Haggai 1 · The Lantern

A Call to Rebuild the Temple

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 to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,

Thus speaks the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time has not come, the time that the LORD’s house should be built.

Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying,

Is it time for you, O you, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?

Now therefore thus says the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.

You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but you have not enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earns wages earns wages to put it into a bag with holes.

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; Consider your ways.

Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, says the LORD.

You looked for much, and, look, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? says the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that is waste, and you run every man 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 the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.

And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the grain, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground brings forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands.

The People Obey

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, as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the LORD.

Then spoke Haggai the LORD’s messenger in the LORD’s message to the people, saying, I am with you, says 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 Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the LORD of hosts, their God,

In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.

Haggai1

A Call to Rebuild the Temple

The People Obey