THE BOOK AND PROPHECY OF HAGGAI IS NOT UNDERSTOOD BUT BY A FEW TODAY.
Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary
Haggai
The Prophet. Haggai was born in Babylon and was one of those who returned from captivity, under Zerrubbabel, according to the decree of Cyrus. He prophesied during the period of the rebuilding of the temple, as recorded in Ezra and he was the first prophet called to prophesy after the Jews returned from the captivity in Babylon. He began his teaching sixteen years after the return of the first band to Jerusalem.
The Conditions Out of Which Grew the Prophecy. Under the decree of Cyrus. King of Persia, Zerrubbabel, a descendant of King David, had led a company of captives back to Jerusalem. They had set up the altar and work on the temple had been begun, but the work had been interrupted by the hostile Samaritans and others and for about fourteen years almost nothing had been done. These years of inactivity had dulled their zeal and they were rapidly becoming reconciled to the situation and by reason of their weakness, compared with the great task before them, they were beginning to despair of seeing their people and beloved city and Temple restored to that glory pictured by former prophets.
The Prophecy. Its purpose was to restore the hope of the people and to give them zeal for the cause of God. This was accomplished by means of four distinct visions, each of which shows their folly in not completing the work, mid promises divine blessing. They hear God say, "I am with you, and will bless you." The result is seen in that they are enabled, in spite of opposition, to finish and dedicate it in about four years.
FRED COULTER IN A SERMON [MAY 13 - 2023] PERVERTS THIS
BOOK INTO SAYING A TEMPLE WILL BE BUILT IN JERUSALEM, WITH
ANIMAL SACRIFICES, AND A JEWISH PRIESTHOOD, ETC. AT THE END
TIME.
HE FOLLOWERS THE FUNDAMENTAL PROTESTANT PROPHETS IN THEIR TEACHING, AND THEY GOT IT FROM A GUY NAMED SCOFIELD IN HIS BIBLE NOTES PUBLISHED WITHIN A DECADE OR SO OF THE 20TH CENTURY; FROM HIM COMES THE WILD AND CRAZY TEACHING OF THE 70TH WEEK OF DANIEL 9 BEING AT THE END OF THIS AGE, THE GREAT TRIBULATION OF MATTHEW 24; BUT CHRISTIANS ARE SECRETLY RAPTURED AWAY TO HEAVEN; AFTER 7 YEARS CHRIST THEN RETURNS VISIBLY WITH THE SAINTS AND ANGELS, TO ESTABLISH THE KINGDOM OF GOD OVER ALL NATIONS.
THIS BOOK OF HAGGAI AND HIS PROPHECY HAS TO DO WITH THE TEMPLE THE JEWS STARTED TO BUILD AFTER THE 70 YEAR CAPTIVITY IN BABYLON, AND ALTHOUGH IT WOULD NOT CONTAIN AT FIRST, THE GOLD AND SILVER AND SO THE PHYSICAL BEAUTY OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE, THAT SOME STILL REMEMBERED. IT WOULD IN THE END BE MORE GLORIOUS IN OTHER WAYS THAN THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON.
THE READER SHOULD READ SLOWLY AND THEY WILL SEE THE TRUTH OF WHAT I'VE STATED.
THE PROPHECY HAS REALLY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SECOND COMING OF THE MESSIAH BACK TO EARTH\, AND A PHYSICAL TEMPLE BUILT BY THE JEWS A THIRD TIME BEFORE THE MESSIAH COMES AGAIN. BUT IT DOES FORESEE THE GLORY OF THIS TEMPLE BEING IN THE FIRST CENTURY A.D. PHYSICALLY BY HEROD., THROUGH CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES OFTEN TEACHING AND PREACHING WITHIN THIS TEMPLE. WHAT COULD BE MORE GLORIOUS THAN THAT FOR A PHYSICAL BUILDING?
Bible Commentaries
BARNES' NOTES ON THE WHOLE BIBLE
Verse 1
In the second year of Darius - , i. e., Hystaspis. The very first word of prophecy after the captivity betokens that they were restored, not yet as before, yet so, as to be hereafter, more than before. The earthly type, by God’s appointment, was fading away, that the heavenly truth might dawn. The earthly king was withdrawn, to make way for the heavenly. God had said of Jeconiah Jeremiah 22:30, “No man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Israel:” and so now prophecy begins to be dated by the years of a foreign earthly ruler, as in the Baptism of the Lord Himself Luke 3:1. Yet God gives back in mercy more than He withdraws in chastisement. The earthly rule is suspended, that people might look out more longingly for the heavenly.
In the sixth month - They counted by their own months, beginning with Nisan, the first of the ecclesiastical year (which was still used for holy purposes and in sacred history), although, having no more any kings, they dated their years by those of the empire, to which they were subject (See Zechariah 1:7; Zechariah 7:1) in the sixth month, part of our July and August, their harvest was past, and the dearth, which they, doubtless ascribed (as we do) to the seasons, and which Haggai pointed out to be a judgment from God, had set in for this year also. The months being lunar, the first day of the month was the festival of the new moon, a popular feast Proverbs 7:20 which their forefathers had kept Isaiah 1:13-14, while they neglected the weightier matters of the law, and which the religious in Israel had kept, even while separated from the worship at Jerusalem (2 Kings 4:23; add Amos 8:5; Hosea 2:11). In its very first day, when the grief for the barren year was yet fresh, Haggai was stirred to exhort them to consider their way; a pattern for Christian preachers, to bring home to people’s souls the meaning of God’s judgments. God directs the very day to be noted, in which He called the people anew to build His temple, both to show the readiness of their obedience, and a precedent to us to keep in memory days and seasons, in which He stirs our souls to build more diligently His spiritual temple in our souls.
By the hand of Haggai - God does almost everything which He does for a person through the hands of people. He commits His words and works for people into the hands of human beings as His stewards, to dispense faithfully to His household. Luke 12:42. Hence, He speaks so often of the law, which He commanded “by the hand of Moses;” but also as to other prophets, Nathan 2 Samuel 12:25, Ahijal, 1Ki 12:15; 1 Kings 14:16; 2 Chronicles 10:15. Jehu 1 Kings 16:7, Jonah 2 Kings 14:25, Isaiah Isaiah 20:2, Jeremiah Jeremiah 37:2, and the prophets generally. Hos. 7:20; 2 Chronicles 29:25 the very prophets of God, although gifted with a Divine Spirit, still were willing and conscious instruments in speaking His words.
