Haggai
An Introduction
The People Say (1:1-3)
The name Haggai means festal, or perhaps festive. It may be a shortened for of the name Haggiah (1 Chronicles 6:30) which means “Festival of Yahweh”. The prophet Haggai was a contemporary of Ezra and Zechariah (Ezra 5:1) which places him in the post-exilic period in Israel’s history. Specifically, a time when the people had begun to return to Jerusalem, but before the temple had been rebuilt.
Building of the temple began very early (Ezra 3:10-13) but had been stopped at the direction of Artaxerxes and threat of the local people (Ezra 4:23-24). The completion of the temple was later completed under the authority of the kings of Persia and at the urging of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 6:14).
Idolatry takes many forms, but all of them amount to placing ourselves before our God (Habakkuk 2:18-19). The returning exiles had put their own comfort before the worship of their God; they had invested in this world instead of the next (Matthew 6:19-21).
Give Careful Thought to Your Ways (1:4-15)
But how do we amass for ourselves treasures in heaven? In fact, what is our role in this life, and how can it relate to the kingdom of God?
Through Haggai, the Lord commands the people to take careful note (1:5-11). They had sought their comfort with zealous expectation, to the exclusion of their service to God, but that comfort had eluded them. We might say that this is simply the nature of material gain: enough is never enough. However, the Lord makes clear that this is not a causeless phenomena, but the active work of his hand.
We are familiar with the idea that the anger of the Lord will intervene in human history. The the prophets he has announced his immediate judgment and warned of the judgment that is to come in the future Day of the Lord (Jeremiah 25:8-11; Isaiah 13:9-13). But we are also taught that our God is a sovereign God who will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and who sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Exodus 33:19; Matthew 5:44-45).
With Job, then, we are left to ask: What is man’s lot? If we cannot expect our piety to earn the blessing of God, or their evil to summon his course, what is this life about (Job 31:2-3)?
I Will Bless You (2:1-23)
While we have these questions regarding the rationality and causality of our lives, the Lord reminds us of his promise, which was mot the promise of a transactional theology, where our righteousness is exchanged for his blessing, but the promise of his presence (2:1-5). The promise that we would be his people and he would be our God (Exodus 6:6-7). That promise is always with us, even to the very end of time (Matthew 28:17-20).
In regard to our transactional expectations, the Lord gives us a parable (2:10-14). The parable is very hard for us to understand in detail, as it seems that the consecrated meat would consecrate whatever it touched (Leviticus 6:27; Ezekiel 44:19). But if we pair this question with the question of defilement, and take the parable as a whole, then perhaps we can understand the larger question: What makes something holy? Is it pure mechanics? Certainly not! Our actions only bring defilement.
But there is one who is holy, who sits enthroned in the true temple, and one who intercedes for us in his presence (Hebrews 9:23-24). This is the order of the universe, that he has chosen us to be his people (2:23) and appointed us to obey his commandments.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. (Ecclesiastes 12:13 KJV)
