Haggai

THE BOOK OF

[1] [2]

INTRODUCTION

THE name Haggai means "my feast"; given,

according to COCCEIUS, in anticipation of the

joyous return from exile. He probably was one of the Jewish exiles (of

the tribes Judah, Benjamin, and Levi) who returned under Zerubbabel,

the civil head of the people, and Joshua, the high priest, 536 B.C., when Cyrus (actuated by the striking prophecies as

to himself,

Isa 44:28; 45:1)

granted them their liberty, and furnished them with the necessaries for

restoring the temple

(2Ch 36:23;

Ezr 1:1; 2:2).

The work of rebuilding went on under Cyrus and his successor Cambyses

(called Ahasuerus in

Ezr 4:6)

in spite of opposition from the Samaritans, who, when their offers of

help were declined, began to try to hinder it. These at last obtained

an interdict from the usurper Smerdis the Magian (called Artaxerxes in

Ezr 4:7-23),

whose suspicions were easy to rouse. The Jews thereupon became so

indifferent to the work that when Darius came to the throne (521 B.C.), virtually setting aside the prohibitions of the

usurper, instead of recommencing their labors, they pretended that as

the prophecy of the seventy years applied to the temple as well

as to the captivity in Babylon

(Hag 1:2),

they were only in the sixty-eighth year of it [HENDERSON]; so that, the proper time not having yet

arrived, they might devote themselves to building splendid mansions for

themselves. Haggai and Zechariah were commissioned by Jehovah

(Hag 1:1)

in the second year of Darius (Hystaspes), 520 B.C., sixteen years after the return under Zerubbabel,

to rouse them from their selfishness to resume the work which for

fourteen years had been suspended. Haggai preceded Zechariah in the

work by two months.

The dates of his four distinct prophecies are accurately given: (1)

The first

(Hag 1:1-15),

on the first day of the sixth month of the second year of Darius, 520

B.C., reproved the people for their apathy in

allowing the temple to lie in ruins and reminded them of their ill

success in everything because of their not honoring God as to His

house. The result was that twenty-four days afterwards they commenced

building under Zerubbabel

(Hag 1:12-15).

(2) The second, on the twenty-first day of the seventh month

(Hag 2:1-9),

predicts that the glory of the new temple would be greater than that of

Solomon's, so that the people need not be discouraged by the

inferiority in outward splendor of the new, as compared with the old

temple, which had so moved to tears the elders who had remembered the

old

(Ezr 3:12, 13).

Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel had implied the same prediction, whence

some had doubted whether they ought to proceed with a building so

inferior to the former one; but Haggai shows wherein the superior glory

was to consist, namely, in the presence of Him who is the "desire of

all nations"

(Hag 2:7).

(3) The third, on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month

(Hag 2:10-19),

refers to a period when building materials had been collected, and the

workmen had begun to put them together, from which time forth God

promises His blessing; it begins with removing their past error as to

the efficacy of mere outward observances to cleanse from the taint of

disobedience as to the temple building. (4) The fourth

(Hag 2:20-23),

on the same day as the preceding, was addressed to Zerubbabel, as the

representative of the theocratic people, and as having asked as to the

national revolutions spoken of in the second prophecy

(Hag 2:7).

The prophecies are all so brief as to suggest the supposition that

they are only a summary of the original discourses. The space occupied

is but three months from the first to the last.

The Jews' adversaries, on the resumption of the work under

Zerubbabel, Haggai, and Zechariah, tried to set Darius against it; but

that monarch confirmed Cyrus' decree and ordered all help to be given

to the building of the temple

(Ezr 5:3,

&c.; Ezr 6:1,

&c.).

So the temple was completed in the sixth year of Darius' reign 516-515

B.C.

(Ezr 6:14).

The style of Haggai is consonant with his messages: pathetic in

exhortation, vehement in reproofs, elevated in contemplating the

glorious future. The repetition of the same phrases (for example,

"saith the Lord," or "the Lord of hosts,"

Hag 1:2, 5, 7;

and thrice in one verse,

Hag 2:4;

so "the spirit," thrice in one verse,

Hag 1:14)

gives a simple earnestness to his style, calculated to awaken the

solemn attention of the people, and to awaken them from their apathy,

to which also the interrogatory form, often adopted, especially tends.

Chaldaisms occur

(Hag 2:3; 2:6; 2:16),

as might have been expected in a writer who was so long in Chaldea.

Parts are purely prose history; the rest is somewhat rhythmical, and

observant of poetic parallelism.

Haggai is referred to in

Ezr 5:1; 6:14;

and in the New Testament

(Heb 12:26;

compare

Hag 2:6, 7, 22).