Unto Zerubbabel - (so called from being born in Babylon) “the son of Shealtiel.” By this genealogy Zerubbabel is known in the history of the return from the captivity in Ezra and Nehemiah Ezra 3:2, Ezra 3:8; Ezra 5:2; Nehemiah 12:1. God does not say by Jeremiah, that Jeconiah should have no children, but that he should in his lifetime be childless, as it is said of those married to the uncle’s or brother’s widow Leviticus 20:20-21, “they shall die childless.” Jeremiah rather implies that he should have children, but that they should die untimely before him. For he calls Jeconiah Jeremiah 22:30, “a man who shall not prosper in his days; for there shall not prosper a man of his seed, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Israel.” He should die (as the word means) “bared” of all, alone and desolate. The own father of Shealtiel appears to have been Neri Luke 3:27, of the line of Nathan son of David; not, of the line of the kings of Judah. Neri married, one must suppose, a daughter of Assir, son of Jeconiah 1 Chronicles 3:17-19 whose grandson Shealtiel was; and Zerubbabel was the own son of Pedaiah, the brother of Shealtiel, as whose son he was in the legal genealogy inscribed, according to the law as to those who die childless Deuteronomy 23:5-10, or as having been adopted by Shealtiel being himself childless, as Moses was called the son of the daughter of Pharaoh Exodus 2:10. So broken was the line of the unhappy Jehoiachin, two thirds of whose own life was passed in the prison Jeremiah 52:31, into which Nebuchadnezzar did cast him.
Governor of Judah - The foreign name betokens that the civil rule was now held from a foreign power, although Cyrus showed the Jews the kindness of placing one of themselves, of royal extraction also, as his deputy over them.
The lineage of David is still in authority, connecting the present with the past, but the earthly kingdom had faded away. Under the name “Sheshbazzar” Zerubbabel is spoken of both as the “prince” and the “governor” Ezra 5:14, of Judah. With him is joined “Joshuah the son of Josedech, the high priest,” whose father went into captivity 1 Chronicles 6:15, when his grandfather Seraiah was slain by Nebuchadnezzar 2 Kings 25:18-21. The priestly line is also preserved. Haggai addresses these two, the one of the royal, the other of the priestly, line, as jointly responsible for the negligence of the people; he addresses the people only through them. Together, they are types of Him, the true King and true priest, Christ Jesus, who by the resurrection raised again the true temple, His Body, after it had been destroyed .
Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say - Not Zerubbabel or Joshua, but “this people.” He says not, “My people,” but reproachfully “this people,” as, in acts, disowning Him, and so deserving to be disowned by Him. “The time is not come,” literally “It is not time to come, time for the house of the Lord to be built”. They might yet sit still; the time for them “to come” was not yet, for not yet was the “time for the house of the Lord to be built.” Why it was not time, they did not say. The government did not help them; the original grant by Cyrus Ezra 3:7 was exhausted; the Samaritans hindered them, because they would not own them, (amid their mishmash of worship, “worshiping,” our Lord tells them John 4:22, “they know not what”), as worshipers of the same God. It was a bold excuse, if they said, that the 70 years during which the temple was to lie waste, were not yet ended.
The time had long since come, when, 16 years before, Cyrus had given command that the house of God should be built. The prohibition to build, under Artaxerxes or Pseudo-Smerdis, applied directly to the city and its walls, not to the temple, except so far as the temple itself, from its position, might be capable of being used as a fort, as it was in the last siege of Jerusalem. Yet in itself a building of the size of the temple, apart from outer buildings, could scarcely so be used. The prohibition did not hinder the building of stately private houses, as appears from Haggai’s rebuke. The hindrances also, whatever they were, had not begun with that decree. The death of Pseudo-Smerdis had now, for a year, set them free, if had they had any zeal for the glory and service of God. Otherwise, Haggai would not blamed them. God, knowing that He would bend the heart of Darius, as He had that of Cyrus, requires the house to be built without the king’s decree. It was built in faith, that God would bring through what He had enjoined, although outward things were as adverse now as before. And what He commanded He prospered Ezra 5–6.
There was indeed a second fulfillment of 70 years, from the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar 586 b.c., to its consecration in the 6th year of Darius 516 b.c. But this was through the willfulness of man, prolonging the desolation decreed by God, and Jeremiah’s prophecy relates to the people not to the temple.
The prophet addresses his discourse to the chiefs (in Church and state) and yet accuses directly, not their listlessness but that of the people, in order both to honor them before the people and to teach that their sins are to be blamed privately not publicly, lest their authority should be injured, and the people incited to rebel against them; and also to shew that this fault was directly that of the people, whom he reproves before their princes, that, being openly convicted before them, it might be ashamed, repent, and obey God; but that indirectly this fault touched the chiefs themselves, whose office it was to urge the people to this work of God. For seldom is the prince free from the guilt of his subjects, as either assenting to, or winking at them, or not coercing them, though able.
Since also Christians are the temple of God, all this prophecy of Haggai is applicable to them. When thou seest one who has lapsed thinking and preparing to build through chastity the temple which he had before destroyed through passion, and yet delaying day by day, say to him, "Truly thou also art of the people of the captivity," and sayest, "The time is not yet come for building the house of the Lord." Whoso has once settled to restore the temple of God, to him every time is suited for building, and the prince, Satan, cannot hinder, nor, the enemies around. As soon as being thyself converted, thou callest upon the name of the Lord, He will say, “Behold Me”. To him who willeth to do right, the time is always present; the good and right-minded have power to fulfill what is to the glory of God, in every time and place.
