Haggai
The building of the house, as I observed, seems to have been suspended for about fourteen years; but it is very happy to find that it was resumed, not by force of a decree in its favor by the great king, the Persian who had rule over the Jews at that time, but by the voice of the prophets of God, Haggai and Zechariah. The Lord, indeed, did dispose the heart of the king; but this was not until His prophet had disposed the heart of Israel. (See Ezra 5-6.) And this is very much to be remembered in connection with our prophecy. The fresh spring in the heart of the people was found to have been in God, and not in circumstances. It was God’s voice by His prophets that set them on work again, and not the royal favor of the Persian. The Lord turned the heart of the king their master to countenance them, when they had taken again the place of faith and obedience.
Haggai is simply styled, “Haggai the prophet.” We have nothing about him more than that. The word of the Lord was delivered by him on several distinct occasions; but all in the second year of Darius the king of Persia: and all was directed to this end, to restart and to further the building of the house of the Lord.
I can look at them only in the most general way, noticing the time of each, during this second year of Darius the Persian.
• 6th month, 1St day (Hag. 1:1). Haggai arouses the careless, self-indulgent people—the returned remnant, who were neglecting the Lord’s house, and serving themselves.
• 6th month, 24th day (Hag. 1:15). He promises them that the Lord will be with them; thus, as in the name of the Lord, appreciating the fear that had been awakened; and consequently the people begin to work.
• 7th month, 21St day (Hag. 2:1). In order to encourage them in their work, Haggai tells them that the final glory of the house which they had now begun to build should be the brightest after the shaking of all things by the hand of the Lord (Hag. 2:6-9).
• 9th month, 24th day (Hag. 2:10). He leads the people to a humbling sense of what they had been before the house of the Lord was attended to; but he tells them also of future blessing.
Same day. He addresses Zerubbabel, telling him again of the shaking of everything, and of the establishing of Zerubbabel as the Lord’s signet.
These are his utterances in their seasons. The voice of the Lord by this prophet first awakens the conscience of the people, and then, in various ways of grace, encourages them in their revived condition and energy.
Let me observe, that the Spirit of God in the prophet does not take part, either with the aged man, who wept over the remembrance of the past, or with the younger ones who were rejoicing in the present (see Ezra 3); but He bears the heart of the people on to the future. Those tears had been real, and were service to God; but neither were perfect. The Spirit who leads according to God indulges neither, but carries heart and hope forward. Encouraging the people in their work by His servant, He tells them of the future glory of the house, and of the stability of the true Zerubbabel, when all that has its foundation in the creation, be it what it may, shall be shaken to its removal and overthrow.
The Spirit again, in an apostle, comments upon this of the prophet. (See Heb. 12.) He tells us, that all that which is to be shaken is “all that is made”—that is, as I judge, all that has not its root or it foundation in Him in whom “all the promises of God are yea and amen.” He only is the rock. His work is perfect. Christ the Lord can say, and will say, “The earth and its inhabitants are dissolved; I bear up the pillars.” What is of Him cannot be shaken. It remains. And in the faith and hope of what we have in Him, and from Him, beloved, let us say to one another, in the words of the apostle, “We, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear” (Heb. 12:28). Amen.