Haggai 1 · The Lantern

A Call to Rebuild the Temple

In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying:

Thus says the LORD of hosts: This people say, The time has not come, the time for the house of the LORD to be built.

And the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, saying:

Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies waste?

And now, thus says the LORD of hosts: Set your heart on your ways.

You have sown much and brought in little; eating, and not to be satisfied; drinking, and not to be drunk; clothing yourselves, and no one is warm; and the one earning wages earns them into a pierced bag.

Generally speaking, riches that are not under complete control are the citadels of evil. If the ordinary people look on them covetously, they will never enter the kingdom of heaven, because they are letting themselves become contaminated by the things of this world and are living above themselves in self-indulgence.

Thus the priestly ministry is a trade. Hence the prophet says to the children of Israel, "Your innkeepers mix water with their wine." For holy Isaiah is not speaking about the innkeepers who, in the course of their publican ministrations, deceptively mix pure wine with a measure of water.

And yet, for the most part, such people carefully weigh what is the amount that they give but neglect to consider how much they seize. They count it as a sort of requital but refuse to consider their sins.

Thus says the LORD of hosts: Set your heart on your ways.

Go up to the mountain and bring wood and build the house; and I will be pleased with it and I will gain glory, says the LORD.

You looked for much, and see — it came to little; and you brought it home, and I blew on it. Why? — the utterance of the LORD of hosts. Because of my house, which lies waste, while you run each to his own house.

(Verse 9.) You looked for more, and behold, there was less: and you brought it into the house, and I blew it away: You looked for many things, and they became few: and you brought them into the house, and I blew them away.

He intends by this to remind them of what they have suffered by neglecting the temple. When you overlooked my house lying in ruins and took an interest in rebuilding your own houses, he is saying, then the rain stopped, the land did not yield its crops, and I destroyed all the crops on the ground as though with a sword, striking many times both people and cattle, and in short r…

Now the God of all made these threats on account of the neglect of the divine house, though not for any need of it: the Maker of all things has no need even of heaven, creating everything out of lovingkindness alone.

Therefore over you the heavens have restrained the dew, and the earth has restrained its yield.

And I called a drought on the land and on the mountains and on the grain and on the new wine and on the fresh oil and on what the ground brings forth, and on man and on beast and on all the labor of the hands.

The People Obey

And Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and all the remnant of the people listened to the voice of the LORD their God and to the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him; and the people feared before the LORD.

And Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, said in the message of the LORD to the people: I am with you — the utterance of the LORD.

And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work on the house of the LORD of hosts their God,

on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.

Haggai1

A Call to Rebuild the Temple

The People Obey