The Book of Haggai, Chapter by Chapter

We want to take you through the book of Haggai chapter by chapter. In our Zephaniah study we saw God promise to bring his people home. He did. Now we come to the prophets who preached after the exile. Haggai is the first. He is only 2 chapters. 38 verses. But he got something done that no other prophet did so fast. In less than a month the people went back to work on the house of God. We will tell you what each chapter is about and how it fits into the message of the book. And how it points us to the one God that is revealed in Jesus Christ.

About 50,000 Jews came back from Babylon with Zerubbabel. They built the altar. They laid the foundation of the temple. Then their enemies fought them. And they stopped. For 16 years the house of God sat there unfinished. Meanwhile the people built nice houses for themselves. They planted. They worked hard. And nothing went right. Then God sent Haggai with a simple message. Consider your ways. You put yourselves first and God last. That is why nothing is working.

There are three things we want you to take away from this study. Haggai is about putting God first. “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?” (1:4). Haggai is about the presence of the one God with his people. “I am with you, saith the LORD” (1:13). And Haggai points to Jesus Christ. “The desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory” (2:7). “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former” (2:9). We will explain these points as we go through the book. But we want you to keep them in mind as we begin.

“In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest” (1:1). That is 520 BC. Darius was king of Persia. Zerubbabel was the governor. He was from the line of David. Joshua was the high priest. Ezra calls him Jeshua. We met both of them in our Ezra study. Ezra tells us that Haggai and Zechariah prophesied to the Jews and the work started again (Ezra 5:1). And the temple was finished 4 years later “through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo” (Ezra 6:14).

We know almost nothing about Haggai himself. His name probably means festive. Some believe he was born on a feast day.¹ Some believe he was an old man who had seen the first temple before it was burned (2:3). We do not know.

Haggai gives 4 messages. And he dates every one of them to the day.² The first was on the 1st day of the 6th month (1:1). The second on the 21st day of the 7th month (2:1). The third and fourth on the 24th day of the 9th month (2:10, 20). All in about 4 months. We will go through the 4 messages in order. Consider your ways (1). The glory of this latter house (2:1–9). From this day will I bless you (2:10–19). And Zerubbabel my signet (2:20–23). Then we will put together what Haggai teaches about the one God. Just like in our other studies we will be using the KJV for our scripture quotations. And we will let you know where you can find the work of the scholars we reference.

This People Say, The Time Is Not Come

“Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD’s house should be built” (v.2). Notice God says this people. Not my people. They had an excuse. Not now. The time is not right. Times are hard. The enemies are against us. We will do it later. Then God asked a question.

Cieled houses means houses with paneled walls. Nice houses. They had time to fix up their own homes. But no time for God’s house. Consider your ways. Think about it. You plant a lot and harvest a little. You eat and are still hungry. You put on clothes and are still cold. You get paid and the money is gone. Like putting it in a bag with holes. Many people today know what that feels like. Working hard and never getting ahead.

“Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD” (v.8). Notice God did not ask for gold. He asked for wood. Do what you can with what you have. “Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house” (v.9). God was the one blowing their money away. He held back the dew and the crops (vv.10–11). Because they ran to their own houses and left his.

Jesus said “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). The people of Haggai’s day had it backwards. They sought all these things first. And they never had enough. Put God first and he takes care of the rest.

I Am With You

Then something happened that almost never happened in the prophets. The people listened. “Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet … and the people did fear before the LORD” (v.12). The leaders and the people. All of them.

As soon as they obeyed God gave them a 4 word promise. I am with you. Not a list of what to do. Not a rebuke. Just I am with you. That is all they needed. Jesus said the same thing when he sent his disciples out. “And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20). The LORD who said I am with you in Haggai is the Lord who said I am with you in Matthew. His name is Emmanuel. God with us (Matthew 1:23).

And notice who stirred them up. The LORD stirred up their spirit. God gave the message. Then God gave them the want to. They started work 23 days after Haggai preached (v.15). 16 years of nothing. Then 23 days.

Is It Not in Your Eyes as Nothing

The second message came about a month later. On the 21st day of the 7th month (2:1). That was the 7th day of the feast of tabernacles.³ The feast where they remembered God dwelling with them in the wilderness. And it was the same feast when Solomon dedicated the first temple (1 Kings 8:2). So the people were remembering the old temple. And their new one did not look like much.

“Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?” (2:3). Some of the old people had seen Solomon’s temple 66 years before. We saw in our Ezra study that when the foundation was laid the old men “wept with a loud voice” (Ezra 3:12). Because it was so small next to what they remembered. The young people were shouting for joy. The old people were crying. They were discouraged.

Be strong. 3 times. Be strong and work. The reason is given. “For I am with you.” And “my spirit remaineth among you.” Notice those two lines say the same thing. I am with you. My spirit remains among you. The Spirit of God is God himself present with his people. Not a third person sent from somewhere else.

Trinitarians will say this verse names the LORD of hosts and his spirit as two persons.⁴ But notice. God says my spirit. His own. And he says it to explain I am with you. When God’s Spirit is among them God is among them. Just like the pillar of cloud in the wilderness. That was God’s presence. Isaiah said “Where is he that put his holy Spirit within him?” and “the Spirit of the LORD caused him to rest” (Isaiah 63:11, 14). We covered that chapter in our Isaiah study. It is the same God. Jesus said the Spirit “dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:17–18). When the Spirit comes Jesus comes. One God present with his people.