And the word of the Lord came - Before, he prophesied nothing, but only recited the saying of the people; now he refutes it in his prophecy, and repeats, again and again, that he says this not of himself, but from the "mind and mouth of God." It is characteristic of Haggai to inculcate thus frequently, that his words are not his own, but the words of God. Yet the prophets, both in their threats and prophecies, repeat again and again, “Thus saith the Lord,” teaching us, how we should prize the word of God, hang upon it, have it ever in our mouth, reverence, ruminate on, utter, praise it, make it our continual delight.
Is it time for you - You, being what you are, the creatures of God, “to dwell in your ceiled houses,” more emphatically, in your houses, and those “ceiled,” probably with costly woods, such as cedar . But where then was the excuse of want of means? They imitated, in their alleged poverty, what is spoken of as magnificent in their old kings, Solomon and Shallum, but not having, as Solomon first did (1 Kings 6:9, ויספן), “covered the house of God with beams and rows of cedar”. “Will ye dwell in houses artificially adorned, not so much for use as for delight, and shall My dwelling-place, wherein was the Holy of holies, and the cherubim, and the table of showbread, be bestreamed with rains, desolated in solitude, scorched by the sun?”
With these words carnal Christians are reproved, who have no glow of zeal for God, but are full of self-love, and so make no effort to repair, build, or strengthen the material temples of Christ, and houses assigned to His worship, when aged, ruinous, decaying or destroyed, but build for themselves curious, voluptuous, superfluous dwellings. In these the love of Christ gloweth not; these Isaiah threateneth, Isaiah 5:8, Isaiah 5:12. “Woe to you who join house to house and field to field, and regard not the work of the Lord!”
To David and Solomon the building of God’s temple was their heart’s desire; to early Christian Emperors, to the ages of faith, the building of Churches; now mostly, owners of lands build houses for this world’s profit, and leave it to the few to build in view of eternity, and for the glory of God.
And now, thus saith the Lord of hosts; “Consider,” (literally “set your heart upon) your ways,” what they had been doing, what they were doing, and what those doings had led to, and would lead to. This is ever present to the mind of the prophets, as speaking God’s words, that our acts are not only “ways” in which we go, each day of life being a continuance of the day before; but that they are ways which lead, somewhere in God’s Providence and His justice; to some end of the “way,” good or bad. So God says by Jeremiah Jeremiah 21:8. “I set before you the way of life and the way of death;” and David Psalms 16:11, “Thou wilt show me the path of life,” where it follows, “In Thy presence is the fullness of joy and at Thy Right Hand there are pleasures forevermore;” and Solomon Proverbs 6:23, “Reproofs of instruction are the way of life;” and, he is in Proverbs 10:17, “the way of life who keepeth instruction; and he who forsaketh rebuke, erreth;” and Proverbs 15:24, “The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath;” and of the adulterous woman, Proverbs 7:27. “Her house are the ways of hell, going down to the chambers of death” and Proverbs 5:5-6, “her feet go down unto death; her steps take hold on hell; lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life.” Again, Proverbs 14:12; Proverbs 16:25. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, and the end thereof are the ways of death;” and contrariwise Proverbs 4:18, “The path of the righteous is a shining light, shining more and more until the mid-day” Proverbs 2:13. “The ways of darkness” are the ways which end in darkness; and when Isaiah says Isaiah 59:8, “The way of peace hast thou not known,” he adds, “whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.” They who choose not peace for their way, shall not find peace in and for their end.On these your ways, Haggai says, “set your hearts,” not thinking of them lightly, nor giving a passing thought to them, but fixing your minds upon them; as God says to Satan Job 1:8, “Hast thou set thy heart on My servant Job?” and God is said to set His eye or His face upon man for good Jeremiah 24:6; or for evil Jeremiah 21:10, He speaks also, not of setting the mind, applying the understanding, giving the thoughts, but of “setting the heart,” as the seat of the affections. It is not a dry weighing of the temporal results of their ways, but a loving dwelling upon them, for repentance without love is but the gnawing of remorse.
Set your heart on your ways; - i. e., your affections, thoughts, works, so as to be circumspect in all things; as the apostle Paul says 1 Timothy 5:21, “Do nothing without forethought,” i. e., without previous judgment of reason; and Solomon Proverbs 4:25, “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee;” and the son of Sirach, “Son, do nothing without counsel and when thou hast done it thou wilt not repent.” For since, according to a probable proposition, nothing in human acts is indifferent, i. e., involving neither good nor ill deserts, they who do not thus set their hearts upon their ways, do they not daily incur almost countless sins, in thought, word, desire, deed, yea and by omission of duties? Such are all fearless persons who heed not to fulfill what is written Proverbs 4:23, "Keep your heart with all watchfulness."
He “sows much” to his own heart, but “brings in little,” who by reading and hearing knows much of the heavenly commands, but by negligence in deeds bears little fruit. “He eats and is not satisfied,” who, hearing the words of God, coveteth the gains or glory of the world. Well is he said not to be “satisfied,” who eateth one thing, hungereth after another. He drinks and is not inebriated, who inclineth his ear to the voice of preaching, but changeth not his mind. For through inebriation the mind of those who drink is changed. He then who is devoted to the knowledge of God’s word, yet still desireth to gain the things of the world, drinks and is not inebriated. For were he inebriated, no doubt he would have changed his mind and no longer seek earthly things, or love the vain and passing things which he had loved. For the Psalmist says of the elect Psalms 36:8, “they shall be inebriated with the richness of Thy house,” because they shall be filled with such love of Almighty God, that, their mind being changed, they seem to be strangers to themselves, fulfilling what is written Matthew 16:24, "If any will come after Me, let him deny himself."
Ye have sown much - The prophet expresses the habitualness of these visitations by a vivid present. He marks no time and so expresses the more vividly that it was at all times. It is one continually present evil. "Ye have sown much and there is a bringing in little; there is eating and not to satisfy; there is drinking and not to exhilarate; there is clothing and not to be warm." It is not for the one or the other years, as, since the first year of Darius Hystaspis; it is one continued visitation, coordinate with one continued negligence. As long as the sin lasted, so long the punishment. The visitation itself was twofold; impoverished harvests, so as to supply less sustenance; and various indisposition of the frame, so that what would, by God’s appointment in nature, satisfy, gladden, warm, failed of its effect. “And he that laboreth for hire, gaineth himself hire into a bag full of holes” (literally “perforated.”)
