Old Testament · Minor Prophets · Book 37 of 66
Haggai
Four messages from the LORD, dated to the day in the second year of Darius, stir the returned exiles to rebuild his house and promise it a greater glory.
- 2 chapters
- 38 verses
- About 5 minutes to read
- The Hebrew Prophets, c. 800–400 BC
Haggai is four messages, each dated to the day, given in “the second year of Darius the king” to those who had come back from Babylon. An altar stood in Jerusalem and a foundation had been laid, but the house of the LORD lay unbuilt while the people panelled their own. “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?” (1:4). Their failed harvests were the LORD’s doing: “Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house” (1:9).
The word is heeded. On the twenty-fourth day of the same month the governor, the high priest and the remnant began the work (1:14–15). The later messages answer what followed: the grief of those who remembered the first house, to whom this one seemed “as nothing” (2:3), a ruling on what makes an offering unclean, and a promise to Zerubbabel. Watch the dates, the refrain “Consider your ways”, and the word shake, which Hebrews takes up for the last shaking of heaven and earth (Hebrews 12:26).
The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.
Haggai 2:9 KJV
How Haggai is laid out
5 movements · 7 passages · 38 verses
1:1–11 · 11 verses
Consider your ways
In the sixth month of Darius’s second year the word comes to Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest. The people say the time to build has not come, though they live in cieled houses. They sow much and bring in little, because the LORD’s house lies waste, and he has called for a drought upon the land.
1:12–15 · 4 verses
The remnant obeys
Zerubbabel, Joshua and all the remnant of the people obey the voice of the LORD and fear before him. Haggai, the LORD’s messenger, brings a single word: “I am with you.” The LORD stirs up the spirit of governor, priest and people, and on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month they begin work on the house.
1 passages
2:1–9 · 9 verses
The glory of the latter house
In the seventh month those who saw the first house find this one as nothing beside it. The LORD bids governor, priest and people be strong and work, for he is with them and his spirit remains among them. In a little while he will shake heaven, earth and all nations, fill this house with glory, and give peace in this place.
2:10–19 · 10 verses
Unclean, then blessed
On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month Haggai puts two questions of the law to the priests. A garment carrying holy flesh does not make holy the bread it touches; one unclean by a dead body makes what he touches unclean. So is this people, and so are their offerings. Yet from that day the LORD will bless them.
2:20–23 · 4 verses
Zerubbabel the signet
The same day a second word comes for Zerubbabel alone. The LORD will shake the heavens and the earth, overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and bring down chariots and riders, every one by the sword of his brother. In that day he will take Zerubbabel his servant and make him as a signet, for he has chosen him.
1 passages
The words Haggai turns on
A house lies waste until the people set their heart to build; then the LORD will shake the nations, fill it with glory, and make Zerubbabel a signet.
What Haggai teaches
chârêb · waste
A house lying waste
The people said, “The time is not come, the time that the LORD’S house should be built” (1:2). The LORD answers with a question about time: “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?” (1:4). The house is chârêb, waste, so he calls chôreb, drought, upon the land (1:11), a word of the same three Hebrew letters. Their thin harvests are what the law had named as the curse of a broken covenant, much seed carried out and little gathered in (Deuteronomy 28:38). The LORD gives the cause himself: “Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house” (1:9).
lêbâb · heart
Set your heart on your ways
Five times, in four verses, the LORD says in the Hebrew “set your heart”, which the KJV renders “consider.” Twice it looks back at harvests that failed: “Consider your ways” (1:5; 1:7). Then three times it fixes on a day, “from this day and upward” (2:15; 2:18), the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Between them stands the priests’ ruling. A skirt carrying holy flesh does not make holy the bread it touches, but one unclean by a dead body makes unclean whatever he touches (2:12–13). “So is this people,” and so is all they offer (2:14): holiness does not pass by contact, but uncleanness does. Then, before any harvest is in, the promise: “from this day will I bless you” (2:19).
râʻash · shake
Yet once, I will shake
“Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land” (2:6); then “the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory” (2:7). Augustine heard in it the Desired One himself, a brief but clear prophecy of Christ and the church
. Others read “desire” as the precious things of the nations brought into the house: the verb is plural, and the next verse says, “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine” (2:8), as Isaiah sees “the forces of the Gentiles” come to Zion (Isaiah 60:5). Augustine also gave the Septuagint’s reading, the chosen of the Lord shall come from all nations
. Each reading keeps the promise that follows: “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former” (2:9).
Christ in Haggai
Hebrews quotes the second message: “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven” (Hebrews 12:26). It reads “Yet once more” as “the removing of those things that are shaken … that those things which cannot be shaken may remain,” and believers as “receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved” (12:27–28). Haggai’s shaking ends in that kingdom.
Malachi, prophesying after the house was rebuilt, foretold that “the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple” (Malachi 3:1). In that temple Simeon took the child Jesus in his arms and called him “the glory of thy people Israel” (Luke 2:32).
The last word goes to Zerubbabel. Of his grandfather the LORD had said, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence” (Jeremiah 22:24). To Zerubbabel he says, “will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant … and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee” (2:23). Matthew carries the line through him to Christ: “Salathiel begat Zorobabel” (Matthew 1:12).
- David the king
- … Matthew 1:7–11
- Jehoiachin Coniah, the signet plucked off
- Shealtiel Salathiel in Matthew
- Zerubbabel made as a signet
- … Matthew 1:13–15
- Jesus, who is called Christ
People
By how many verses name them
Places
1 named
Where Haggai reaches
The passages it leans on, and the ones that lean on it
Ezra’s record of the same moment: Haggai and Zechariah prophesy, and Zerubbabel and Jeshua begin to build.
Ezra 3:12 Haggai 2:3 Zechariah 4:10
Those who saw the first house weep when the second is founded; Zechariah answers, “who hath despised the day of small things?”
Much seed carried out and little gathered in: the curse the law set on a broken covenant.
Hebrews quotes “Yet once” and reads it as the removing of what is shaken, leaving a kingdom which cannot be moved.
Coniah was the signet the LORD would pluck off; Zerubbabel, his grandson, is made as a signet.
Books Haggai links to most
The Church Fathers on Haggai
42 quotations from 15 writers before AD 800 · the ten most quoted, in date order
- Clement215
- Tertullian220
- Origen253
- Cyril386
- Ambrose397
- Jerome420
- Theodore428
- Augustine430
- Theodoret458
- Gregory604
Theodoret, on why the LORD pressed for a house he did not need.
Now the God of all made these threats on account of the neglect of the divine house, though not for any need of it: the Maker of all things has no need even of heaven, creating everything out of lovingkindness alone. Rather, it was in his care for them all and his interest in their salvation that he ordered the rebuilding of the temple…
Jerome saw the Savior figured in the two men the word came to, the ruler and the priest.
Pay close attention, because of the two understandings of the Savior in Zerubbabel as leader and Joshua as priest (for he is both king and priest)…
Gregory of Nazianzus counted the shakings: the law, the gospel, and one still to come.
There have been two remarkable transformations of the human way of life in the course of the world’s history. These are called two “covenants,” and, so famous was the business involved, two “shakings of the earth.” … The gospel also tells of the third shaking, the change from this present stage of things to what lies unmoved, unshaken, beyond.
Augustine read the latter house as the church, built of living stones.
Surely the glory of the house of the New Testament is greater than that of the old because it was built of better materials, namely, those living stones that are human beings renewed by faith and grace.
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