Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts
Of armies above and below; whom all ought to reverence, honour,
and obey; who was able to support his people in building his
house, and protect them from their enemies, which should have
been an encouragement to them; and to punish them for their
neglect of it, which might have deterred them from it. This
preface is made, to show that what follow were not the words of
the prophet, but of the Lord; and therefore to be the more
regarded, and the truth of them not to be doubted of:
saying, This people say;
repeating the words of the people of the Jews to Zerubbabel and
Joshua, that they might observe them, and the wickedness and
ingratitude in them. "This people", lately brought out of the
captivity of Babylon, and loaded with various blessings and
benefits; and not a few of them, but the generality of them, the
body of them, expressed themselves after this manner, when
pressed to build the temple: The time is not come, the time
that the Lord's house should be
built;
suggesting that the seventy years of Jerusalem and the temple
lying in ruins, reckoning from the destruction of them in the
nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, were not yet fulfilled; or
rather intimating that it was not the time in Providence, since
they had been forbid and hindered in former reigns from going on
with the work; or, since it had been a time of famine and
distress with them, it was not a time fit and convenient to carry
on such a service; and though they did not lay aside all thoughts
of it, yet they judged it right and proper to defer it to a more
convenient time, when they were better settled, and in a better
capacity to engage in it.