The labor pictured is not only fruitless, but wearisome and vexing. There is a seeming result of all the labor, something to allure hopes; but immediately it is gone. The pagan assigned a like baffling of hope as one of the punishments of hell, “Better and wiser to seek to be blessed by God, Who bestoweth on us all things." And this will readily come to those who choose to be of the same mind with Him and prefer what is for His glory to their own. For so saith the Saviour Himself to us Matthew 6:33, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."
“He loses good deeds by evil acts, who takes account of his good works, which he brings before his eyes, and forgets the faults which creep in between; or who, after what is good, returns to what is vain and evil”. “Money is seen in the pierced bag, when it is cast in, but when it is lost, it is not seen. They then who look how much they give, but do not weigh how much they gain wrongly, cast their rewards into a pierced bag. Looking to the Hope of their confidence they bring them together; not looking, they lose them.”
They lose the fruit of their labor, by not persevering to the end, or by seeking human praise, or by vain glory within, not keeping spiritual riches under the guardianship of humility. Such are vain and unprofitable men, of whom the Saviour saith, Matthew 6:2. "Verily I say unto you, they have their reward."
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’ grant Ezra 3:7, at the first return from the captivity. They were not required to buy, 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 ye up to the mountain and bring leafy branches of vines, olives, myrtles, palms.” The palms, anyhow, were timber. God required not goodly stones, such as had been already used, and such as hereafter, 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 Psalms 147:11“them that feared Him,” that are “upright in their way,” Proverbs 11:20 that “deal truly” Proverbs 12:22 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 aught 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, whereby he may secure and ground the conception of God, and may shew that the way of the Incarnation was well-ordered, and may collect what pertains to accurate knowledge of spiritual erudition and moral goodness. Nay, 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 thereto other materials, obedience, readiness for anything, courage, endurance, continence. “So being framed together by that which every joint supplieth, shall we 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 cry out in a manner, "The time is not come to build the house of the Lord."
Ye looked, literally “a looking;” as though he said, it has all been one looking, “for much,” for increase, the result of all sowing, in the way of nature: “and behold it came to little,” i. e., less than was sown; as Isaiah denounced to them of old by God’s word, Isaiah 5:10. “the seed of a homer shall yield an ephah,” i. e., one tenth of what was sown. “And ye brought it home, and I blew upon it,” so as to disperse it, as, not the wheat, but the chaff is blown before the wind. This, in whatever way it came to pass, was a further chastisement of God. The little seed which they brought in lessened through decay or waste. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. God asks by his prophet, what He asks in the awakened conscience Psalms 39:11. “God with rebukes chastens man for sin.” Conscience, when alive, confesses for “what” sin; or it asks itself, if memory does not supply the special sin. Unawakened, it complains about the excess of rain, the drought, the blight, the mildew, and asks, not itself, why, in God’s Providence, these inflictions came in these years? They felt doubtless the sterility in contrast with the exceeding prolificalness of Babylonia, as they contrasted the “light bread,” Numbers 21:5. the manna, with Numbers 11:5. the plenteousness of Egypt. They ascribed probably their meagre crops (as we mostly do) to mere natural causes, perhaps to the long neglect of the land during the captivity. God forces the question upon their consciences, in that Haggai asks it in His Name, in whose hands all powers stand, “saith the Lord of host.” They have not to talk it over among themselves, but to answer Almighty God, “why?” That “why?” strikes into the inmost depths of conscience!
Because of My house which is waste, and ye run - literally, “are running,” all the while, “each to his own house” They were absorbed in their material interests, and had no time for those of God. When the question was of God’s house, they stir not from the spot; when it is of their own concerns, they run. Our Lord says, Matthew 6:33. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Man reverses this, seeks his own things first, and God withholds His blessing.
This comes true of those who prefer their own conveniences to God’s honor, who do not thoroughly uproot self-love, whose penitence and devotion are shewn to be unstable, for on a slight temptation they are overcome. Such are they who are bold, self-pleasing, wise and great in their own eyes, who do not ground their conversation on true and solid humility.
(Cyr.) “To those who are slow to fulfill what is for the glory of God, and the things whereby His house, the Church, is firmly stayed, neither the heavenly dew cometh, which enricheth hearts and minds, nor the fruitfulness of the earth; i. e., right action; not food nor wine nor use of oil. But they will be ever strengthless and joyless, unenriched by spiritual oil, and remain without taste or participation of the blessing through Christ.”
Therefore, for you, - on your account; (As in Ps. 44:43.) for your sins, (Jon.) He points out the moral cause of the drought, whereas men think of this or that cause of the variations of the seasons, and we, e.g., take into our mouths Scriptural words, as “murrain of cattle,” and the like, and think of nothing less than why it was sent, or who sent it. Haggai directs the mind to the higher Cause, that as they withheld their service from God, so, on their account and by His will, His creatures withheld their service from them.
And I called for a drought upon the land - God called to the people and they would not hear. It is His ever-repeated complaint to them. “I called unto you, and ye would not hear.” He called to His inanimate creatures to punish them, and “they” obeyed. So Elisha tells the woman, whose son he had restored to life, 2 Kings 8:1. “The Lord hath called to the famine, and it shall also come to the land seven years.”
And upon men, - in that the drought was oppressive to man. The prophet may also allude to the other meaning of the word, “waste,” “desolation.” They had left the house of the Lord “waste,” therefore God called for waste, desolation, upon them.
Then Zerubbabel, and all the remnant of the people - not, “the rest of people” but “the remnant,” those who remained over from the captivity, the fragment of the two tribes, which returned to their own land, “hearkened unto the voice of the Lord.” This was the beginning of a conversion. In this one thing they began to do, what, all along, in their history, and most in their decay before the captivity they refused to do - obey God’s word. So God sums up their history, by Jeremiah, Jeremiah 22:21. “I spake unto thee in thy prosperity, thou saidst, I will not hear. This is thy way from thy youth, that thou hearkenedst not unto My voice.” Zephaniah 3:2 still more briefly, “she hearkened not unto (any) voice.” Now in reference, it seems, to that account of their disobedience, Haggai says, using the self-same formula, “they hearkened unto the voice of the Lord, “according to the words of Haggai.” They obeyed, not vaguely, or partly, but exactly, “according to the words” which the messenger of God spake.
