Albert Barnes Commentary Haggai 1

In the second year of Darius - that is, Hystaspis. The very first word of prophecy after the captivity signifies that they were restored; not yet as they were before, yet in such a way that they would, in the future, be more than before.

The earthly type, by God’s appointment, was fading away, so that the heavenly truth might dawn. The earthly king was withdrawn to make way for the heavenly.

God had said of Jeconiah, No man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Israel (Jeremiah 22:30). And so now prophecy begins to be dated by the years of a foreign earthly ruler, as in the Baptism of the Lord Himself (Luke 3:1).

Yet God gives back in mercy more than He withdraws in chastisement. The earthly rule was suspended, so that people might look out more longingly for the heavenly.

In the sixth month - They counted by their own months, beginning with Nisan, the first of the ecclesiastical year (which was still used for holy purposes and in sacred history). Although, no longer having any kings, they dated their years by those of the empire to which they were subject (Zechariah 7:1).

In the sixth month (part of our July and August), their harvest was past, and the dearth, which they undoubtedly ascribed (as we do) to the seasons, and which Haggai pointed out to be a judgment from God, had set in for this year also.

The months being lunar, the first day of the month was the festival of the new moon, a popular feast (Proverbs 7:20) which their forefathers had kept (Isaiah 1:13–14) while they neglected the weightier matters of the law. The religious in Israel had also kept this feast, even while separated from the worship at Jerusalem (2 Kings 4:23; Hosea 2:11).

On its very first day, when the grief for the barren year was still fresh, Haggai was stirred to exhort them to consider their way; a pattern for Christian preachers, to bring home to people’s souls the meaning of God’s judgments. God directs the very day to be noted in which He called the people anew to build His temple, both to show the readiness of their obedience and as a precedent for us to keep in memory days and seasons in which He stirs our souls to build His spiritual temple in our souls more diligently.

By the hand of Haggai - God does almost everything that He does for a person through the hands of people. He commits His words and works for people into the hands of human beings as His stewards, to dispense faithfully to His household (Luke 12:42).

Hence, He speaks so often of the law, which He commanded by the hand of Moses; but also concerning other prophets: for instance, Nathan (2 Samuel 12:25), and Ahijah (1 Kings 12:15; 1 Kings 14:16; 2 Chronicles 10:15). He also spoke through Jehu (1 Kings 16:7), Jonah (2 Kings 14:25), Isaiah (Isaiah 20:2), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 37:2), and the prophets generally (for example,Hosea 7:20; 2 Chronicles 29:25).

The very prophets of God, although gifted with a Divine Spirit, still were willing and conscious instruments in speaking His words.

Unto Zerubbabel - (so called from being born in Babylon) the son of Sheatiel. By this genealogy Zerubbabel is known in the history of the return from the captivity in Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 3:2, 8; 5:2; Nehemiah 12:1). God does not say by Jeremiah that Jeconiah should have no children, but that he should in his lifetime be childless, as it is said of those married to the uncle’s or brother’s widow, they shall die childless (Leviticus 20:20–21). Jeremiah rather implies that he should have children, but that they should die untimely before him.

For he calls Jeconiah (Jeremiah 22:30), a man who shall not prosper in his days; for there shall not prosper a man of his seed, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Israel. He was to die (as the word implies) bared of all, alone and desolate.

Shealtiel's own father appears to have been Neri (Luke 3:27), of the line of Nathan son of David, not of the line of the kings of Judah. Neri married, it is supposed, a daughter of Assir, son of Jeconiah (1 Chronicles 3:17–19), whose grandson Shealtiel was.

And Zerubbabel was the actual son of Pedaiah, the brother of Shealtiel, though he was inscribed as Shealtiel's son in the legal genealogy (according to the law concerning those who die childless, Deuteronomy 23:5–10), or perhaps he was adopted by Shealtiel who was himself childless, just as Moses was called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter (Exodus 2:10).

So broken was the line of the unhappy Jehoiachin, two-thirds of whose own life was passed in the prison (Jeremiah 52:31) into which Nebuchadnezzar cast him.

Governor of Judah - The foreign name indicates that the civil rule was now held from a foreign power, although Cyrus showed the Jews the kindness of placing one of themselves, of royal extraction also, as his deputy over them.

The lineage of David was still in authority, connecting the present with the past, but the earthly kingdom had faded away. Under the name Sheshbazzar, Zerubbabel is spoken of both as the prince and the governor of Judah (Ezra 5:14).

With him is joined Joshuah the son of Josedech, the high priest, whose father went into captivity (1 Chronicles 6:15) when his grandfather Seraiah was slain by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:18–21). The priestly line was also preserved.

