Albert Barnes Commentary Haggai 2:23

"In that day, saith Jehovah of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith Jehovah, and will make thee as a signet; for I have chosen thee, saith Jehovah of hosts." — Haggai 2:23 (ASV)

I will make you as a signet - God reverses to Zerubbabel the sentence on Jeconiah for his impiety. To Jeconiah He had said (Jeremiah 22:24), though he were the signet upon My right hand, yet would I pluck you from there; and I will give you into the hand of them that seek your life. The signet was very precious to its owner, never parted with, or only to those to whom authority was delegated (as by Pharaoh to Joseph (Genesis 41:42), or by Ahasuerus to Haman (Esther 3:10) and then to Mordecai (Esther 8:2)); through it his will was expressed.

Hence, the spouse in the Canticles says (Song of Solomon 8:6), Set me, as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. The signet also was an ornament to him who wore it. God is glorified in His saints (2 Thessalonians 1:10); by Zerubbabel in the building of His house. He gave him estimation with Cyrus, who entrusted him with the return of his people, and made him (who would have been the successor to the throne of Judah, had the throne been re-established) his governor over the restored people.

God promises to him and his descendants protection amid all shaking of empires. “He was a type of Christ in bringing back the people from Babylon, as Christ delivered us from sin, death, and hell: he built the temple, as Christ built the Church; he protected his people against the Samaritans who would hinder the building, as Christ protects His Church: he was dear and joined to God, as Christ was united to Him, and hypostatically united and joined His Humanity to the Word.”

“The true Zerubbabel then, that is, Christ, the son and antitype of Zerubbabel, is the signet in the hand of the Father, both passively and actively, by which God impresses His own Majesty, thoughts, and words, and His own Image on men, angels, and all creatures.”

“The Son is the Image of God the Father, having His entire and exact likeness, and in His own beauty beaming forth the nature of the Father. In Him too God seals us also to His own likeness, since, being conformed to Christ, we gain the image of God.”

“Christ, as the Apostle says, is (Hebrews 1:3) the Image of the invisible God, the brightness of His Glory and the express Image of His Person, who, as the Word and Seal and express Image, seals it on others.”

Christ is here called a signet, as Man not as God.

For it was His Manhood which He took of the flesh and race of Zerubbabel. He is then, in His Manhood, the signet of God:

1. as being hypostatically united with the Son of God;
2. because the Word impressed on His Humanity the likeness of Himself, His knowledge, virtue, holiness, thoughts, words, acts, and conversation;
3. because the Man Christ was the seal, that is, the most evident sign and witness of the attributes of God, His power, justice, wisdom, and especially His exceeding love for man. For, that God might show this, He willed that His Son should be Incarnate. Christ thus Incarnate is as a seal, in which we see expressed and depicted the love, power, justice, wisdom, etc., of God;
4. because Christ as a seal, attested and certified to us the will of God, His doctrine, law, commands, that is, those which He promulgated and taught in the Gospel.

“No one,” John says (John 1:18), “hath seen God at any time: the Only-Begotten Son Who is the Image the Father, He hath declared Him.”

Hence, God gave to Christ the power of working miracles, that He might confirm His words as by a seal, and demonstrate that they were revealed and enjoined to Him by God, as it is in John (John 6:27), “Him hath God the Father sealed.”

“Christ is also the seal of God, because by His impress, that is, the faith, grace, virtue, and conversation from Him and by the impress in Baptism and the other sacraments, He willed to conform us to the Image of His Son (Romans 8:29).”

That (1 Corinthians 15:49), as we have borne the image of the earthly Adam, we may also bear the image of the heavenly.

Then, Christ, like a seal, seals and guards His faithful against all temptations and enemies.

The seal of Christ is the Cross, according to that of Ezekiel, “Seal a mark upon the foreheads of the men who sigh,” and in the Revelation (Revelation 7:2), “I saw another Angel having the seal of the living God.”

For the Cross guards us against the temptations of the flesh, the world, and the devil, and makes us followers, soldiers, and martyrs of Christ crucified.

Therefore the Apostle says (Galatians 6:17), “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”

“This is said without doubt of the Messiah, the expected,” says even a Jewish controversialist, “who shall be of the seed of Zerubbabel; and therefore this promise was not fulfilled at all in himself. For at the time of this prophecy he had previously been governor of Judah, and afterward he did not rise to any higher dignity than what he was up to that day. In the same way, we find that God said to Abraham our father in the covenant between the pieces (Genesis 15:7; Genesis 15:18), ‘I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees to give you this land to inherit it,’ and beyond doubt this covenant was confirmed by God to the seed of Abraham, as He Himself explained it there afterward, when He said, ‘In that day God made a covenant with Abraham, saying, To your seed have I given this land etc.,’ and many like these.”

Abarbanel had laid down the right principles, though of necessity misapplied. “Zerubbabel did not reign in Jerusalem and did not rule in it, neither he nor any man of his seed; but immediately after the building of the house, he returned to Babylon and died there in his captivity. And how does he say, ‘In that day I will take you?’ For after the fall of the kingdom of Persia, Zerubbabel is not known for any greatness, and his name is not mentioned in the world. Where then will be the meaning of ‘And I will place you as a signet, for you have I chosen?’ For the signet is as the seal-ring which a man puts on his hand; it does not depart from it, night or day.

“And when was this fulfilled in Zerubbabel?

“But the true meaning, in my opinion, is, that God showed Zerubbabel that this very second house would not abide, for after him should come another captivity, and of this he says, ‘I shake the heaven etc.,’ and afterward, after a long time, God will take His vengeance on these nations ‘which have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling place;’ and so he says, ‘I will overthrow the thrones, etc.’

“And He shows him further that the king who shall rule over Israel at the time of the redemption is the Messiah of the seed of Zerubbabel and of the house of David. God saw good to show him all this to comfort him and to speak to his heart.

“And it is as if he said to him, ‘It is true that you shall not reign in the time of the second temple, nor any of your seed, but in that day when God shall overthrow the throne of the kingdoms of the nations, when He gathers His people Israel and redeems them, then shall you reign over My people. For of your seed shall he be who rules from Israel at that time forever, and therefore he says, ‘I will take you, O Zerubbabel etc.,’ for because the Messiah was to be of his seed he says, that he will take him.’

“And this is as he says (Ezekiel 37:24), ‘And David My servant shall be a prince to them forever;’ for the very Messiah, he shall be David, he shall be Zerubbabel, because he shall be a scion going forth out of their hewn trunk” (Isaiah 11:1).

For I have chosen you - God’s preceding love is the ground of all the acceptability of His creature (1 John 4:19). We love Him, because He first loved us.

Zerubbabel was a devoted servant of God. God acknowledges his faithfulness. Only, the beginning of all was with God. God speaks of the nearness to Himself which He had given him. But in two words He cuts off all possible boastfulness of His creature. Zerubbabel was all this, not of himself, but because God had chosen him.

Even the sacred manhood of our Lord (it is acknowledged as a theological truth) was not chosen for any foreseen merits, but for the great love with which God the Father chose it, and God the Son willed to be incarnate in such a way, and God the Holy Spirit willed that that Holy Thing should be conceived of Him.

So God says of Him (Isaiah 42:1), “Behold My Servant whom I uphold, Mine elect in whom My soul delighteth;” and God bore witness to Him (Matthew 3:17; Matthew 17:5), “This is My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”