world. D.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 23 Came the Word of the Lord by the prophet…
Hag_2:1-2
Came the Word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai.
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Encouraging the people
The recovery of the Jews from the disasters attending the Babylonian Captivity was necessarily slow and painful. The handful of patriots who returned with Zerubbabel were poor, weak, and despised. They found Jerusalem and the temple heaps of ruins, covered with weeds and rubbish. The first two years witnessed the rebuilding of the altar, the re-establishment of the burnt sacrifices, and the laying of the foundation of the second temple amid the liveliest conflict of emotions. Just at this point a second oracle, full of Divine encouragement, came to Haggai. Weak hands were strengthened, timid hearts were cheered, religious faith and patriotic zeal were kindled into a glow of enthusiasm that never failed until the work was done. We note four considerations by which the prophet wrought this happy change in the temper of his people.
I. Jehovahs abiding presence. Regarded from a merely human point of view there were many and cogent reasons either for an abandonment of the work, or for its postponement until a more auspicious time. The hostility of the neighbouring peoples showed itself in persistent plots to harass the returned exiles, in fomenting discords among them, and in discrediting them at the Persian court. In comparison with the number, wealth and influence of their adversaries, were not the Jews themselves weak and contemptible? Only a few years had passed since their return to a ruined city and a desolate land. In their poverty and distress would it not be audacious folly to undertake the rebuilding of a structure that had taxed the resources of the kingdom in its meridian glory and power? Had not this generation borne burdens enough without being crushed under another? Why not relinquish this enormous load to a better equipped posterity? Moreover, since they returned from Babylon, had not the Lord withheld the legitimate increase of the fields and vineyards? In these straitened circumstances did not the care of their families demand all their time and substance? It might be a pardonable, but was it not a rash enthusiasm in the prophet that had incited them to waste a month of labour on this hopeless task? Religious leaders are always unreasonable! These discouraged Jews could have invented a hundred excuses for abandoning the work. Self-justification is easy when one is eager to recede from an unwelcome task or duty. All human objections, however, are as chaff before an explicit Divine command. The voice of prophecy, re-awakened after long silence, had spoken the authoritative word. However sore the discipline to which their sins had subjected them, they were His people still, a holy seed, a very small remnant indeed, but one over whose preservation He had watched with jealous care. With loving reiteration Jehovah exhorts them to forget their own weakness in joyful recognition of His omnipotence; to assure themselves that the hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, is not as a sojourner in the land, nor as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night. As He covenanted with them when they came out of Egypt, so His Spirit abideth among them. Be strong and work, saith the Lord of hosts; for I am with yea, and fear ye not. There is no better ground for victorious confidence than that. His presence is infinitely more desirable than unlimited worldly wealth and power. We, likewise, face the depressing problems of our own day, grappling with them as we can, only to be overwhelmed by the consciousness of our inability. Through repeated failures we learn that without Divine help we can do nothing. We are overmatched in the battle. All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
II. Jehovahs exhaustible resources. What if Jehovahs people are poor, insignificant, despised? He who is in the midst of them is the rightful owner of the worlds treasures. The silver and the gold are His. He will shake all the nations, and the costliest things of all the nations shall come into His sanctuary. Now, see, when the people really trusted the Lord and went to work (Ezr_6:3-9), how wonderfully the prophets word was fulfilled; how the expense of rearing the massive walls, and the cost of the wood-work were defrayed from the treasury of the Persian Empire; how the priceless vessels of silver and gold, that Nebuchadnezzar had carried to Babylon for his own glory, as he thought, but really for safe keeping during the exile, were all restored again; how the adversaries of the Jews, who had plotted against them, were compelled by the royal decree to furnish them day by day with young bullocks, rams and lambs for sacrifices, and with wheat, salt, wine, and oil as the priests had need. Not only this, but from the very day (Hag_2:19-20) when the rebuilding of the temple began, Jehovah would bless their land with affluence, instead of smiting it with blasting, with mildew, and with hail. Gods work never stops for lack of means when men are willing to obey Him, and to launch out confidently on His promises. The silver and the gold are forthcoming, not by miracle, but through natural channels, as surprising sometimes as actual miracles. Is the time ripe for carrying the Gospel into the heathen world? See how the millions are poured every year into the Lords treasury. If men will not give spontaneously, as did Darius, to the furtherance of Gods purposes, He compels them to bring the best of their substance, as the Samaritans were forced to do. God scatters His resources neither extravagantly nor in conformity to the whims of men. The law of parsimony withholds Him from giving so freely as to make unnecessary the discipline of anxiety and struggle. Even when social and moral reformations are greatly needed He does not purchase transient success by lavish expenditures. Moral results are not permanently secured by material agencies. God could have supplied the early Church with means enough to have freed every slave in the Roman Empire. Instead, He projects into humanity two lofty ideals, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, confident that these ideals will ultimately and for ever accomplish what neither gold nor force can do. Nor does He waste His resources in perpetuating institutions that have survived their usefulness. Local churches, as well as individual saints, are but temporary factors. Holy relics He suffers with absolute indifference to moulder into common dust.