Haggai addresses these two, the one of the royal and the other of the priestly line, as jointly responsible for the negligence of the people; he addresses the people only through them. Together, they are types of Him—the true King and true Priest, Christ Jesus—who by the resurrection raised again the true temple, His Body, after it had been destroyed.

Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say— Not Zerubbabel or Joshua, but “this people.” He says not, “My people,” but reproachfully “this people,” as, by their actions, disowning Him and so deserving to be disowned by Him. The time is not come, literally, “It is not time to come, time for the house of the Lord to be built.” They could still sit still; the time for them “to come” was not yet, for not yet was the “time for the house of the Lord to be built.”

Why it was not time, they did not say. The government did not help them; the original grant by Cyrus (Ezra 3:7) was exhausted. The Samaritans hindered them because they would not acknowledge them (amid their mishmash of worship, “worshiping,” as our Lord tells them (John 4:22), they know not what) as worshipers of the same God.

It was a bold excuse, if they said, that the 70 years during which the temple was to lie waste were not yet ended.

The time had long since come when, 16 years before, Cyrus had given command that the house of God should be built. The prohibition to build, under Artaxerxes or Pseudo-Smerdis, applied directly to the city and its walls, not to the temple, except insofar as the temple itself, from its position, might be capable of being used as a fort, as it was in the last siege of Jerusalem. Yet a building of the size of the temple itself, apart from outer buildings, could scarcely be so used. The prohibition did not hinder the building of stately private houses, as appears from Haggai’s rebuke.

The hindrances also, whatever they were, had not begun with that decree. The death of Pseudo-Smerdis had now, for a year, set them free, if they had had any zeal for the glory and service of God. Otherwise, Haggai would not have blamed them.

God, knowing that He would bend the heart of Darius, as He had that of Cyrus, required the house to be built without the king’s decree. It was built in faith that God would accomplish what He had enjoined, although outward circumstances were as adverse now as before. And what He commanded, He prospered (Ezra 5–6).

There was indeed a second fulfillment of 70 years, from the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar 586 BC, to its consecration in the 6th year of Darius 516 BC. But this was through human willfulness, prolonging the desolation decreed by God, and Jeremiah’s prophecy relates to the people, not to the temple.

“The prophet addresses his discourse to the chiefs (in Church and state) and yet accuses directly, not their listlessness but that of the people, both to honor them before the people and to teach that their sins are to be blamed privately, not publicly, lest their authority be injured and the people incited to rebel against them. It also shows that this fault was directly that of the people, whom he reproves before their princes, so that the people, being openly convicted before them, might be ashamed, repent, and obey God. However, indirectly, this fault touched the chiefs themselves, whose office it was to urge the people to this work of God.” “For seldom is the prince free from the guilt of his subjects, by either assenting to them, winking at them, or not coercing them, though able.”

Since Christians are also the temple of God, all this prophecy of Haggai is applicable to them.

“When you see one who has lapsed, thinking and preparing to build through chastity the temple which he had before destroyed through passion, and yet delaying day by day, say to him, ‘Truly you also are of the people of the captivity, and say, The time is not yet come for building the house of the Lord.’ Whoever has once resolved to restore the temple of God, for him, every time is suitable for building; and the prince, Satan, cannot hinder, nor can the enemies around. As soon as you yourself are converted and call upon the name of the Lord, He will say, Behold Me.”

“To him who wills to do right, the time is always present; the good and right-minded have the power to fulfill what is to the glory of God, in every time and place.”

And the word of the Lord came - “Before, he prophesied nothing, but only recited the saying of the people; now he refutes it in his prophecy, and repeats, again and again, that he says this not from himself, but from the mind and mouth of God.” It is characteristic of Haggai to emphasize so frequently that his words are not his own, but the words of God.

Yet “the prophets, both in their threats and prophecies, repeat again and again, Thus saith the Lord, teaching us how we should value the word of God, cling to it, keep it always in our mouth, reverence, meditate on, utter, praise it, and make it our continual delight.”

Is it time for you - you, being what you are, the creatures of God, to dwell in your ceiled houses; more emphatically, in your houses, and those ceiled, probably with costly woods, such as cedar?

But where then was the excuse of a lack of resources? They imitated, in their alleged poverty, what is spoken of as magnificent in their old kings, Solomon and Shallum, but not having, as Solomon first did (1 Kings 6:9, ויספן), covered the house of God with beams and rows of cedar.

“Will you dwell in houses artificially adorned, not so much for use as for delight, and shall My dwelling-place, in which was the Holy of Holies, and the cherubim, and the table of showbread, be exposed to rain, desolated in solitude, scorched by the sun?”