The Desire of All Nations Shall Come

God said I will shake everything. And “the desire of all nations shall come.” Some translate this as the treasures of all nations.⁵ The next verse says the silver and gold are mine. And God did move the Persian kings to pay for the temple (Ezra 6:8). But many Christians have seen more in it. The one all nations long for. The Messiah. We believe both are true. The wealth came. But the real glory came in a person.

Notice the promise. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former. Solomon’s temple was covered in gold. The glory cloud filled it so the priests could not stand to minister. We saw that in our 1 Kings study. The second temple had no ark. And the Jews say the glory cloud never came into it.⁶ But God said its glory would be greater.

The reason is that the LORD himself walked into it. Herod later made that same temple bigger. And it was into that temple that Joseph and Mary brought the baby Jesus. Old Simeon took him in his arms and said “mine eyes have seen thy salvation … A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel” (Luke 2:30, 32). The glory of Israel was in the temple. In a baby. Jesus taught in that temple. He healed in it. He drove the money changers out of it and called it “my Father’s house” (John 2:16). Malachi said “the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple” (Malachi 3:1). Solomon’s temple had the cloud. The latter house had God in the flesh. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory …)” (John 1:14).

“And in this place will I give peace” (v.9). Jesus said “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27). And Hebrews quotes the shaking in verse 6. “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven … Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace” (Hebrews 12:26, 28). Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. But the kingdom of Jesus Christ cannot be moved.

The third message came 2 months later. On the 24th day of the 9th month (2:10). God told Haggai to ask the priests two questions about the law. First if a man carries holy meat in his robe and the robe touches some bread. God asked if the bread becomes holy. The priests said no (v.12). Second if a man who is unclean from touching a dead body touches the bread. God asked if the bread becomes unclean. The priests said yes (v.13). We saw in our Numbers study that touching a dead body made a man unclean (Numbers 19:11).

Then Haggai made the point. “So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the LORD; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean” (v.14). Holiness does not rub off. But uncleanness does. Being near the altar did not make them holy. But their sin made everything they touched unclean. Even their offerings. You cannot catch holiness by sitting in church. But you can spread sin to everything you do.

Then God told them to think back. Before they started building. They got half of what they expected (v.16). “I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the LORD” (v.17). Those are almost the same words as Amos 4:9. We saw in our Amos study that God said “yet have ye not returned unto me” 5 times. The same thing was happening again.

But now it would change. “Consider now from this day and upward … from the day that the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid, consider it” (v.18). “Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day will I bless you” (v.19). The seed was still in the ground. Nothing was showing yet. But God said from this day. Not when the crops come in. From this day. The day they obeyed. God’s blessing starts when we obey. Even before we can see it.

The fourth message came the same day. It was just for Zerubbabel. “I will shake the heavens and the earth; And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen” (vv.21–22). The great empires would fall. Chariots and horses and riders would go down. Every man by the sword of his brother.

A signet was a ring with a seal on it. A king pressed it into wax to seal his orders. It carried his authority. Now notice something. Zerubbabel was the grandson of Jehoiachin. That is Coniah. In Jeremiah God said “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence” (Jeremiah 22:24). God took the signet ring off David’s line. Now in Haggai God puts it back on. On Zerubbabel.⁷ My servant. My signet. I have chosen thee.

Zerubbabel never became king. He was a governor under Persia. Look at the family line of Jesus to see how this was fulfilled. “And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel” (Matthew 1:12). Luke has Zorobabel too (Luke 3:27). The line of David went through Zerubbabel all the way to Jesus. The real signet. The one who carries all the authority of God. Jesus said “Labour not for the meat which perisheth … for him hath God the Father sealed” (John 6:27). And “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). Zerubbabel was the signet for a moment. Jesus is the signet forever.

Haggai is short and simple. But it shows us the one God who wants to dwell with his people. Before we finish we want to put it all together. There are three things we want to point out.

First the one God wants first place. He is the LORD of hosts. Haggai uses that name 14 times in 38 verses.⁸ The silver is his. The gold is his. He blows on the harvest. He shakes the nations. And he will not take second place to our houses. Seek ye first the kingdom of God.

Second the one God is with his people by his Spirit. “I am with you, saith the LORD” (1:13). “My spirit remaineth among you” (2:5). Not two things. The same presence. God’s Spirit is God himself among his people. And Jesus said the Comforter would dwell in us and that he himself would come to us (John 14:17–18). Lo, I am with you alway.

Third the glory of the latter house is Jesus Christ. The desire of all nations came. And he walked into the second temple as a baby in his mother’s arms. The latter house had greater glory than Solomon’s because God himself in the flesh stood in it. And today the house of God is not a building. It is the church. “Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God” (2 Corinthians 6:16). The same God who filled the temple fills his people by his Spirit. One God. Revealed in Jesus Christ. “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

We have gone through Haggai chapter by chapter. Here is what we can conclude. First Haggai is about putting God first. The people said the time is not come. But they had time to panel their own houses. And they put their money in a bag with holes. Consider your ways. When God is last nothing is ever enough. When God is first all these things are added.

Second Haggai is about the presence of the one God with his people. When they obeyed God said I am with you. When they were discouraged God said be strong and work for I am with you. My spirit remaineth among you. Fear ye not. And from the day they obeyed God said from this day will I bless you.

Third Haggai points to Jesus Christ. The desire of all nations. The glory of the latter house. The one who came to his temple and gave his peace. The signet from the line of Zerubbabel who carries all the authority of God. And the one whose kingdom cannot be shaken.

Haggai stirred the people to build. Two months after he started preaching another prophet stood up beside him. He was a young priest. He saw visions in the night. Horses and lampstands and a man with a measuring line. And he saw the King coming to Jerusalem lowly and riding upon an ass. That is where Zechariah begins.