III. Jehovahs gracious purposes. Haggai prophesied in a transition period. The older men who heard him had witnessed the wreck of the Jewish monarchy. The return of the captives to Jerusalem was the glimmering dawn after a dark and stormy night. The glory of the past was a memory; that of the future a dream. Transition periods are always charged with doubts and fears, with peril and pain. The sorest trials are alleviated by an assurance that they lead to higher and richer experiences. And yet men would often forego these if they could thereby escape the trial. They cling to long-cherished errors because they dread the effort and pain of adjusting themselves to new truths. Hoary abuses linger in the community, in the State, in the Church, because men shrink from the sharp but transient evils attending a crisis. Modem science, philosophy, criticism,--the forces that are continually precipitating these crises--are not enemies but friends. Gods purposes do not move backward. A new and better world always emerges from the chaos of the old. So long as Gods hand directs the development every transition will be, not toward darkness and anarchy, but toward truth and order. Haggai encouraged his people with the assurance that their sufferings were not meaningless. Painful as their national discipline had been, it was but an unavoidable step in the evolution of a sublime purpose. Not only did he assure them that Jehovah, their covenant-keeping God, was still in the midst of His People; not only were His resources inexhaustible, and ready to be poured out in their behalf; but He had also a purpose of grace concerning them and the whole world, immeasurably exceeding the brightest memories of the past. Despicable as this new house might appear to those who had seen the splendours of Solomons temple, the new would nevertheless outshine the old. Greater shall be the latter glory of this house than the former, saith the Lord of hosts. Observe that it is the latter glory (R.V.) and not the latter house (A.V.); for whatever be its material condition, Jehovah knows of but one abiding dwelling on His holy hill of Zion. That messianic day, moreover, will be characterised by universal peace. For in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. Peace, first of all, between man and God, that which every true heart yearns for supremely, but which is not found in the world. Peace also between man and man. Inter national rivalries, the ambition of conquerors, royal greed of power will no longer hurl nation against nation in bloody strife. Peace, finally, between man and the wild beasts of the field (Isa_11:6-9). The distrust between them will cease. As nature has shared in mans curse, so it will share in the benefits of mans redemption.
IV. Jehovahs little while, Some of the despondent ones might have retorted, Such glowing pictures were painted by the older prophets, but they are as far from realisation as ever. No, says Haggai; it is only one period more, a very brief one, and then Jehovah will work signs and wonders among the nations to arouse them from indifference, to turn them unto Himself, and thus prepare for the golden age. In a measure His utterance was fulfilled at once, but in its larger signification it still awaits complete fulfilment. The centuries after the Exile were really a brief preface to the messianic period which began with the coming of Christ into His temple, and which still continues. Men are impatient at the moderate pace of events in the kingdom of God. They wonder why He does not force men into swift obedience by stupendous displays of power. Because love and obedience are not wrought by force. Love conquers the kingdom of hatred only inch by inch. Viewing these things by and by from the side of eternity, men will see that earths longest periods are only Jehovahs little whiles. The world is ripening faster than we think. Who knows but that the full glory of the messianic time may be close at hand? Whether near or far, every mans supreme duty to God and to his fellow-man is so to live, by the Holy Spirits help, as to make the world better, and thus to hasten the advent of that golden age. (P. A. Nordell, D. D.)
Gods message to His people by Haggai
1. The Divine message often comes from one man to many. It now came by Haggai.
2. All temples but the temple of nature are to be built by man himself. God could have studded the world with temples; but He has honoured human nature by leaving it to men.
3. Any postponement of duty is opposed to the will of God. All duty requires the utmost promptitude. The Jews were now dallying with duty. The subject of these verses is--God requires human labour purely for religious objects. True labour in every form should be religious.
I. This labour should be stimulated by the view of religious decadence. The temple, once the glory of the country, was now in ruins, etc. Into what a low state has genuine religion sunk in our country! It is cold, formal, worldly, conventional.
II. That this labour should be performed by the most vigorous exertion. Be strong, O Zerubbabel, be strong, O Joshua, be strong, all ye people of the land. Why?
1. Because it is right, and therefore you may throw your conscience into it.
2. Because it is worthy of all your faculties. Call out and honour all the faculties of your nature.
3. Because it is urgent. The highest interests of your countrymen and your race depend upon it.
III. This labour should enlist the co-operation of all. It concerns all--young and old, rich and poor.
IV. This labour has a guarantee of divine assistance. For I am with you, says the Lord of hosts. (Homilist.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 20 The second occasion on which Haggai spoke to the…
2. COURAGE, ZERUBBABEL! COURAGE, JEHOSHUA AND ALL THE PEOPLE!
{Hag_2:1-9}
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The second occasion on which Haggai spoke to the people was another feast the same autumn, the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles, {Lev_23:34; Lev_23:36; Lev_23:40-42} the twenty-first of the seventh month. For nearly four weeks the work on the Temple had proceeded. Some progress must have been made, for comparisons became possible between the old Temple and the state of this one. Probably the outline and size of the building were visible. In any case it was enough to discourage the builders with their efforts and the means at their disposal. Haggais new word is a very simple one of encouragement. The peoples conscience had been stirred by his first; they need now some hope. Consequently he appeals to what he had ignored before, the political possibilities which the present state of the world afforded-always a source of prophetic promise. But again he makes his former call upon their own courage and resources. The Hebrew text contains a reference to the Exodus which would be appropriate to a discourse delivered during the Feast of Tabernacles, but it is not found in the Septuagint, and is so impossible to construe that it has been justly suspected as a gloss, inserted by some later hand, only because the passage had to do with the Feast of Tabernacles.
"In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of Jehovah came by Haggai the prophet, saying:-"
"Speak now to Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, Satrap of Judah, and to Johoshua, son of Jehosadak, the high priest, and to the rest of the people, saying: Who among you is left that saw this House in its former glory, and how do ye see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? And now courage, O Zerubbabel-oracle of Jehovah and courage, Jehoshua, son of Jehosadak, O high priest; and courage, all people of the land!-oracle of Jehovah; and get to work, for I am with you-oracle of Jehovah of Hosts-and My Spirit is standing in your midst. Fear not!"
"For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: It is but a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the costly things of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this House with glory, saith Jehovah of Hosts. Mine is the silver and Mine the gold-oracle of Jehovah of Hosts. Greater shall the latter glory of this House be than the former, saith Jehovah of Hosts, and in this place will I give peace-oracle of Jehovah of Hosts."