And they feared the Lord - Certainly the presence of the Divine Majesty is to be feared with great reverence. The fear of punishment at times transports the mind to what is better, and the infliction of sorrows harmonizes the mind to the fear of God; and that of the Proverbs comes true, Proverbs 13:13. “He that feareth the Lord shall be recompensed,” and Proverbs 19:23 “the fear of the Lord tendeth to life;” and Wisdom (Ecclesiasticus 1:11). "The fear of the Lord is honor and glory," and Proverbs 19:12 "the fear of the Lord shall rejoice the heart, and giveth joy and gladness and a long life." See how gently and beseemingly God smites us.
See how the lovingkindness of God immediately goes along with all changes for the better. For Almighty God changes along with those who will to repent, and promises that He will be with them; which what can equal? For when God is with us, all harm will depart from us, all good come in to us.
And Haggai, the Lord’s messenger - Malachi, whose own name was framed to express that he was “the Lord’s messenger,” and Haggai alone use the title, as the title of a prophet; perhaps as forerunners of the great prophet whom Malachi announced. Malachi also speaks of the priest, as Malachi 2:7 “the messenger of the Lord of hosts,” and prophesies of John Baptist as Malachi 3:1 “the messenger” of the Lord, who should go before His face. Haggai, as he throughout repeats that his words were God’s words, frames a new word to express, in the language of the New Testament; 2 Corinthians 5:20 that he had an embassy from God; “in the Lord’s message.”
I am with you - All the needs and longings of the creature are summed up in those words, “I with you.” “Who art Thou and who am I? Thou, He Who Is; I, he who am not;” nothing, yea worse than nothing. Yet “if Romans 8:31, God be for us,” Paul asks, “who can be against us?” Our blessed Lord’s parting promise to the Apostles, and in them to the Church, was, Matthew 28:20. “Lo I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.” The all-containing assurance goes beyond any particular promise of aid, as , “I will help you, and will protect you, so that your building shall have its completion.” This is one fruit of it , “since I am in the midst of you, no one shall be able to hinder your building.” But, more widely, the words bespeak “His” presence in love, who knows all our needs, and is Almighty to support and save us in all. So David says Psalms 23:4, “when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me:” and God says by another Psalms 91:15, I will be “with him in trouble,” and by Isaiah Isaiah 43:2, “When thou passest through the waters,” I will be “with thee.”
And the Lord stirred up the spirit - The words are used of any strong impulse from God to fulfill His will, whether in those who execute His will unknowingly as Pul 1 Chronicles 5:26, to carry off the trans-Jordanic tribes, or the Philistines and Arabians against Jehoram, 2 Chronicles 21:16. or the Medes against Babylon Jeremiah 51:11, or knowingly, as of Cyrus to restore God’s people and rebuild the temple Ezra 1:1, or of the people themselves to return Ezra 1:5 , “The spirit of Zerubbabel and the spirit of Joshua were stirred, that the government and priesthood may build the temple of God: the spirit of the people too, which before was asleep in them; not the body, not the soul, but the spirit. which knoweth best how to build the temple of God.” The Holy Spirit is stirred up in us, that we should enter the house of the Lord, and do the works of the Lord.
Again, observe that they did not set themselves to choose to do what should please God, before He was with them and stirred up their spirit. We shall know hence also, that although one choose zealously to do good and be in earnest therein, yet he will accomplish nothing, unless God be with him, raising him up to dare, and sharpening him to endure, and removing all torpor. For so the wondrous Paul says of those entrusted with the divine preaching 1 Corinthians 15:1,"I labored more abundantly than they all", yet added very wisely, "yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me," and the Saviour Himself saith to the holy Apostles, John 15:5. "Without Me ye can do nothing." For He is our desire, He, our courage to any good work; He our strength, and, if He is with us, we shall do well Ephesians 2:21-22, building ourselves to a holy temple, a habitation of God in the Spirit; if He depart and withdraws, how should any doubt, that we should fail, overcome by sluggishness and want of courage?
In the four and twentieth day of the month - The interval of twenty-three days must have been spent in preparation, since the message came on the first of the month, and the obedience was immediate.
HAGGAI
Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible
Verse 1
In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month - This was the seventh day of the feast of tabernacles, Leviticus 23:34, Leviticus 23:36, Leviticus 23:40-42. and its close. The eighth day was to be a sabbath, with its “holy convocation,” but the commemorative feast, the dwelling in booths, in memory of God’s bringing them out of Egypt, was to last seven days. The close then of this feast could not but revive their sadness at the glories of their first deliverance by God’s “mighly hand and outstretched arm,” and their present fewness and poverty. This depression could not but bring with it heavy thoughts about the work, in which they were, in obedience to God, engaged; and that, all the more, since Isaiah and Ezekiel had prophesied of the glories of the Christian Church under the symbol of the temple. This despondency Haggai is sent to relieve, owning plainly the reality of its present grounds, but renewing, on God’s part, the pledge of the glories of this second temple, which should be thereafter.
Who is left among you? - The question implies that there were those among them, who had seen the first house in its glory, yet but few. When the foundations of the first temple were laid, there were many Ezra 3:12. “Many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundations of this house were laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice.” Fifty-nine years had elapsed from the destruction of the temple in the eleventh year of Zedekiah to the first of Cyrus; so that old men of seventy years had seen the first temple, when themselves eleven years old. In this second of Darius seventy years had passed, so that those of 78 or 80 years might still well remember it. Ezra’s father, Seraiah, was slain in the eleventh year of Zedekiah; so he must have been born at latest a few months later; yet he lived to the second of Artaxerxes.
