Albert Barnes Commentary Haggai 1:8

"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 Jehovah." — Haggai 1:8 (ASV)

Go up into the mountain—Not Mount Lebanon, from where the cedars had been brought for the first temple; from where also Zerubbabel and Joshua had procured some out of Cyrus’s grant (Ezra 3:7), at the first return from the captivity. They were not required to buy or expend, but simply to give their own labor. They were themselves to “go up to the mountain,” i.e., the mountainous country where the trees grew, “and bring” them. So, in order to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, Ezra made a proclamation (Nehemiah 8:15) “in all their cities and in Jerusalem, go you up to the mountain and bring leafy branches of vines, olives, myrtles, palms.” The palms, anyhow, were timber. God required not fine stones, such as had been already used, and such as later, in the temple which was built, were the admiration even of disciples of Jesus (Matthew 24:1), but which were, for the wickedness of those who rejected their Saviour, not to be left, one stone upon another. He required not costly gifts, but the heart.

The neglect to build the temple was neglect of Himself, who ought to be worshiped there. His worship sanctified the offering; offerings were acceptable, only if made with a free heart.

And I will have pleasure in it—God, who has declared that He has no (Micah 6:7) pleasure in thousands of rams, ten thousands of rivers of oil, had delight in them that feared Him (Psalms 147:11), in those who are upright in their way (Proverbs 11:20), in those who deal truly (Proverbs 12:22), and in the prayer of the upright (Proverbs 15:8), and so in the temple too, when it should be built to His glory.

And will be glorified—God is glorified in man, when man serves Him; in Himself, when He manifests anything of His greatness; in His great doings to His people (Isaiah 26:15; Isaiah 44:23; Isaiah 60:21; Isaiah 61:3), as also in the chastisement of those who disobey Him (Exodus 14:4; Ezekiel 28:22). God allows that glory, which shines ineffably throughout His creation, to be obscured here through man’s disobedience, to shine forth anew on his renewed obedience. The glory of God, as it is the end of the creation, so is it His creature’s supreme bliss. When God is really glorified, then can He show forth His glory, by His grace and acceptance (Augustine, Serm. 380, n. 6).

“The glory of God is our glory. The more sweetly God is glorified, the more it profits us”; yet not our profit, but the glory of God is itself our end; so the prophet closes in that which is our end, God will be glorified.

“Good then and well-pleasing to God is zeal in fulfilling whatever may appear necessary for the good condition of the Church and its building-up, collecting the most useful materials—the spiritual principles in inspired Scripture—by which he may secure and ground the conception of God, and may show that the way of the Incarnation was well-ordered, and may collect what pertains to accurate knowledge of spiritual erudition and moral goodness. Indeed, each of us may be thought of as the temple and house of God. For Christ dwelleth in us by the Spirit, and we are temples of the living God, according to the Scripture (2 Corinthians 6:16). Let each then build up his own heart by right faith, having the Saviour as the precious foundation. And let him add to it other materials: obedience, readiness for anything, courage, endurance, continence. So being framed together by that which every joint supplies, we shall become a holy temple, a habitation of God through the Spirit (Ephesians 4:16; Ephesians 2:21–22).

But those who are slow to faith, or who believe but are sluggish in shaking off passions and sins and worldly pleasure, thereby, in a manner, cry out, The time is not come to build the house of the Lord.”