From the earliest times this passage, by the majority of the Christian Church, has been interpreted of the coming of Christ. The Vulgate renders Hag_2:7 b, "Et veniet Desideratus cunctis gentibus," and so a large number of the Latin Fathers, who are followed by Luther, "Der Trost aller Heiden," and by our own Authorized Version, "And the Desire of all nations shall come." This was not contrary to Jewish tradition, for Rabbi Akiba had defined the clause of the Messiah, and Jerome received the interpretation from his Jewish instructors. In itself the noun, as pointed in the Massoretic text, means "longing" or "object of longing." But the verb which goes with it is in the plural, and by a change of points the noun itself may be read as a plural. That this was the original reading is made extremely probable by the fact that it lay before the translators of the Septuagint, who render: "the picked," or "chosen things of the nations." So the old Italic version: "Et venient omnia electa gentium." Moreover this meaning suits the context, as the other does not. The next verse mentions silver and gold. We may understand what he says, writes Calvin, "of Christ; we indeed know that Christ was the expectation of the whole world; but as it immediately follows, Mine is the silver and Mine is the gold, the more simple meaning is that-which I first stated: that the nations would come, bringing with them all their riches that they might offer themselves and all their possessions a sacrifice to God."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 10, 15, 20 CRITICAL NOTES.] This oracle, delivered nearly a month after…
CRITICAL NOTES.] This oracle, delivered nearly a month after building had begun, designed to remove despondency, and to meet a new difficulty.
Hag_2:3.] The glory of the second did not answer to that of the former temple. Some of the oldest who had returned, had seen the first building, and wept at the contrast (Ezr_3:12). The Jews note five points of inferiority. The absence
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(1) of the sacred fire;
(2) the shekinah;
(3) the ark and cherubim;
(4) the Urim and Thummim;
(5) the spirit of prophecy. Nothing] God makes the contrast as great as possible, seems to share their feeling, and give evidence of his strong sympathy.
Hag_2:4. Yet] whatever your estimate, I give another. Strong] Fear not, I am with you. Work] David’s words to Solomon (1Ch_28:10; 2Ch_19:11).
Hag_2:5. Covenanted] God the same in promise to all generations and ages (Exo_19:5-6; Exo_24:10-11). Spirit] to strengthen (cf. Hag_1:14; Zec_14:6), hence continual enjoyment of God’s presence and aid.
HOMILETICS
METHODS IN DIVINE TEACHING.—Hag_2:1-2
Rebukes, warnings, and encouragements had due influence upon the people. But new difficulties now threaten and a fresh message is required. Hence “came the word of the Lord” again, in matter and method adapted to guide and comfort.
I. God speaks to his people in different periods of time. “In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month.” In Hag_2:1; Hag_2:10; Hag_2:18, and chap. Hag_1:1; Hag_1:15, how specific the mention of time! no age is left without its prophet and Divine utterance.
II. God speaks to his people in different circumstances of life. The Jews had passed through circumstances of indolence and zeal. Now they begin to despond on account of an inferior temple and failing harvests (Hag_2:9-11). But when God stirs up a people he will help and comfort them in their work. “Set the wheels a going and God will oil them,” says an old writer.
III. God speaks to his people in words adapted to their needs. We have warnings and comfort, “consider” and “fear not,” “go up and build” (chap. Hag_1:8). Revelations are given “in sundry times and in divers manners,” in parts and methods according to our requirements. Germs for present use and future growth. “Whatsoever is Divine revelation ought to overrule all our opinions, prejudices, and interests, and hath a right to be received with full assent,” says Locke. “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.”
CAUSES OF DESPONDENCY IN THE WORK OF GOD.—Hag_2:3
The inferiority of the second temple to that of Solomon was a ground of discouragement in work. The old people affected the young, and though disappointment was not openly expressed, yet it suspended their labours.
I. Many disaffected discouraged others in the work. Some old men were still alive, who thought more of former performances and attainments than present duty and hopeful signs. They discouraged others, exaggerated the evils and reflected upon the work of God. Murmurers and complainers belong to every age. “If the times are bad what are we doing to mend them?” asks one. “Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.”
II. All esteemed the work too lightly. “Is it not in your eyes, in comparison of it, as nothing.” They thought more of outward glory than spiritual blessings. We are too apt to judge by outward appearance, and forget God’s estimate of labour. Though we are not building a material we are a spiritual temple. If not honoured with the position of some, we have responsibilities and duties. Never say that you do nothing, if not surrounded with outward pomp, and patronized by the rich and the noble. Let us “serve our own generation by the will of God.”
REMEDIES FOR DESPONDENCY IN THE WORK OF GOD.—Hag_2:4-5
Notwithstanding alleged grounds of fainting, God exhorts them all to be courageous, to go on with their work, and gives reasons for the exhortation.
I. God’s covenant with them is unchangeable. “According to the word that I covenanted with you, when ye came out of Egypt.” Mercies to God’s people are ensured by a pledge which is eternal and immutable. Dark may be the days and difficult the work of his people; but they are as much the object of his care as when the covenant was first ratified. They may sin and be punished for their sin; but his attitude towards them is not the result of caprice nor change. Unfaithfulness will banish God from us, but return to obedience will restore his favour and help. “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.”
II. God’s presence with them is guaranteed. “For I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts.” God continually declares that we have no ground for fear. We need to have these assurances repeated. If hosts are against us, and the Lord of hosts is with us, this should strengthen us. His presence will compensate for past distress, aid in present duty, and be all-sufficient for the untried future. “The promises of the gospel are sealed to us by the word of the Father, the blood of the Son, and the witness of the Spirit” [Mason].
III. God’s Spirit with them abides for ever. “So my Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not.” God’s Spirit was with the leaders, inspiring the prophets and sanctifying the priests; with the people for the work of the sanctuary (Exo_31:1), and the confirmation of the weak. The Spirit to stir up all to duty (Ezr_5:1; Zec_4:6), and remove every hindrance to its performance. The Spirit still abides in the Church, helping to realize the Divine purpose in Christ. “Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them.” This should furnish,
1. an antidote to fear,
2. a ground of confidence, and
3. a motive to renewed consecration. “Be strong and work: for I am with you” (Hag_2:4).
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Hag_2:2. The better to hearten them, the prophet is sent again, with a like message as before. Learn—
1. That there are none so forward for God and his work but may stand in need of continual quickening.
2. That continual preaching makes men continue in well-doing [Trapp].
3. That all those who work for the Lord will be strengthened and encouraged in their difficulties. Speak now, &c. “The encouragements here are sent to the same persons to whom the reproofs in the foregoing chapter are directed; for those that are wounded by the convictions of the word shall be healed and bound up by its consolations.”
