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Bible readers can get the historical background to Haggai’s prophecies through the book of Ezra. Ezra named Haggai as a contemporary prophet who ministered to those in Judah (5:1-2; 6:14) who had returned from Babylon. However, we know nothing about Haggai’s family background or personal life. For example, Ezra did not include Haggai in his extensive list of the first wave of returnees from Babylon, a notable omission. Perhaps, Haggai was in a subsequent wave, or maybe Haggai never left Judah at all. The Babylonians did not deport all the Jews in Judea, only the prominent citizens. Possibly, Haggai’s parents were among the “poorest people of the land” (2 Kings 24:14). If so, Haggai prophesied as a Jerusalemite who waited for his people’s return while living in the ashes of the city.
During the Feast of Tabernacles, the Lord spoke to Haggai for the second time. We know this fact because of Haggai’s precise dating formula, but the prophet makes no specific mention of the holiday. The Hebrew word for festival, chag, is related to the name Haggai, which is also intriguing to note.
Sukkot
At the time of the second oracle, a month had passed since the workers renewed their construction efforts on the temple. Their enthusiasm waned as the enormity of the task became clear. They gathered wood beams from the surrounding forests, cleared the site of rubble, and redressed the stones that were strewn about the site.
Pilgrimages to the temple were compulsory for major holidays, so festival times brought everyone up from the countryside to gather in Jerusalem. Haggai addressed the people on one of these convenient occasions. Based on his language of reassurance, the people must have been despondent. Despite several holidays prohibiting secular work in the last month, the workers were expected to have made more progress.
Sukkot is the week-long religious festival when Jews construct sukkahs, or temporary living structures, in memory of their 40 years in the wilderness (Lev. 23:41). God had provided and protected them during those difficult circumstances, and Sukkot is the annual holiday in which the chosen were commanded to celebrate God’s provision and deliverance. Like all Jewish holidays, there was also an agricultural component. Sukkot is a harvest celebration, but in Haggai’s day the harvest was poor, and food, oil, and wine were scarce.
The Jews assembled in Jerusalem understood that the rebuilt temple would be a modest structure, even during the early construction phases. Haggai asked, “Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?” (2:3). Haggai was playing the role of a counselor as much as a prophet. Before he set out to encourage and strengthen, he first drew out their pain by naming it. Only the elderly members of the community had actual memories of Solomon’s Temple from their childhoods, while the others took pride in oral recollections of its grandeur. Solomon had brought in the best of the foreign artisans. He had imported cedar panels and marble, and he had overlaid the walls and floors with gold (1 Kings 6).
Former glory
The resources available to Solomon were not within the reach of the postexilic community. They understood the Second Temple would pale in comparison. Not coincidentally, the seventh day of Sukkot also memorialized King Solomon’s dedication of the First Temple (1 Kings 8). The pride that the Jews had felt at that dedication—free people living independently with their own king and secure borders—was incomparable to their despondency after returning from the exile. Yet, when Haggai put the question before the people, he asked who had seen “this house” in its former glory? Calling the ruins of the temple “this house” reinforced that, even if the current temple was nothing in their eyes, it was still the place that Yahweh had attached his name forever. As Yahweh told King Solomon after the dedication, “my eyes and my heart will always be there” (1 Kings 9:3).
The Second Temple’s size was irrelevant. King Cyrus decreed the temple should be 60 cubits high and 60 cubits wide, larger dimensions than Solomon’s Temple. The problem was the lack of splendor. The materials they used were of poorer quality, and instead of bringing artisans from abroad, they relied on local builders. Sacred objects were also missing from the temple. For example, Ezra makes no mention of the Ark of the Covenant.
The poor morale is understandable. They were celebrating a harvest with no harvest, and they had gathered at the Temple Mount with no temple. Haggai understood that this was not the time to chastise. Instead, he offered a prophetic word of encouragement. Addressing Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the people, Haggai told them all to “take courage” (2:4). David had given the same motivational speech, “be strong and of good courage,” to his son Solomon, when he had handed over to him the building of the First Temple (1 Chron. 28:20).
Haggai alluded to the Exodus and the promise Yahweh had made to his covenant people when he brought them out of Egypt: “My spirit abides among you; do not fear” (2:5). The Minor Prophets regularly drew parallels between God’s redemptive works of the past and his redemptive works of the future. This is why God said he was about to shake the heavens and the earth “once again” (2:6). On Mount Sinai, the shaking of the heavens and earth marked a new era between God and his chosen people (Ex. 19:18; Ps. 77:18). With the remnant, he extended himself once more. Rebuilding the sanctuary launched something new.
Universal peace
In Haggai’s eschatological vision, a day of universal peace was coming when all the peoples of the earth would recognize Yahweh’s sovereignty and bring tribute to Jerusalem. In submission to the supremacy of Yahweh, the nations would ascend to Jerusalem with material offerings (2:7). The nations would offer tribute out of freewill, not the empires’ usual plundering of defeated peoples. The prophets hated how the Assyrians and Babylonians had built their empires on stolen wealth (Hab. 1:6). Because Yahweh alone handled the beautification of the temple, he took the responsibility from the impoverished Judeans. He said, “the silver is mine, and the gold is mine” (2:8). The remnant only had to persist with building the house.
