Haggai
Consider your ways: a call to finish the LORD’s house and a promise of greater glory.
About fifty thousand Jews returned from Babylon in 536 BC and laid the foundation of the temple. Opposition followed, the work stopped, and for sixteen years the foundation lay neglected while the people built paneled houses for themselves. They said, “The time is not come, the time that the LORD’S house should be built” (1:2).
In 520 BC, the second year of Darius, God sent Haggai with four dated messages. The first rebuked the people: they had sown much and brought in little, earned wages into bags with holes, because God’s house lay waste. Within twenty-four days Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the people obeyed and began to work. The second message encouraged the discouraged: the glory of this latter house would be greater than the former. The third explained that holiness is not contagious but uncleanness is, and promised blessing from that day. The fourth promised that God would shake the nations and make Zerubbabel as a signet.
Haggai is short, practical, and effective. Few prophets saw such a quick response to their preaching.
Writer: Haggai
Written: 520 BC, in the second year of Darius.
Name: Festive; festival of the Lord
Title and authorship
Chaggai means “festive” or “festival,” perhaps given because he was born on a feast day, or reflecting the joy of the return from captivity.
Haggai the prophet wrote the book (1:1, 3, 12–13; 2:1, 10, 20). Ezra names him with Zechariah as the prophets who stirred up the building (Ezra 5:1; 6:14). He may have been an old man who remembered Solomon’s temple (2:3).
Historical background
Jerusalem from the first day of the sixth month to the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, 520 BC—a period of about four months during Ezra 5.
Zerubbabel the governor, Joshua the high priest, and the remnant who had returned from captivity.
Darius Hystaspes
Darius I seized the Persian throne in 522 BC and spent his first two years suppressing revolts across the empire. In that turbulent time, when kingdoms were being shaken, Haggai called the Jews to build and promised that God would shake the nations.
The most precisely dated prophecies
Haggai’s four messages are dated to the day: 1st day of the 6th month (August 29, 520 BC), 21st of the 7th month (October 17), and 24th of the 9th month (December 18) twice. Work resumed on the 24th of the 6th month (1:15).
Completion of the temple
Stirred by Haggai and Zechariah, the people finished the temple in the sixth year of Darius, 516 BC (Ezra 6:15), and kept the Passover with joy—about seventy years after Solomon’s temple was destroyed.
Key passages
Haggai 1:7–8
“Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house.”
Haggai 2:7–9
God will shake all nations; the desire of all nations shall come, and the glory of the latter house shall exceed the former.
Haggai 2:23
Zerubbabel made as a signet, chosen of God—a pledge of the Davidic line.
Haggai 2:20–23
The final message joins coming upheaval with the Lord’s choice of Zerubbabel.
Outline
1 · A call to build
Misplaced priorities are exposed, and the people respond to the Lord’s message.
2:1–9 · A call to courage
The small appearance of the present work is answered by the promise of God’s presence and future glory.
2:10–19 · A call to holiness
Questions to the priests show that outward contact with sacred things does not automatically cleanse the people.
2:20–23 · A call to endurance
The shaking of kingdoms and the chosen signet direct hope beyond present weakness.
Original language
שִׂימוּ לְבַבְכֶם (simu levavkhem, H7760) — “consider your ways”
Literally “set your heart upon.” The phrase occurs five times (1:5, 7; 2:15, 18 twice). Haggai calls for careful reflection on cause and effect.
חֶמְדַּת כָּל־הַגּוֹיִם (chemdat kol haggoyim, H2532) — “the desire of all nations”
The object of desire or delight. The King James reading presents the Messiah Himself as the one whom the nations desire and who will fill the house with glory (compare Malachi 3:1).
חוֹתָם (chotham, H2368) — “signet”
A seal ring, symbol of royal authority. God had said of Jehoiachin that even if he were the signet on His right hand He would pluck him off (Jeremiah 22:24). Now He makes Zerubbabel, Jehoiachin’s grandson, His signet—the Davidic line restored.
Doctrinal study
Priorities and provision
The people thought they could not afford to build God’s house; in fact they could not afford not to. Their crops failed and their wages vanished because God’s house lay waste. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” is the New Testament form of Haggai’s message (Matthew 6:33).
Greater glory
The second temple was plain compared with Solomon’s, and it lacked the ark and the Shekinah. Yet its glory would be greater because the Lord Himself would come to it. Christ walked in its courts, taught there, and cleansed it.
The final shaking
“Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth” (2:6). Hebrews 12:26–28 quotes the verse to contrast what can be shaken with the kingdom that cannot be moved.
Commentary notes
Why discipleship fails
Materialism: “Is it time for you... to dwell in your cieled houses?” (1:4). Emptiness: “ye eat, but ye have not enough” (1:6). Frustration: “ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little” (1:9). Ritualism: offering unclean sacrifices and supposing them holy (2:12–14).
The cure
Consider your ways (1:5, 7); obey the voice of the LORD (1:12); receive His presence—“I am with you” (1:13); and go back to work (1:14).
Haggai and James
Haggai has been compared to the epistle of James: brief, practical, and pointed, calling God’s people to put faith into action.
Christ in the book
- The desire of all nations who fills the house with glory (2:7)
- Zerubbabel the signet—the royal line through which Christ came (2:23; Matthew 1:12)
Applications
Historical
- Haggai rouses the sluggish remnant who returned after the Babylonian captivity to resume the stalled work of rebuilding the temple and to finish it.
- Haggai ministers during the rebuilding described in Ezra 5–6, alongside Zechariah.
- The problem is not simply external opposition; the people have become comfortable postponing the work while attending to their own prosperity.
Doctrinal
- The LORD’s promise to restore His remnant, His house, and His glory. When He shakes the heavens and the earth and overthrows the thrones of kingdoms, the Messiah will fill His house with glory (Hebrews 12:26–27).
- The temple’s future glory and the shaking of kingdoms connect the immediate building task with the Lord’s larger purpose.
- Zerubbabel’s place in the promise preserves the significance of the Davidic line during a period without a reigning Davidic king.
Devotional
- The call to end self-centered Laodicean living so that God’s glory may be restored in individual lives and in His church. When you feel the strongest urge to quit the work, God may be about to do something life-changing.
- The people’s attention to their own houses reveals the priorities behind their repeated postponement of the temple work.
- The renewed work follows the people’s response to the prophetic message and the assurance of the Lord’s presence.
Answering the critics
Some critics suggest that Haggai did not write the book but that it was composed by others about his prophetic activity, since it speaks of him in the third person.
There is no evidence for this. Prophets often referred to themselves in the third person, and even if a scribe wrote down the words, Haggai spoke them as he was moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:21). Ezra confirms his ministry.