Hag_2:3. Important questions. What answers to be given? Some were left who had seen the first house in its glory, about sixty-eight years since. The contrast in the times and in the buildings no ground for despair. “Long life is a blessing to the servant of God, if at its close he is permitted to see the revival of God’s kingdom and increasing signs of its coming glory” [Lange]. In your eyes, that is, in your, thoughts: for God taketh notice of the inward workings of the heart [Trapp]. Whatever they thought of the work, God’s estimate was very different. Judge not by appearances.
Hag_2:4-5. Lessons of life. Dwell much upon past history, and learn—
1. That what checks and distress may be experienced are due to unfaithfulness.
2. That God never failed to fulfil his covenant, whether he chastened or blessed.
3. That in the adversities of the present true hope lies in the presence and power of the Spirit [cf. Lange].
Hag_2:4. Be strong. Here he exhorteth all ranks, first to good affection, Be strong, or of a good courage; secondly, to good action, Work, or be doing; for affection without action is like Rachel, beautiful but barren. Here then, that we falter not, betray not the cause of God, nor come under his heavy displeasure, who equally hateth the timorous and the treacherous,
1. Be armed with true faith. Faith quelleth and killeth distrustful fear.
2. Get the heart fraught with the true fear of God; for as one fire, so one fear, drives out another (Mat_10:28; 1Pe_3:13-14).
3. Get and keep a clearing, cheering conscience; for that feareth no colours, as we see in St. Paul, Athanasius, Luther, Latimer, and other holy martyrs and confessors.
4. Think on God’s presence as here, Be strong and be doing, for I am with you. Lastly, look up, as St. Stephen did, to the recompense of reward; steal a look from glory, as Moses (Heb_11:26); help yourselves over the difficulty of suffering with Christ by considering the happiness of reigning together [Trapp].
Hag_2:5. The word that I covenanted. Deliverance in Egypt should remind of God’s power and presence with his Church. Encouragement is strengthened by reference to the covenant. Former appearances are types of future.
1. Providences may seem to contradict promises.
2. Promises never contradict providences. Hence the continual repetition and renewed emphasis of the word.
“Our God is still as kind, and all His gifts
Like wondrous, like unlimited, like fair,
As when the wind first blew. Man is to God
That he hath ever been” [Bailey].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Hag_2:1-2. Word. What a beautiful sermon or essay might be written on the the growth of prophecy!—from the germ no bigger than a man’s hand in Genesis, till the column of cloud gathers size and strength, and height and substance, and assumes the shape of a perfect man: just like the smoke in the Arabian Night’s tale, which comes up and at last takes a genie’s shape [Coleridge].
Hag_2:3-5. Despondency. Too often a mischievous gloom enters the mind of God’s people. Their hands slacken, their energies are paralyzed for the work of God, and they sink into desponding apathy and indolence. Did we realize our present privileges and future prospects, the gleam of sunshine would be to us the earnest of what it will be, when—as Rutherford beautifully observes—“we shall be on the sunny side of the Brae” [Bridge].
“There’s not a scene on earth so full of lightness,
That withering care
Sleeps not beneath the flowers, and turns their brightness
To dark despair” [Hon. Mrs Norton].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. Jesus was the Desire of all nations—(1) as…
Hag 2:7
I. Jesus was the Desire of all nations—(1) as the Kinsman of the whole human family; (2) because He only could bestow those precious blessings which the world needed; (3) because all nations shall one day be made happy in Him.
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II. He appeared—(1) at the very period marked out for His birth; (2) in the very manner which had been foretold; (3) for the performance of the very work which had been before marked out for Him.
III. The prophet Haggai mentions certain remarkable events which should distinguish the Messiah’s coming—(1) all nations were to be shaken; (2) the Jewish Temple should be filled with His glory.
J. N. Norton, Old Paths, p. 11.
I. Once Christ was the Desire of all nations, even though when He came unto His own His own received Him not, and was in very truth despised and rejected of men. Nevertheless, of this there can be no doubt, that the world, by woful experience, had learned its need, had found out its want of a Saviour. His first coming was looked to with desire. Let us ask our consciences whether we look to His second coming with anything but dismay and dread. It took four thousand years to make men feel their want of a Saviour; it has taken but half that time to make one moiety of those who, nevertheless, call themselves by His name, to live in practical unbelief; and the other moiety to regard His second coming with terror, and not with joy.
II. What made Him the Desire of all nations? It was this, they wanted some hope, some refuge beyond this miserable world. Their present was dark; their future was darker still. The pleasures of sin for a season—that made up their life. And death was unredeemed with one single ray of brightness. Remorse they might know; despair might haunt them: but of the peace and consolations of a faithful follower of Jesus they had never tasted. No wonder that a Saviour from themselves, and from sin and death, was the "Desire of all nations."
III. Ours is the last twilight of the world. Ages ago we were warned that we were in the last times, and so we are brought to the thought of that second coming of Him who, at His first coming, was the Desire of all nations. To that we must look; for the signs of that coming we must watch. Are we preparing for it? Are we trying at least to desire our Lord’s return? It is only in the way of watchfulness and prayer that this desire can be attained.
E. W. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. i., p. 1.
I. There is a Desire of all nations; something all human beings are vaguely longing for which would put them right. Many of them do not know it, but it is Jesus Christ. Every human being that ever lived, who felt that this world would not do, and that he must have more to satisfy and give rest, was blindly desiring Christ, was stretching vague hands through the darkness after Him. In old phrase which use has emptied of all real meaning to many of us, He is the satisfying portion of the soul.
II. It is a great thing, if a sorrowful too, about the human heart, that it cannot be satisfied. It marks our Divine original, that we never can for long enjoy the real satisfiedness of ruminating cattle, that have got all they want. What all men seek—unawares seek—is Christ. The happy days that do not come, the quiet content that surely will be reached at last—all are in Him, and in the life and the home to which He would lead us if we would but go.