For Haggai’s third oracle, Yahweh told Haggai to “ask the priests for a ruling” (2:11). Haggai posed two hypothetical questions to the priests pertaining to ritual purity and impurity. Despite knowing the answer to the purity question, the prophet consulted the priests as a sign of respect. The preexilic prophets had lost all faith in the priesthood, criticizing the supposed mediators for their ignorance and corruption (Hos. 4:6; Zeph. 3:4). However, Haggai was not mocking the priests. He recognized their authority to interpret and apply God’s law.
The first question pertained to consecrated meat carried in the garment of a priest. If they had offered the meat to the Lord and it was therefore holy, could it transfer its sanctity to other food that it touched? Informed by the laws of Leviticus and the sacrificial system, the priests easily answered “no” (Lev. 6:27). The consecrated meat could convey sanctification to the garment that it touched, but the consecration stopped there and was not an endless chain.
According to the Law, if a person touched a corpse, that person would be unclean for seven days (Num. 19:11). During that time, he or she had to leave the camp. Otherwise, the defilement could easily spread to other objects. Though Haggai’s lesson was slightly opaque, God was reinforcing the point that impurity was communicable, while purity was not. When the people ignored their responsibility to the temple, God considered them defiled and punished them accordingly. The temple ruins were like a rotting corpse in their midst, cutting off their communion with God and contaminating the community.
Haggai reminded the people of the recent years of poor harvests and urged them to pay attention to God’s hand. The lack of the temple represented their general lack of devotion. The sin of neglecting the temple had affected every area of their lives, economically and agriculturally. During the previous harvest season, before they had placed stone upon stone for the temple, their agricultural output was half of what they had expected (2:16). Yahweh was the force responsible for the blight, mildew, and hail that ruined their crops (2:17). Through the afflictions, they woke up and returned to him.
A period of blessings began with the temple’s renewed work. The productivity of the next season was still far away, but God told them “From this day on I will bless you” (2:19). Their repentance, obedience, and submission changed their plight. They were now free to thrive with bountiful crops.
Zerubbabel
After addressing the priests, Haggai turned to Zerubbabel with his fourth oracle. Haggai reverted to eschatological language with a military and political component, announcing the shaking of the nations. Yahweh would overthrow kingdoms and establish a new world order. In his message to Zerubbabel, God did not call him governor, but “my servant” (2:23). Governor was a title given to Zerubbabel by the Persians, but it did not reflect any proper authority as a Persian administrator. God had often referred to King David as “my servant.” Calling Zerubbabel “my servant” acknowledged that in this bureaucrat of the Persian Empire rested the restored lineage of the House of David. God elevated Zerubbabel further, calling him his “signet ring” (2:23). Signet rings were used to impress the king’s signature on documents. In ancient times, the king’s associates wore them around their neck to guard the seal closely.
When the Babylonians had overthrown Judah’s King Jehoiachin in 597 BCE, the Jews lost hope and believed that the Davidic line was cut off forever. God had warned the unrighteous King Jehoiachin that if he did not repent, the palace of David would become a ruin (Jer. 22:5). Jehoiachin had continued to displease Yahweh, pursuing injustice, corruption, other gods, violence, and oppression. When God handed him over to Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE, he announced he was pulling him off like a signet ring (Jer. 22:24).
When God spoke to Zerubbabel through Haggai, calling him his signet ring, he was reversing the curse of his grandfather. Rebuilding the temple and restoring the House of David were both links in the same chain of kingdom promises. The appointment of Zerubbabel—a Davidic descendant—as governor, even of a province of a foreign empire, renewed the hopes of the reborn nation.
Zerubbabel was not the Messiah himself. We know that he never received the type of honors or attained the power described in Haggai’s last oracle. He was a prototype of a future messianic figure in the line of David. The New Testament writers were not oblivious to this messianic qualifier. Jesus’s genealogies, in both Matthew and Luke, identify Zerubbabel as an ancestor of Jesus (Matt. 1:12; Luke 3:27). Prophets like Haggai kept the messianic hope of the Davidic dynasty alive. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he wrote, “the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David” (Rom. 1:2-3).
Haggai’s prophecies about the glorified temple are difficult to interpret regarding fulfillment. For example, did the nations present offerings before the sanctuary at any point? In the short-term, King Cyrus ordered the return of all the sacred objects stolen from the Jerusalem temple by the Babylonians (Ezra 6:5). That momentous action must count at least as a partial fulfillment.
King Darius later offered hefty tributes for burnt offerings to the Jewish temple so that the sacrificial system could continue daily (Ezra 6:8-10). Centuries later, King Herod brought the wealth of Rome to Jerusalem, remodeling Zerubbabel’s Temple beyond recognition. Yet, Herod’s building efforts edified himself rather than Yahweh, so Herod’s Temple could not possibly be the one Haggai foresaw. The long-term fulfillment of Haggai’s prophecies alludes to the Messianic Age. The prophets foretold that only in the Messianic Age would all the nations universally recognize Yahweh and share in his blessing (Isa. 61:6; Zech. 14:14).
The people of Haggai’s day despaired because their need distracted them from appreciating the miracle of their return. This was the moment for them to praise God for their deliverance from Babylonian destruction and exile. They should have understood that they were fulfilling the often-repeated promise that after the exile, a remnant would return to the land.
I think on a basic level they understood, but comparison to former glory led to discouragement, which led to a denial of God’s sustenance, his provision, and his timeline for redemption. Zerubbabel’s Temple took four years to build, but Haggai’s prophetic insights only covered the first three months of the building project. Although we do not know what happened to Haggai after he stopped prophesying, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah pick up the rest of the story as the remnant rebuilds Jerusalem and tries not to repeat the mistakes of the past.