Haggai
Minor Prophets · Old Testament · Book 37 of 66- Author
- Haggai the prophet
- Written
- 520 BC
- Time covered
- Four messages over about four months in 520 BC
- Where
- Jerusalem, among the returned exiles
- Written to
- People who had come home and stopped building
- Genre
- Prophecy
- Chapters
- 2
“Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.”Haggai 1:5 KJV
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Overview
Sixteen years after the foundation was laid, the temple was still unfinished. The people had been discouraged by opposition, then simply got on with their own lives — and their own houses got paneled while God’s house lay waste.
Haggai’s four dated messages take under two chapters and they worked: within three weeks the work restarted, and within four years the house was finished. Few prophets can show results like that.
Background
The returned community was small and poor, harvests were failing, and the neighbors were hostile. Under Persian rule they had permission to build but little money and less confidence.
Haggai preached alongside Zechariah, and Ezra names them both as the reason the work began again. Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest led it.
Key themes
- Consider your ways — the refrain of the book.
- Putting God last starves everything else: you sow much and bring in little.
- God stirs up the spirit of leaders and people to do His work.
- I am with you, saith the LORD — the promise that got them building.
- The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former.
Outline
- Consider your waysVerses 1-11
Paneled houses and a ruined temple, and a drought that nobody had connected to it.
- They obeyedVerses 12-15
Within three weeks the people feared the LORD and went to work on the house.
- Is this house as nothing?Verses 1-9
To those who remembered Solomon’s temple: be strong, for I am with you.
- Holiness and defilementVerses 10-19
A question for the priests, and a promise that from this day God will bless.
- The signet ringVerses 20-23
A word to Zerubbabel, of David’s line, when the nations are shaken.
Key passages
- Haggai 1:4 Is it time for you to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?
- Haggai 1:6 Ye have sown much, and bring in little.
- Haggai 1:9 Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little.
- Haggai 1:13 I am with you, saith the LORD.
- Haggai 2:3 Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory?
- Haggai 2:9 The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former.
Christ in Haggai
The promise that the latter house would be more glorious was not about cedar and gold. That second temple, much enlarged by Herod, is the one Jesus taught in — which is how a plainer building held a greater glory than Solomon’s ever did.
Reading it
- Two chapters; read them with the dates in view — each message is timed to the day.
- Read Ezra 5–6 alongside for what happened next.
- Ask the book’s own question: consider your ways.