A. K. H. B., From a Quiet Place, p. 131.
References: Hag 2:7.—E. Dukes, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 248; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 357, vol. iv., p. 312; G. Huntington, Sermons for the Holy Seasons of the Church, p. 1; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 408. Hag 2:8, Hag 2:9.—J. C. Hare, Sermons in Herstmonceux Church, vol. ii., p. 101. Hag 2:11-14.—Ibid., p. 123. Hag 2:13, Hag 2:14.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 362. Hag 2:17.—Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 218. Hag 2:19.—A. Scott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 268. Hag 2:20-23.—J. C. Hare, Sermons in Herstmonceux Church, vol. ii., p. 143.
Hag 2:9
I. These words refer to the first and the second temple at Jerusalem. The first temple was burnt by the Chaldees, and the wall of Jerusalem was broken down, and the people carried captive to Babylon, and it was more than fifty years after that the foundation of the second house was laid. It was an occasion to stir up mixed feelings among the people. The glory of their nation had passed away. They came back as exiles, by the permission of a foreign power, to the land that their fathers had conquered. Hope and recollection struggled against each other, when they dwelt by turns on the state from which they had been cast down, and on their hopes of restoration. Jehovah would not manifest Himself in the same degree as He had before to a people who were suffering the punishment of their backslidings; and the house they had built Him was but a poor copy of the temple that had perished. Yet Haggai promised that this second temple in its poverty should be more glorious than the first, because the desire of all nations, even Christ Himself, should come to it, and the Lord of hosts should fill it with glory.
II. This teaches us that it is not the house, but the presence that sanctifies the house, that constitutes its glory. It rests with us to hinder or help the work of God according as we seek God here in earnest, or let our hearts go after covetousness.
Archbishop Thomson, Lincoln’s Inn Sermons, p. 390.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v1 Hag 2:1 - Hag 2:9.
Haggai
BRAVE ENCOURAGEMENTS
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Hag 2:1 - Hag 2:9.
The second year of Darius, in which Haggai prophesied, was 520 B.C. Political intrigues had stopped the rebuilding of the Temple, and the enthusiasm of the first return had died away in the face of prolonged difficulties. The two brave leaders, Zerubbabel and Joshua, still survived, and kept alive their own zeal; but the mass of the people were more concerned about their comforts than about the restoration of the house of Jehovah. They had built for themselves ‘ceiled houses,’ and were engrossed with their farms.
The Book of Ezra dwells on the external hindrances to the rebuilding. Haggai goes straight at the selfishness and worldliness of the people as the great hindrance. We know nothing about him beyond the fact that he was a prophet working in conjunction with Zechariah. He has been thought to have been one of the original company who came back with Zerubbabel, and it has been suggested, though without any certainty, that he may have been one of the old men who remembered the former house. But these conjectures are profitless, and all that we know is that God sent him to rouse the slackened earnestness of the people, and that his words exercised a powerful influence in setting forward the work of rebuilding. This passage is the second of his four short prophecies. We may call it a vision of the glory of the future house of Jehovah.
The prophecy begins with fully admitting the depressing facts which were chilling the popular enthusiasm. Compared with the former Temple, this which they had begun to build could not but be ‘as nothing.’ So the murmurers said, and Haggai allows that they are quite right. Note the turn of his words: ‘Who is left . . . that saw this house in its former glory?’ There had been many eighteen years ago; but the old eyes that had filled with tears then had been mostly closed by death in the interval, and now but few survived. Perhaps if the eyes had not been so dim with age, the rising house would not have looked so contemptible. The pessimism of the aged is not always clear-sighted, nor their comparisons of what was, and what is beginning to be, just. But it is always wise to be frank in admitting the full strength of the opinions that we oppose; and encouragements to work will never tell if they blink difficulties or seek to deny plain facts. Haggai was wise when he began with echoing the old men’s disparagements, and in full view of them, pealed out his brave incitements to the work.
The repetition of the one exhortation, ‘Be strong, be strong, be strong,’ is very impressive. The very monotony has power. In the face of the difficulties which beset every good work the cardinal virtue is strength. ‘To be weak is to be miserable,’ and is the parent of failures. One hears in the exhortation an echo of that to Joshua, to whom and to his people the command ‘Be strong and of good courage’ was given with like repetition {Jos 1:1 - Jos 1:18}.
But there is nothing more futile than telling feeble men to be strong, and trembling ones to be very courageous. Unless the exhorter can give some means of strength and some reason for courage, his word is idle wind. So Haggai bases his exhortation upon its sufficient ground, ‘For I am with you, saith Jehovah of hosts.’ Strength is a duty, but only if we have a source of strength available. The one basis of it is the presence of God. His name reveals the immensity of His power, who commands all the armies of heaven, angels, or stars, and to whom the forces of the universe are as the ordered ranks of His disciplined army; and who is, moreover, the Captain of earthly hosts, ever giving victory to those who are His ‘willing soldiers in the day of His power.’ It is not vain to bid a man be strong, if you can assure him that God is with him. Unless you can, you may save your breath.
Here is the temper for all Christian workers. Let them realise the duty of strength; let them have recourse to the Fountain of strength; let them mark the purpose of strength, which is ‘work,’ as Haggai puts it so emphatically. We have nothing to do with the magnitude of what we may be able to build. It may be very poor beside the great houses that greater ages or men have been able to rear. But whether it be a temple brave with gold and cedar, or a log, it is our business to put all our strength into the task, and to draw that strength from the assurance that God is with us.
The difficulties connected with the translation of Hag 2:5 need not concern us here. For my purpose, the general sense resulting from any translation is clear enough. The covenant made of old, when Israel came from an earlier captivity, is fresh as ever, and God’s Spirit is with the people; therefore they need not fear. ‘Fear ye not’ is another of the well-meant exhortations which often produce the opposite effect from the intended one. One can fancy some of the people saying, ‘It is all very well to talk about not being afraid; but look at our feebleness, our defencelessness, our enemies; we cannot but fear, if we open our eyes.’ Quite true; and there is only one antidote to fear, and that is the assurance that God’s covenant binds Him to take care of me. Unless one believes that, he must be strangely blind to the facts of life if he has not a cold dread coiled round his heart and ever ready to sting.
