The book of Haggai

Main theme

God calls his people to put his house back in first place: obedience opens the door to his presence, his glory and his blessing.

Outline

1. Haggai 1 — First message: “Consider your ways”

   The reproach for having neglected God’s house, then the obedient response of the people who resume the work (1:1-15).

2. Haggai 2 — Second message: the glory to come

   To the elders who compare it with Solomon’s temple, God promises a greater glory and peace (2:1-9).

3. Haggai 2 — Third message: clean or unclean?

   A lesson drawn from the law on the contagion of uncleanness, followed by the promise: “from this day will I bless you” (2:10-19).

4. Haggai 2 — Fourth message: Zerubbabel, the signet

   God will shake the kingdoms and keep Zerubbabel as a signet, a sign that David’s royal line is preserved (2:20-23).

Key points

• The book contains four messages dated to the day, all delivered in 520 BC, the second year of Darius (1:1; 2:1, 10, 20).
• The people’s excuse, “the time is not come,” is exposed: there is always time for one’s own paneled houses (1:2-4).
• The economic crisis (wages in a “bag with holes,” drought) is presented as the direct consequence of inverted priorities (1:6, 9-11).
• The people obey within twenty-three days; God answers: “I am with you” and stirs up the spirit of the leaders and the people (1:13-15).
• To the discouraged who compare the new house with Solomon’s temple, God promises that the glory of the latter house will be greater (2:3, 9).
• Uncleanness spreads by contact, holiness does not: the worship of a disobedient people is defiled (2:12-14).
• The turning point of the 24th day of the 9th month: “from this day will I bless you” (2:18-19).
• Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, becomes the “signet” chosen by God, reversing the sentence pronounced against Jeconiah (2:23; Jer 22:24).

Jesus in Haggai

The “latter house” will be more glorious than the former not because of its gold, but because the Son of God himself will enter it and teach in it; he will present himself as the true temple (John 2:19-21). Zerubbabel, called “my servant” and “signet,” appears in both genealogies of Jesus (Matt 1:12; Luke 3:27): the promise made to David remains alive. Finally, the announced shaking of heaven and earth is taken up in Hebrews 12:26-28 to announce the unshakable kingdom of Christ.

Did you know?

• At 38 verses, Haggai is the second shortest book of the Old Testament after Obadiah, and the expression “the LORD of hosts” appears in it 14 times.
• The second message (21st day of the 7th month) falls on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev 23:34), in the very month in which Solomon had dedicated the first temple (1 Kgs 8:2).
• Zechariah begins to prophesy in the 8th month of the same year (Zech 1:1), between Haggai’s second and third messages: the two prophets work in tandem (Ezra 5:1).