AUTHOR

Haggai was one of the “postexilic” (sixth-century) prophets. His name probably means that he was born on one of the Jewish feast days. He and the prophet Zechariah roused the people of Judah to finish the temple under Zerubbabel’s leadership. Haggai focused much of his preaching on the temple but also made important predictions about what God planned for the future of his people.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF HAGGAI

Haggai’s book has five messages, each provided with a heading that gives an exact date based on the second year of the Persian king Darius I (Hystaspes), 520 BC (see Zch 1:1,7).

After Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, defeated the Babylonians, he decreed that various peoples who had been taken captive to Babylonia were free to return to their ancestral homes and reestablish their religion. His original decree still exists today as an artifact in the British Museum, the so-called Cyrus Cylinder. This decree also applied to the Judeans in Babylonia, and a contingent of them returned to the land and brought with them the temple vessels that had been taken to Babylon (Ezr 1:1-11).

Once back in Jerusalem, the people erected an altar on the temple site and reinstated offerings to the Lord. Within a year they were able to lay a foundation for the temple (Ezr 2:68–3:13). After some political opposition from “the enemies of Judah and Benjamin,” the work ceased and was not reinstated until the time of Haggai and Zechariah (Ezr 4:1-5,24; 5:1-2). Haggai and Zechariah wrote as though the building was founded for the first time by Zerubbabel in their day (Hg 2:18; Zch 4:9). The project had been neglected so long that it was necessary to start over from the foundation up. Eventually the people did rebuild the temple (Ezr 6:1-18).

THE MEANING OF HAGGAI’S MESSAGE

Haggai and Zechariah were called to bring the people back to proper worship of the Lord. The first priority was to get the temple rebuilt, but the people did not share this priority. So Haggai pointed out that some difficulties the Judeans faced in meeting their basic needs were due to their neglect of the Lord and his house. The solution was to collect the necessary materials and start the work, and that is exactly what the people did. Under the leadership of Zerubbabel their governor and Joshua the high priest, “they began work on the house of the LORD of Armies, their God” (1:14).

Haggai then exhorted the people to continue their work in light of the Lord’s abiding presence among them (2:1-9). The temple in its initial stage might not have seemed like much, but the Lord would be with his people just as he had been with their ancestors when they came out of Egypt. The Lord would fill the new house with his glory and grant the blessing of peace to his chosen people.

Haggai reiterated the relationship between material blessing and proper worship of the Lord (2:10-19). Holiness cannot be transferred from one object to another, but uncleanness can. When the people neglected the temple, their disobedience was transferred to the sacrifices they brought to the altar (see Ezr 3:3). The Lord could not accept those sacrifices, so their land had been plagued rather than blessed. Now that they were obeying the Lord’s prompting to rebuild the temple, they could expect that the Lord would accept their offerings and once again bless their land (Hg 2:18-19).

As Haggai dealt with the coming material blessings on Judah, he looked ahead to a time when the Lord would “fill this house with glory” (2:7). At that time the “glory of this house” would be “greater than the first” (2:9). This prophecy points to the coming of the Messiah, whose presence in the temple would represent the glory or the presence of the Lord.

Haggai stressed the messianic theme with the Lord’s promise to make Zerubbabel “like my signet ring” when heaven and earth are shaken and the kingdoms of the earth overthrown (2:21-23). Zerubbabel, as a descendant of David, symbolized the continuation of the line of David even though he was no more than “governor of Judah,” not a king. That line would continue down to the Messiah himself, Jesus Christ. God would accomplish everything: the shaking, the overthrow, and the elevating of Zerubbabel. In this sense Zerubbabel prefigured the Messiah.

An important lesson from Haggai is that the Lord should always take first priority in life. We cannot expect that he will hear our prayers and bless us if we do not make obedience to him of first importance.

Also, there is continuity in the way the Lord works with his people throughout history. We can be confident of his abiding presence because he has always been present with his people. He has not forgotten his promise: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20).

Another principle from Haggai is that we can know that history is working toward the goal of the messianic kingdom. Christians await the second coming of Christ to usher in that kingdom, guaranteed to them by the promise of the Lord himself (1Co 15:20-28; 1Th 5:9-11).