Is not such as it is as nothing? - Beside the richness of the sculptures in the former temple, everything, which admitted of it, was overlaid with gold 1 Kings 6:22, 1 Kings 6:28, 1 Kings 6:30, 1 Kings 6:32, 1 Kings 6:35, “Solomon overlaid the whole house with gold, until he had finished all the house, the whole altar by the oracle, the two cherubim, the floor of the house, the doors of the holy of holies” and the ornaments of it, “the cherubims thereon” and “the palm trees he covered with gold fitted upon the carved work 1 Kings 7:48-50, the altar of gold and the table of gold, whereupon the showbread was, the ten candlesticks of pure gold, with the flowers and the lamps and the tongs of gold, the bowls, the snuffers and the basons and the spoons and the censers of pure gold, and hinges of pure gold for all the doors of the temple 2 Chronicles 3:4-9. The porch that was in the front of the house, twenty cubits broad and 120 cubits high, was overlaid within with pure gold; the house glistened with precious stones; and the gold (it is added) was “gold of Parvaim,” a land distant of course and unknown to us. “Six hundred talents of gold” (about 4,320,000 British pounds) were employed in overlaying the holy of holies. “The upper chambers were also of gold; the weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold.”
Yet now be strong ... and work - They are the words with which David exhorted Solomon his son to be earnest and to persevere in the building of the first temple 1 Chronicles 28:10. “Take heed now, for the Lord hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong and do” 1 Chronicles 28:20. “Be strong and of good courage, and do.” This combination of words occurs once only elsewhere 2 Chronicles 19:11, in Jehoshaphat’s exhortation to “the 2 Chronicles 19:8. Levites and priests and chiefs of the fathers of Israel,” whom he had set as judges in Jerusalem. Haggai seems then to have adopted the words, with the purpose of suggesting to the down-hearted people, that there was need of the like exhortation, in view of the building of the former temple, whose relative glory so depressed them. The word “be strong” (elsewhere rendered, “be of good courage”) occurs commonly in exhortations to persevere and hold fast, amid whatever obstacles.
The words which I covenanted - The words stand more forcibly, because abruptly.
It is an exclamation which cannot be forced into any grammatical relation with the preceding. The more exact idiom would have been “Remember,” “take to heart.” But the prophet points to it the more energetically, because he casts it, as it were, into the midst, not bound up with any one verb. This would be the rather done in speaking to the people, as David to his followers (1 Samuel 30:23, which Ewald compares, Lehrb. n. 329. a. p. 811, Exodus 8:0. and in his Die Proph. iii. 183. Only he, not very intelligibly, makes it a sort of oath, By the word, By that which the Lord hath given us. But he suggests the like broken sentence Zech. vii. 7), “That which the Lord hath given us and hath preserved us and even the company against us into our hands!” i. e., “Would you deal thus with it?” The abrupt form rejects it as shocking. So here, “The word which I covenanted with you,” i. e. this, “I will be with you,” was the central all-containing promise, to which God pledged Himself when He brought them out of Egypt. He speaks to them as being one with those who came up out of Egypt, as if they were the very persons. The Church, ever varying in the individuals of whom it is composed, is, throughout all ages, in God’s sight, one; His promises to the fathers are made to the children in them. So the Psalmist says, “There” (at the dividing of the Red Sea and the Jordan) “do we rejoice in Him,” as if present there; and our Lord promises to the Apostles, Matthew 28:20. “I am with you always even to the end of the world,” by an ever-present presence with them and His Church founded by them in Him.
My Spirit abideth among you, - as the Psalmist says Psalms 102:27, “they (the heavens) perish and Thou abidest” Psalms 33:11, “The counsel of the Lord standeth forever” Psalms 111:3, “His righteousness endureth forever.” The Spirit of God…….with His manifold gifts. Where He is, is all good. As the soul is in the body, so God …..is in the Church, Himself its life, and bestowing on all and each every good gift, as each and all have need. As Paul says of the Church of Christ 1 Corinthians 12:4, 1 Corinthians 12:6, 1 Corinthians 12:11, “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God, who worketh all in all. All these worketh one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.” But above and beyond all gifts He is present as the Spirit of holiness and love, making the Church and those in whom He individually dwells, acceptable to God. Special applications, such as “the Spirit of wisdom and might;” a spirit such as He gave to Moses to judge His people; the spirit of prophecy; or the spirit given to Bezaleel and Aholiab for the work of the sanctuary - these recognize in detail the one great truth, that all good, all wisdom, from least to greates...come from God, though one by one they would exclude more truth than they each contain.
Yet once, it is a little while - This, the rendering of Paul to the Hebrews, is alone grammatical . “Yet once.” By the word yet he looks back to the first great shaking of the moral world, when God’s revelation by Moses and to His people broke upon the darkness of the pagan world, to be a monument against pagan error until Christ should come; once looks on, and conveys that God would again shake the world, but once only, under the one dispensation of the Gospel, which should endure to the end.
It is a little while - The 517 years, which were to elapse to the birth of Christ, are called a little time, because to the prophets, ascending in heart to God and the eternity of God, all times, like all things of this world, seem, as they are, only a little thing, yea a mere point; which has neither length nor breadth. So John calls the time of the new law, “the last hour” 1 John 2:18, “Little children, it is the last hour.” It was little also in respect to the time, which had elapsed from the fall of Adam, upon which God promised the Saviour Christ Genesis 3:15, little also in respect to the Christian law, which has now lasted above 1,800 years, and the time of the end does not seem yet near.
I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land - It is one universal shaking of all this our world and the heavens over it, of which the prophet speaks. He does not speak only of Luke 21:25 “signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars,” which might be, and yet the frame of the world itself might remain. It is a shaking, such as would involve the dissolution of this our system, as Paul draws out its meaning; Hebrews 12:27. “This word, once more, signifieth the removing of the things that are shaken, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” Prophecy, in its long perspective, uses a continual foreshortening, speaking of things in relation to their eternal meaning and significance, as to that which shall survive, when heaven and earth and even time shall have passed away. It blends together the beginning and the earthly end; the preparation and the result; the commencement of redemption and its completion; our Lord’s coming in humility and in His Majesty. Scarcely any prophet but exhibits things in their intrinsic relation, of which time is but an accident.
