Haggai, Zechariah

Eugene H. Merrill, Kenneth L. Barker, Tremper Longman III, David E. Garland

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780310531975
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Crítica e interpretación bíblicas

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Text and Exposition

I. REBUILDING THE TEMPLE (1:1–15)

A. Introduction and Setting (1:1)

1In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest.

COMMENTARY

1 King Darius Hystaspes, a usurper of the Persian throne, came to power in 522 BC and reigned until 486. In a short time he reasserted Persia’s dominion over the whole Middle Eastern world following the mysterious death of Cyrus’s son Cambyses and the assassination of his would-be successor, Gaumata, the latter at the hands of Darius himself. The stability that ensued provided an environment in which such domestic matters as temple building could be undertaken without resistance. No doubt such a turn of events encouraged Haggai and Zechariah to exhort their Jewish countrymen to get on with that very task (cf. Ezr 4:1–5).

Thanks to the recovery of ancient chronological and astronomical data it is possible to assign precise dates to events in postexilic Judah (see “Date” in the introduction). The sixth month, Elul, corresponds to August–September in modern calendars, and the first day of the month in the year 520 was August 29.

Exactly on that day, Haggai says, he communicated to Zerubbabel and Joshua a divine revelation concerning the rebuilding of the temple (cf. v.8). An otherwise unknown prophet (except in Ezr 5:1 and 6:14; see the introduction), Haggai must have held a status and reputation such that he had ready and sympathetic access to Judah’s most powerful leaders, Zerubbabel and Joshua. Zerubbabel, whose name (derived from zēr bābili, “seed of Babylon”) reflects his Babylonian upbringing, was a grandson of King Jehoiachin (1Ch 3:17–19) and his successor in the line of Davidic-covenant rulers. His office in the postexilic state was that of governor (Heb. peḥâ), a title applied in the Persian period to both Jewish (Mal 1:8; Ne 5:14, 18; 12:26) and non-Jewish (Ezr 8:36; Ne 2:7; 3:7; Est 3:12) officials.

Because the Chronicler identifies Zerubbabel as the son of Pedaiah (1Ch 3:19) and nephew of Shealtiel (3:17), it is likely that Zerubbabel had become Shealtiel’s foster son, perhaps by virtue of the levirate tradition whereby a brother assumed parental responsibility on behalf of his deceased sibling (Dt 25:5–10). As for Sheshbazzar, identified in Ezra as the “prince of Judah” (Ezr 1:8) and then governor (5:14), he is perhaps the same as Zerubbabel or, more likely, Zerubbabel’s immediate precedessor, a brother or uncle who, before he himself could carry out the task of building the temple, gave place to Zerubbabel (Ezr 5:16; cf. 3:8, 10; Meyers and Meyers, 11).

Joshua son of Jehozadak sprang directly from Aaron, as the genealogy of 1 Chronicles 6:1–15 makes clear (cf. Ezr 3:2, 8; 5:2; 10:18; Ne 12:26; Zec 6:11). His credentials and qualifications to function as high priest are therefore beyond dispute.

B. The Exhortation to Rebuild (1:2–11)

2This is what the LORD Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come for the LORD’s house to be built.’”

3Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 4“Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”

5Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

7This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the LORD. 9“You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the LORD Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. 10Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. 11I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.”

COMMENTARY

2 The introduction of the Lord by the epithet “the LORD of hosts” (v.2, NASB; NIV has “the LORD Almighty”) is instructive because (1) the task of temple construction is beyond human capacity; and (2) the imperium of the world’s great powers, including Persia, must be recognized by the Jews as being subject to the Sovereign of the universe, their own God. In fact, this term occurs more times proportionately in the postexilic prophets (fourteen times in Haggai; fifty-three times in Zechariah; twenty-four times in Malachi) than anywhere else in the OT. The God who rules over all creation is able to meet every need of the disheartened community.