The Prophet rises into grand predictions of the glory of the poor house which the weak hands were raising. Hag 2:6 set things invisible over against the visible. In general terms the Prophet announces a speedy convulsion, partly symbolical and partly real, in which ‘all nations’ shall be revolutionised, and as a consequence, shall become Jehovah’s worshippers, bringing their treasures to the Temple, and so filling the house with glory. This shall be because Jehovah is the true Possessor of all their wealth. But the scope of Hag 2:9 seems to transcend these promises, and to point to an undescribed ‘glory,’ still greater than that of the universal flocking of the nations with their gifts, and to reach a climax in the wide promise of peace given in the Temple, and thence, as is implied, flowing out ‘like a river’ through a tranquillised world.
‘Yet once, it is a little while.’ How long did the little while last? There were, possibly, some feeble incipient fulfilments of the prophecy in the immediate future; for, after the exile, there were convulsions in the political world which resulted in security to the Jews, and the religion of Israel began to draw some scattered proselytes. But the prophecy is not completely fulfilled even now, and it covers the entire development of the ‘kingdom that cannot be moved’ until the end of time. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews thus understands the prophecy {Heb 12:26 - Heb 12:27}, and there are echoes of it in Rev 21:1 - Rev 21:27, which describes the final form of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. So the chronology of prophecy is not altogether that of history; and while the events stand clear, their perspective is foreshortened. All the ages are but ‘a little while’ in the calendar of heaven. In regard to the whole of the prophetic utterances, we have often to say with the disciples, ‘What is this that he saith, a little while?’ Eighteen centuries have rolled away since the seer heard, ‘Behold, I come quickly,’ and the vision still tarries.
The old interpretation of ‘the desire of all nations’ as meaning Jesus Christ gave a literal fulfilment of the prophecy by His presence in the Temple; but that meaning of the phrase is untenable, both because the verb is in the plural, which would be impossible if a person were meant, and because the only interpretation which gives relevancy to Hag 2:8 is that the expression means the silver and gold, there declared to be Jehovah’s. That venerable explanation, then, cannot stand. There were offerings from heathen kings, such as those from Darius recorded in Ezr 6:6 - Ezr 6:10, and the gifts of Artaxerxes {Ezr 7:15}, which may be regarded as incipient accomplishments; but such facts as these cannot exhaust the prophecy.
It must be admitted that nothing happened during the history of that Temple to answer to the full meaning of this prophecy. But was it therefore a delusion that God spoke by Haggai? We must distinguish between form and substance. The Temple was the centre point of the kingdom of God on earth, the place of meeting between God and men, the place of sacrifice. The fulfilment of the prophecy is not to be found in any house made with hands, but in the true Temple which Jesus Christ has builded. He in His own humanity was all that the Temple shadowed and foretold. It is in Him, and in the spiritual Temple which He has reared, that Haggai’s vision will find its full realisation, which is yet future. The powers that issue from Him shattered the Roman empire, have ever since been casting earth’s kingdoms into new moulds, and have still destructive work to do. The ‘once more’ began when Jesus came, but the final ‘shaking’ lies in front still. Every smaller revolution in thought or sweeping away of institutions is a prelude to that great ‘shaking’ when everything will go except the kingdom that cannot be moved. Its result shall be that the treasures of the nations shall be poured at His feet who is ‘worthy to receive riches,’ even as other prophecies have foretold that ‘men shall bring unto Thee the wealth of the nations’ {Isa 60:11; Rev 21:24, Rev 21:26}.
In that true Temple the glory of the Shechinah, which was wanting in the second, for ever abides, ‘the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father’; and in it dwells for ever the dove of peace, ready to glide into every heart that enters to worship at the shrine. Jesus Christ is not the ‘desire of all nations’ which shall come to the Temple, but is the Temple to which the wealth of all nations shall be brought, in whom the true glory of a manifested God abides, and from whom the peace of God which passeth all understanding, and is His own peace too, shall enter reconciled souls, and calm turbulent passions, and reconcile contending peoples, and diffuse its calm through all the nations of the saved who there ‘walk in the light of the Lord.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Words of Encouragement. The Glory of the Second Temple
2
Words of Encouragement. The Glory of the Second Temple
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1-9. An encouraging message in counteraction of disparaging comments upon the Temple structure, setting forth the significance and glory of the new Temple.
1. Seventh month] i.e. Tishri, September-October. This message was delivered just four weeks after the beginning of the work. So heartily had every one united in it that the general outline and character of the new edifice had become apparent. The Feast of Tabernacles was in progress. Haggai spoke to the people on the last day of this feast, when all were gathered in one great assembly.
3. Who is left among you] More than 66 years had passed since the destruction of the first Temple, but it was quite possible that there were some who could describe that glorious structure as they had known it. These elders referred to the newer Temple with disparagement, to the dejection and dismay of the people. Gold and silver and rare woods made Solomon's Temple splendid; the edifice now rising was of rough stone. No wonder the elders became reminiscent.
First] better, 'former.'
4. Be strong] or, 'have courage.' And work] keep at your task: cp. David's words to Solomon, 1Ch_28:20.
5. My spirit remaineth] RM 'abideth,' is standing in your presence. What a basis for continuing courage! cp. Zec_4:6. Jehovah was in their midst, as He had always been in times of need. Moreover, they would soon have adequate proof of His presence.
6. Yet once, it is a little while] This is literal, but it evidently means 'But a little while.' It seems to refer to the shaking, which might be soon expected.
7. Shake all nations] This clearly refers to political overturnings. The prophet expected that the great empire, all aflame with rebellion, would be broken up, and that the Jewish community would have its coveted opportunity. His language, probably figurative, implies corresponding convulsions of nature. The general idea is that God will soon take hold of the situation and deal with it. The desire of all nations shall come] Through Jerome and the Vulgate the old Rabbinical Messianic interpretation of this phrase was given to the Christian church, as if it referred directly to Christ, but the verb 'shall come' is a plural. More likely the meaning in Haggai's mind was (as RV), 'And the desirable things of all nations shall come.' These were under Jehovah's control. As the nations came to know Him and to render obedience, they would bring with joy to His Temple their choicest gifts. With glory] The Temple then would seem glorious enough.