It is the rule, not the exception. The Seed of the woman, who should bruise the serpent’s head, was promised on the fall: to Abraham, the blessing through his seed; by Moses, the prophet like unto him; to David, an everlasting covenant 2 Samuel 23:5. Joel unites the out-pouring of the Spirit of God on the Day of Pentecost, and the hatred of the world until the Day of Judgment Joel 2:28-32; Joel 3:0. Isaiah, God’s judgments on the land and the Day of final judgment Isaiah 24:0, the deliverance from Babylon, and the first coming of Christ Isa. 40–66, the glories of the Church, the new heavens and the new earth which shall remain forever, and the unquenched fire and undying worm of the lost Isaiah 66:22-24, Daniel, the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, of Anti-Christ, and the Resurrection; Dan. 11–12. Obadiah, the punishment of Edom and the everlasting kingdom of God; Obadiah 1:18-21. Zephaniah, the punishment of Judah and the final judgment of the earth. Malachi, our Lord’s first and second coming Malachi 3:1-5, Malachi 3:17-18; Malachi 4:1-6.
Nay, our Lord Himself so blends together the destruction of Jerusalem and the days of Anti-Christ and the end of the world, that it is difficult to separate them, so as to say what belongs exclusively to either. The prophecy is an answer to two distinct questions of the Apostles,
(1) “When shall these things (namely, the destruction of the temple) be?”
(2) “And what shall be the sign of Thy coming and of the end of the world?” Our Lord answers the two questions in one. Some things seem to belong to the first coming, as Matthew 24:15-16, “the abomination of desolation spoke of by Daniel,” and the flight from Matthew 24:24 “Judea into the mountains.” But the exceeding deceivableness is authoritatively interpreted by Paul 2 Thes. Matthew 5:2-10 of a distant time; and our Lord Himself, having said that “all these things,” of which the Apostles had inquired, should take place in that generation Mark 13:30 speaks of His absence as of a man taking a far journey Mark 13:3, and says that “not the angels in heaven knew that hour, neither the Son Mark 13:32, which precludes the idea, that He had just before declared that the whole would take place in that generation. For this would be to make out, that He declared that the Son knew not the hour of His Coming, which He had just (on this supposition) declared to be in that generation. [NOPE…..JESUS NEVER DECLARED HIS COMING BACK WOULD BE IN THAT GENERATION OF HIS DECIPLES LIVES, THOUGH FOR A WHILE AFTER JESUS ASCENTION TO HEAVEN THEY THOUGHT HE WOULD COME BACK SOMEWHAT SOON; BY THE TIME THE APOSTLE JOHN WAS ELDERLY, THEY KNEW JESUS WOULD NOT BE BACK AS SOON AS THEY HAD HOPED - Keith Hunt]
So then, here. There was a general shaking upon earth before our Lord came. [the FIRST TIME - Keith Hunt]--- Empires rose and fell. The Persian fell before Alexander’s; Alexander’s world-empire was ended by his sudden death in youth; of his four successors, two only continued, and they too fell before the Romans; then were the Roman civil wars, until, under Augustus, the temple of Janus was shut. “For it greatly beseemed a work ordered by God, that many kingdoms should be confederated in one empire, and that the universal preaching might find the peoples easily accessible who were held under the rule of one state.” In the heavens was the star, which led the wise men, the manifestation of Angels to the shepherds; the preternatural darkness at the Passion; the Ascension into the highest heaven, and the descent of the Holy Spirit with Acts 2:2, “a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.” God had moved them (heaven and earth) before, when He delivered the people from Egypt, when there was in heaven a column of fire, dry ground amid the waves, a wall in the sea, a path in the waters, in the wilderness there was multiplied a daily harvest of heavenly food (the manna), the rock gushed into fountains of waters. But He moved it afterward also in the Passion of the Lord Jesus, when the heaven was darkened, the sun shrank back, the rocks were rent. the graves opened, the dead were raised, the dragon, conquered in his waters, saw the fishers of men, not only sailing in the sea, but also walking without peril. The dry ground also was moved, when the unfruitful people of the nations began to ripen to a harvest of devotion and faith - so that “more were the children of the forsaken, than of her which had a husband,” and Isaiah 35:1. “the desert flourished like a lily”. He moved earth in that great miracle of the birth from the Virgin: He moved the sea and dry land, when in the islands and in the whole world Christ is preached. So we see all nations moved to the faith. [NO! SOME OF THOSE ABOVE ARE FOR THE AGE TO COME. ALL NATIONS HAVE NEVER MOVED TO THE FAITH. BRITAIN IN THE SECOND CENTURY A.D. HAD THE APOSTOLIC FAITH AS A COUNTRY TILL ROME CAME ALONG IN 600 A.D. AND PUSHED IT OUT BY 1100 A.D. MOST EUROPIAN NATIONS WERE DECEIVED BY THE PAPACY. THE EASTERN COUNTRIES, LIKE CHINA AND INDIA, NEVER WERE RIPE TO HARVEST TRUE CHRISTIANITY; CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT FAITH DID NOT GET THE EASTERN NATIONS TO ADOPT CHRISTIANITY IN ANY LARGE WAY - ALBERT BARNES IS DREAMING SWEET DREAMS - Keith Hunt]
And yet, whatever preludes of fulfillment there were at our Lord’s first coming, they were as nothing to the fulfillment which we look for in the second, “when Isaiah 24:19-20 the earth shall be utterly broken down; the earth, clean dissolved; the earth, moved exceedingly; "the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a hanging-cot in a vineyard and the transgression thereof is heavy upon it; and it shall fall and not rise again;" whereon follows an announcement of the final judgment of men and angels, and the everlasting kingdom of the blessed in the presence of God.
[YES THE SCRIPTURE ARE FULL OF PASSAGES ABOUT THE AGE TO COME - Keith Hunt]
Of that “day of the Lord,” Peter uses our Lord’s image, Matthew 24:43 that it shall 2 Peter 3:10. come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works therein shall be burned up.”
