Charles Ellicott Commentary Haggai 2:6

"For thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;" — Haggai 2:6 (ASV)

Yet once, it is a little while. —The construction is very difficult. The best rendering appears to be, Yet one season more (supplying êth before achath), it is only a little while, and so on.

The meaning of these clauses is then that given by Keil—namely, “that the period between the present and the predicted great change of the world will be only one period—i.e., one uniform epoch—and that this epoch will be a brief one.” The Septuagint omits the words “it is a little while” altogether, and so is enabled to render “I will yet shake once” (i.e., one single time, and one only), a rendering which, if we retain those words, is apparently impossible.

The fact is, the original passage here, as in other cases, must be interpreted on its own terms, without being solely dictated by its later use or meaning within New Testament arguments. There is still to be an interval of time, of limited duration, and then a new era will come, when the glory of God’s presence will be manifested more fully and extensively. Notwithstanding its intimate connection with the Jewish Temple (Haggai 2:7; Haggai 2:9), this new dispensation may well be regarded as that of the Messiah, for Malachi similarly connects His self-manifestation with the Temple (Compare Malachi 3:1, and see our Introduction, § 2).

Without pretending to find a fulfillment of all details, we may regard the prophet’s anticipations as sufficiently realized when the Savior’s Advent introduced a dispensation which surpassed in glory (see 2 Corinthians 3:7–11) that of Moses, and which extended its promises to the Gentiles. When Haggai speaks here and in Haggai 2:22 of commotions of nature ushering in this new revelation, he speaks according to the custom of the Hebrew poets, by whom divine intervention is frequently depicted with imagery borrowed from the events of the Exodus period (Psalms 18:7–15; Psalms 93; Psalms 97).

If the words are to be pressed, their fulfillment at Christ’s coming must be sought rather in the moral than the physical sphere, in changes effected in the human heart rather than on the face of nature.