9. The glory of this latter house] RV 'The latter glory of this house.. than the former,' a prediction involving courage and foresight. It was spoken to a community politically insignificant, without resources, tributary to the powerful monarch of Persia, engaged in erecting a simple building for religious purposes. It was a triumph of religious idealism. As a permanent promise it beautifully phrases the assurance of the supremacy of Christ and the church in the world. Will I give peace] Where God is established, there is a peace which cannot be disturbed (Joh_16:33).
10-19. A symbolical message emphasising the significance of the long-continued neglect of God by the community and promising blessings for obedience.
10. Ninth month] i.e. Chislev, or Nov.-Dec. The work on the Temple had now been under way for three months.
11. Ask now the priests.. the law] better, 'ask of the priests a thorah,' or deliverance. In the absence of a definite statement in the written Law covering a case it was the custom to submit a question of usage to the priests (Deu_17:8-13). Their reply was a 'thorah' or law. The passage in the written Law most resembling the judgment here rendered is Lev_6:27, Lev_6:28.
12. Holy flesh] flesh that has been offered in sacrifice and is being taken home to be consumed. Shall it be holy?] i.e. is the garment in which such holy food is being carried capable of giving holiness to other food? The priests replied that holiness could not be communicated in that way.
13. Unclean by a dead body] A corpse was regarded as making every one who came in contact with it ceremonially unclean. The priests declared that this pollution would extend to whatever these infected persons touched. Uncleanness, then, could be propagated readily; holiness could not.
14. That which they offer there] An effective application of these decisions to the situation. The restoration of the ritual service, as described in Ezra 3, was good in its way but insufficient to make them holy as a people, while their actual neglect of the Temple was enough to pollute everything they did. In God's sight they could only be regarded as unclean and worthy of punishment.
15. From this day and upward] better, 'and onward.' He then bids them think of their past sufferings and resumes the thought here begun in Hag_2:18. There should be a full stop after upward. From before, etc.] A better translation is that of Nowack, 'Before a stone was laid upon a stone in the Temple of the Lord, how did ye fare? When one came to a heap of twenty,' etc.
16. Twenty measures] Realisations were but half the expectations. Pressfat] winevat. Fifty vessels] rather, 'measures.'
18. And upward] better, 'onwards.'
The day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid] Probably the day on which he was speaking. Haggai refers to their bitter experience up to the day of active work.
19. Is the seed yet in the barn?] Evidently he means to draw out a negative reply. Yet his word is encouraging. God is going to bless them. It takes time to recover from the ill effects of selfishness, but a brighter future was before them.
20-23. An inspiring declaration to Zerubbabel that in him rested the ancient hopes of Israel.
20. Four and twentieth day] the same great festal day.
22. The throne of kingdoms] LXX 'thrones.' Haggai looked forward to a disruption of the great Persian empire into its tributary nations and to struggles between them, which would give Israel its opportunity.
23. In that day] The day of general political convulsion, would be the day of Messianic advance, and of the establishment of Jehovah's kingdom. The forwarding of Israel's spiritual hopes seemed to Haggai, as to earlier prophets, to necessitate the opening of political freedom. Make thee as a signet] the sign of authority. So far as we know Zerubbabel never exercised any real, independent power. He served, however, to embody and keep alive the Hope which gave permanence and power to Israel's ideals.
Haggai contributed but little to the volume of prophecy, but that little was of great value. At a critical moment in Israel's history he said the timely, vigorous, ethical word, and put into apprehensible form the great ideal.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 9, 12 seventh month
seventh month
i.e. October.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 20 The Third Address
CHAPTER 2:1-9
The Third Address
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Over a month later, after a good deal of work had been done, the prophet delivered his third message. He is commanded to speak to the same company, headed by Zerubbabel and Joshua; but here the remnant of the people, the exiles who had returned, is also included. If we consult Ezr 3:12 we find that many old men, who had seen the temple of Solomon, burst out in weeping when the small foundation was laid for the new temple. A similar feeling possessed the people when they resumed the temple work after Haggai’s first message. In comparison with the former temple, so grand and glorious, the new temple was a feeble and insignificant affair. The prophet begins his message by asking, “Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory, and how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes as nothing?” No doubt there was additional weeping when the prophet asked these questions.
Haggai then becomes the prophet of comfort and of hope. “Yet now be strong” is in literal translation, “And now be comforted, O Zerubbabel, saith Jehovah; be comforted all the people of the land, saith Jehovah; for I am with you saith the LORD of Hosts.” They were discouraged on account of the smallness of their cause. It is then when the Lord delights to comfort and to cheer his trusting people. He was with His people, though now no longer a mighty host as of old, but only a small remnant; yet He had not forgotten the Word which He covenanted with them, when He brought them out of Egypt with an outstretched arm. “My Spirit abideth among you; fear ye not.” And that should be enough. His Spirit was dwelling with them to execute His work, and be their strength. The gift of the Spirit in New Testament times is something greater than this. After the finished work of our Lord and His glorification, the third Person of the Godhead came in person to indwell every member of the Body of Christ.
Hab 1:6-9 contain the great prophecy concerning the future. It takes us beyond the time of Haggai, past this present age, and puts before our hearts the same great and glorious day when Christ comes again, when there shall be greater glory and peace. The question is, who is the desire of all nations? It merits a closer examination, for the critics have labored to explain away the Messianic meaning of this sentence and rob it of its true meaning. For instance, Canon Driver, in The New Century Bible makes the following comment: “The desirable things of all nations shall come, i.e., their costly treasures will be brought to beautify the temple.” The Hebrew is a peculiar phrase; the subject is a noun, feminine, singular; the predicate is a plural masculine. The word “chemdath”--desire, is the same as used in Dan 11:37, the desire of women. If literally translated it would read thus: “And the desire of all nations, they shall come.” The Septuagint therefore translates it, “the choice things of all nations shall come; ” others have rendered it in the following ways: “The things desired by all nations shall come,” with the interpretation that it is the gospel; “all the Gentiles shall come with their delightful things;” “the beauty of all the heathen; ” “they shall come to the desire of all nations; ” “with the desire of all nations; ” the “choicest of all nations (that is the best of them) will come,” etc. With all these suggested renderings of the difficult phrase there can be no question that it points to Christ, and must be interpreted as a great Messianic prophecy. The most ancient comments are on this line altogether. Christ is the object of the desire of all nations. This does not necessarily mean that He is subjectively the desire of the nations, but He is objectively, for through Him alone the nations can be blest and receive the righteousness and peace which they need.