The people’s problem is immediately pointed out to them by the Lord: The time for temple building has not come—or so they are saying. But this seems inconsistent with the readiness with which they began the project eighteen years earlier. Within two years of their return from exile they laid the foundations of the temple with great joy and fanfare (Ezr 3:8–11). Even then, however, the celebration was tinged with sadness as the elderly among them reflected with nostalgia on the meagerness of this second temple compared to the glorious temple of Solomon they had seen with their own eyes (Ezr 3:12–13; cf. Hag 2:3). It seems that this dampening of enthusiasm won the day, for nearly two decades later little if anything more was accomplished.

One must also take into consideration the opposition to the project by the Jews’ enemies, who came to see the return of the Jews to the land and the reestablishment of their state as a threat to their own territorial claims (Ezr 4:1–2, 4; 5:3–5). Such pressure was bound to undermine Jewish morale. Thus, Haggai’s contemporaries are insisting that the time for rebuilding the temple “is not coming” (thus the participle). The word for “time” here (ʿēt; GK 6961) has the idea of a set or appointed time, the appropriate moment for something to be done (NIDOTTE, 3:565). That time has not arrived, nor does it seem to be imminent.

3–4 Whatever the people’s rationale, the Lord challenges it by throwing back at them their own words. In a rhetorical question he asks them how it can be the time (haʿēt) for them to build their own houses and yet not the time to build his house (v.4). There seems to be no comparison between their preexilic homes and those they now have built. Nor has external opposition appeared to slow them down in that task. What, then, explains the success of the one project and the failure of the other?

The answer lies in their misplaced priorities. In an ironic twist the Lord describes the houses they have built in terms of certain features of the old Solomonic temple. So lavish are the interiors of their dwellings that they are paneled (s^epûnîm) like that glorious house of the Lord (see 1Ki 6:9; 7:3, 7). Though unable to raise the dwelling place of the Lord from its ruins, the people have still found time, energy, and resources to squander on themselves.

5–6 The displeasure of the Lord is immediately apparent in the terse but unmistakable warning: “Give careful thought” to what you are doing (v.5). Such wrong-headedness can no longer go unchallenged and uncorrected. In fact, the corrective hand of God has already become apparent to those with eyes to see. In a series of strong adversatives the folly of having misplaced priorities finds graphic expression. The community has apparently suffered agricultural losses and general economic malaise, conditions that may well have been attributed by them to the chaotic social and political times or to plain bad luck. To forestall any such erroneous conclusions, the Lord lays the blame for all these circumstances squarely at the feet of those responsible—the returnees, who having begun so well have defected from the will of God in their own self-interest.

The signs of God’s disfavor are plain for all to see, if only the people will open their hearts to the realities around them. (1) They have sowed much but reaped little. (2) What little they have managed to harvest is insufficient to feed them to satisfaction (lit., “eating without satisfaction”). (3) They have drunk, but not enough to become intoxicated, so short is the supply (see Notes). (4) They have clothed themselves, but so inadequate or scarce are their garments that they can never get warm. (5) The one who hires himself out (so the Hebrew) does indeed earn wages, but to no avail. The cost of living is such that he may as well put his money in a bag full of holes, for it is not nearly enough to provide for himself and his family.

This list of disasters is not random. Long before the destruction of the temple and the exile, the Lord threatened some of these very judgments for covenantal disobedience. The “curse” section of Deuteronomy threatens drought and famine (Dt 28:16, 18, 38), lack of wi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Haggai
• Introduction
• I. REBUILDING THE TEMPLE (1:1–15)
• II. THE GLORY TO COME (2:1–9)
• III. THE PROMISED BLESSING (2:10–19)
• IV. ZERUBBABEL THE CHOSEN ONE (2:20–23)
• Zechariah
• Introduction
• I. INTRODUCTION TO THE ENTIRE BOOK (1:1–6)
• II. A SERIES OF EIGHT NIGHT VISIONS (1:7–6:8)
• III. THE SYMBOLIC CROWNING OF JOSHUA THE HIGH PRIEST (6:9–15)
• IV. THE PROBLEM OF FASTING AND THE PROMISE OF THE FUTURE (7:1–8:23)
• V. TWO PROPHETIC ORACLES: THE GREAT MESSIANIC FUTURE AND THE FULL REALIZATION OF THE THEOCRACY (9:1–14:21)