“With these words carnal Christians are rebuked, who have no glow of zeal for God but are full of self-love. Consequently, they make no effort to repair, build, or strengthen the material temples of Christ and houses assigned to His worship when these are aged, ruinous, decaying, or destroyed; instead, they build for themselves elaborate, luxurious, superfluous dwellings. In these, the love of Christ does not glow; these Isaiah threatens (Isaiah 5:8, Isaiah 5:12): Woe to you who join house to house and field to field, and regard not the work of the Lord!”

To David and Solomon, the building of God’s temple was their heart’s desire. To early Christian Emperors and to the ages of faith, it was the building of Churches. Now, for the most part, landowners build houses for worldly profit, leaving it to the few to build with eternity in view and for the glory of God.

And now, thus saith the Lord of hosts; “Consider,” (literally “set your heart upon) your ways,” what they had been doing, what they were doing, and what those doings had led to, and would lead to. This is ever present to the mind of the prophets, as speaking God’s words, that our acts are not only “ways” in which we go, each day of life being a continuance of the day before; but that they are ways which lead, somewhere in God’s Providence and His justice; to some end of the “way,” good or bad.

So God says by Jeremiah [Jeremiah 21:8]. “I set before you the way of life and the way of death;” and David [Psalms 16:11], “Thou wilt show me the path of life,” where it follows, “In Thy presence is the fullness of joy and at Thy Right Hand there are pleasures forevermore;” and Solomon [Proverbs 6:23], “Reproofs of instruction are the way of life;” and, he is in [Proverbs 10:17], “the way of life who keepeth instruction; and he who forsaketh rebuke, erreth;” and [Proverbs 15:24], “The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath;” and of the adulterous woman, [Proverbs 7:27]. “Her house are the ways of hell, going down to the chambers of death” and [Proverbs 5:5–6], “her feet go down unto death; her steps take hold on hell; lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life.” Again, [Proverbs 14:12]; [Proverbs 16:25]. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, and the end thereof are the ways of death;” and contrariwise [Proverbs 4:18], “The path of the righteous is a shining light, shining more and more until the mid-day” [Proverbs 2:13]. “The ways of darkness” are the ways which end in darkness; and when Isaiah says [Isaiah 59:8], “The way of peace hast thou not known,” he adds, “whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.” They who choose not peace for their way, shall not find peace in and for their end.

On these your ways, Haggai says, “set your hearts,” not thinking of them lightly, nor giving a passing thought to them, but fixing your minds upon them; as God says to Satan [Job 1:8], “Hast thou set thy heart on My servant Job?” and God is said to set His eye or His face upon man for good [Jeremiah 24:6]; or for evil [Jeremiah 21:10], He speaks also, not of setting the mind, applying the understanding, giving the thoughts, but of “setting the heart,” as the seat of the affections. It is not a dry weighing of the temporal results of their ways, but a loving dwelling upon them, for repentance without love is but the gnawing of remorse.

Set your heart on your ways; - i. e., your affections, thoughts, works, so as to be circumspect in all things; as the apostle Paul says [1 Timothy 5:21], “Do nothing without forethought,” i. e., without previous judgment of reason; and Solomon [Proverbs 4:25], “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee;” and the son of Sirach, “Son, do nothing without counsel and when thou hast done it thou wilt not repent.” For since, according to a probable proposition, nothing in human acts is indifferent, i.

e., involving neither good nor ill deserts, they who do not thus set their hearts upon their ways, do they not daily incur almost countless sins, in thought, word, desire, deed, yea and by omission of duties? Such are all fearless persons who heed not to fulfill what is written [Proverbs 4:23], ‘Keep your heart with all watchfulness. ‘“

“He “sows much” to his own heart, but “brings in little,” who by reading and hearing knows much of the heavenly commands, but by negligence in deeds bears little fruit. “He eats and is not satisfied,” who, hearing the words of God, coveteth the gains or glory of the world. Well is he said not to be “satisfied,” who eateth one thing, hungereth after another. He drinks and is not inebriated, who inclineth his ear to the voice of preaching, but changeth not his mind. For through inebriation the mind of those who drink is changed. He then who is devoted to the knowledge of God’s word, yet still desireth to gain the things of the world, drinks and is not inebriated. For were he inebriated, no doubt he would have changed his mind and no longer seek earthly things, or love the vain and passing things which he had loved.

For the Psalmist says of the elect [Psalms 36:8], “they shall be inebriated with the richness of Thy house,” because they shall be filled with such love of Almighty God, that, their mind being changed, they seem to be strangers to themselves, fulfilling what is written [Matthew 16:24], ‘If any will come after Me, let him deny himself. ‘“