First, the announcement is made, “I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land.” Have these convulsions been? While there have been shakings of kingdoms in the political sense, and the earth has often been shaken physically and otherwise, this prophecy is yet to be fulfilled. The Holy Spirit bears witness to it in the New Testament, for we read in Heb 12:26-28, “Whose voice then (at Sinai in a physical manifestation) shook the earth; but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only but also heaven. And the word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved (the coming kingdom and not the church) let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” This settles the question as to the futurity of this prophecy. Critics have objected to this interpretation on account of the statement that this universal shaking is to be in “a little while.” They apply it therefore to the nearer political events of that period. But the future in prophecy is often fore-shortened, and besides this, the little while is not man’s little while, but God’s; with Him a thousand years is as a day. Furthermore, in the political events of the times which followed the restoration of the Jews from Babylon not all nations were involved. The prophecy before us declares, “I will shake all nations; ” this, too, is future. The Messiah, spoken of next as “the desire of all nations,” came the first time, but His coming did not bring the blessing and glory to nations as predicted here, nor did the promised peace come. He made peace in His sacrificial death; the foundation for “peace on earth” was then laid, as well as for the great future blessing of all the nations. But the Jews delivered Him into the hands of the Gentiles, and the Gentiles treated Him as did the Jews. In anticipation of His rejection He said, “Think not that I am come to bring peace, but the sword.” Then followed the present age, unknown with its mystery, the church, to the prophets. It will close with the shaking of all nations, when the King-Messiah will appear again and bring the promised blessing to all nations. The silver and gold, which belong to the Lord, will then be brought by the nations. Isa 60:5.
It is important to read the ninth verse in the right way, as our Authorized Version is incorrect. It does not say in the Hebrew, “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the former,” but the Hebrew is, “The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, saith the LORD of hosts; and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.” The house of course is the temple. The visible glory dwelt once in the former house; the day is coming when there will be greater glory, the day of His glorious manifestation; then in connection with His coming and that coming restoration, He will give peace.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 20 A Comforting Assurance
A Comforting Assurance
v. 1. In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month, not even a full month after the construction of the Temple had been resumed, came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai, saying,
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v. 2. Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, the rest of those who had now re-turned from Babylon, saying,
v. 3. Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? the Temple of Solomon with its almost unequaled rich ornamentation. And how do ye see it now? What impression did this second Temple make upon them as they observed it?. Is it not in your eyes, in comparison of it, as nothing? Any kind of comparison was so much to the disadvantage of this second Temple that the older men had fallen to weeping even when they saw the foundation finished and the altar of burnt offering placed, Ezr 3:10 ff.
v. 4. Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord, filled with reassuring comfort; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, all filled with the same reassurance, and work, to complete the erection of the Temple; for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts;
v. 5. according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, when Israel was formally accepted as Jehovah’s people in the great assembly at Mount Sinai, so My Spirit remaineth among you, to strengthen them for the successful conclusion of their work. Fear ye not!
v. 6. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the same powerful God of the covenant who had entered into fellowship with them at Horeb, Yet once, it is a little while, but a short time as men reckon time, and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, in a mighty commotion involving practically the entire known world, such as took place when the Roman emperors ordered their periodical censuses of the empire,
v. 7. and I will shake all nations, all of them being drawn into this agitation, and the Desire of all nations, the long-expected Messiah, shall come; and I will fill this house, now so lowly and unpretentious, with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.
v. 8. The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, for which reason it would be a small matter for Him to fill any mere earthly house with ornamentation and treasures beyond the dreams of avarice. But that is not the Lord’s chief concern.
v. 9. The glory of this latter house, of the New Testament Church, of which this second Temple was but a feeble type and shadow, shall be greater than of the former, of the Jewish Church of the Old Testament, of which the Temple of Solomon was a type, saith the Lord of hosts; and in this place will I give peace, namely, the peace of the redemption gained by the promised Messiah, saith the Lord of hosts. In this way the content of the New Testament Gospel message was proclaimed even in the Old Testament, and the believers in both instances rest their faith on the same hope. Cf Luk 2:14; Eph 2:14.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18, 20, 23 In the seventh month on the twenty-first day of…
In the seventh month on the twenty-first day of the month
This is the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. The twenty-first day is near the middle of October on Western calendars. (See: Hebrew Months and Ordinal Numbers)
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the word of Yahweh came
This idiom is used to introduce a special message from God. See how you translated this in Haggai 1:1. AT: "Yahweh gave a message" or "Yawheh spoke this message" (See: Idiom)
by the hand of Haggai
Here the word "hand" refers to Haggai himself. Yahweh used Haggai as the agent to deliver his command. See how you translated this in Haggai 1:1. AT: "through Haggai" (See: Synecdoche)
Haggai ... Zerubbabel ... Shealtiel ... Joshua ... Jehozadak
See how you translated these men's names in Haggai 1:1. (See: How to Translate Names)
translationWords
day
word of God
prophet
Judah
Joshua
remnant
people group
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 2:1-9 Haggai’s second message assures the community that God…
2:1-9 Haggai’s second message assures the community that God has not forgotten his promises, made by earlier prophets, to bless and restore them (e.g., Isa 35; 40:1-11; 52:1-12; Jer 32:36-44; 33:6-26).
2:1 on October 17 of that same year: This was the last day of the Festival of Tabernacles, the celebration of the summer harvest (see Lev 23:34-43). Hundreds of years earlier, Solomon’s Temple had been dedicated during this festival (1 Kgs 8:2). Haggai’s message was timed to offer the people hope and encouragement in their present distress and discouragement.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.