[GOD HAS USED THE PHYSICAL ELEMENTS AT DIFFERENT TIME IN THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH. HE USED THEM BEFORE JESUS WAS BORN OF A WOMAN; HE USED THEM IN NOAH'S DAY; HE USED THEM IN MOSES' DAY; HE USED THEM IN JOSHUA'S DAY; HE USED THEM AT THE COMING BIRTH OF JESUS AND AT HIS DEATH. HE WILL USE THEM AGAIN BEFORE AND AT THE RETURN OF THE MESSIAH AS THE BOOK OF REVELATION TELLS US - Keith Hunt]
Verse 7
And the desire of all nations shall come - The words can only mean this, the central longing of all nations [NOPE WRONG— NATIONS FROM THE BEGINNING OF NATIONS HAVE NOT DESIRED GOD'S MESSIAH; MOST, HUGE MAJORITY, HAVE NEVER DESIRED EVEN LOOKING INTO OR FINDING THE WAYS OF THE TRUE GOD, LET ALONE A MESSIAH FROM THE TRUE GOD; THEY HAVE BEEN HAPPY DOING THEIR OWN THING, MAKING AND WORSHIPPING THEIR FALSE GODS - Keith Hunt]
He whom they longed for, either through the knowledge of Him spread by the Jews in their dispersion, or mutely by the aching craving of the human heart, longing for the restoration from its decay. [NOPE JEWISH RELIGION MOST NATIONS LAUGHED AT; THE JEWS WHO BECAME CHRISTIANS WERE NOT THAT LARGE OF A PEOPLE. ONLY WHEN THE APOSTLES STARTED TO EVANGELIZE, AND GOD'S SPIRIT WENT FORTH, DID SOME PEOPLE OF SOME NATIONS LISTEN AND BELEIVED; UNLESS GOD OPENS THE MIND, TAKES THE SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS AWAY CAN PEOPLE UNDERSTAND AND COME TO THE FATHER'S WAY AND HIS SALVATION. JESUS CLEARLY TAUGHT THAT IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. THE HUMAN HEART BY ITSELF DOES NOT CRAVE GOD'S TRUTH OR WAY OF LIFE - SEE ROMANS 9 THROUGH 11 - Keith Hunt] “The earnest expectation of the creature” did not begin with the Coming of Christ, nor was it limited to those, who actually came to Him Romans 8:19-22. “The whole creation,” Paul saith, “groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” It was enslaved, and the better self longed to be free; every motion of grace in the multitudinous heart of man was a longing for its Deliverer; every weariness of what it was, every fleeting vision of what was better, every sigh from out of its manifold ills, were notes of the one varied cry, “Come and help us.” Man’s heart, formed in the image of God, could not but ache to be reformed by and for Him, though “an unknown God,” who should reform it. [NOPE THE HUMAN HEART DOES NOT LONG FOR GOD'S WAY OF LIFE, NOT UNTIL GOD CALLS THEM, OPENS THEIR MIND TO SEE THE FATHER'S WAY AND SALVATION. O YES THEY GROAN FOR SOMETHING BETTER, WHEN TROUBLES COME. SOMETHING THAT THEY DO NOT KNOW, NOR KNOW HOW TO AQUIRE IT. READ ROMANS 9 THROUGH 11. AND NUMBERS 11. ONLY THE FEW NOW AND BEFORE, WERE CALLED TO THE TRUE GOD, HIS MESSIAH, AND REPENTANCE TO SALVATION. THE WORLD OUTSIDE OF GOD DOES SIGH AND GROAN FOR ALL THE PAIN IT HAS FROM NOT BEING ENLIGHTENED BY GOD'S WORD. THE NATIONS TODAY MOAN AND GROAN AND SIGH FOR BETTER LIVING, BUT THEY ARE BLINDED, THEY DO NOT TURN TO THE BIBLE AND GOD, TO BE FREE FROM SIN, PAIN, SORROW, AND ALL THE TROUBLES THEY ARE IN - Keith Hunt]
This longing increased as the time drew near, when Christ should come. [NOPE IT ONLY INCREASED WITHIN THE ONES GOD WAS OPENING THEIR MIND TO HIS WORD AND PROPHECIES ABOUT THE COMING MESSIAH, AND THEY WERE RELATIVELY FEW, COMPARED TO THE MULTITUDES IN SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS. EVEN THEM SEEING THE MIRACLES JESUS DID, WAS NOT BRINGING THEM OUT OF SPIRITUAL DARKNESS; PROVING UNTIL MINDS ARE SET FREE FROM SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS, NONE CAN COME TO GOD, AND FIND THE ANSWER TO SINS, WICKEDNESS, LAWLESSNESS, AND THE JOY AND HAPPINESS IN SERVING AND FOLLOWING GOD'S WAY OF LIFE - Keith Hunt] The Roman biographer attests the existence of this expectation, not among the Jews only, but in the East; this was quickened doubtless among the pagan by the Jewish Sibylline book, in that, amid the expectations of one sent from heaven, who should found a kingdom of righteousness, which the writer drew from the Hebrew prophets, he inserted denunciations of temporal vengeance upon the Romans, which Easterns would share. [YES SOME IN THE EAST, GOD WAS IN DIFFERENT WAYS AND WITH HIS SPIRIT, REVEALING THE MESSIAH, BUT ONLY A VERY VERY SMALL GROUP, WHO MAYBE HAD THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES FROM THE ISRAELITES OF OLD, LIKE THE KINGS OF THE EAST COMING TO FIND THE BABE JESUS - Keith Hunt] Still, although written 170 years before our Lord came , it had not apparently much effect until the time, when, from the prophecies of Daniel it was clear, that He must shortly come. [FINALLY BARNES ADMITS THE TRUTH - Keith Hunt] Yet the attempt of the Jewish and pagan historian to wrest it to Vespasian, shows how great must have been the influence of the expectation, which they attempted to turn aside. [STILL NOT VERY MANY IN THE WHOLE POPULATION OF THE MAJOR COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD, AND, EVEN OF THE NATIONS AROUND THE HOLY LAND - Keith Hunt]
The Jews, who rejected our Lord whom Haggai predicted, still were convinced that the prediction must be fulfilled before the destruction of the second temple. The impulse did not cease even after its destruction. R. Akiba, whom they accounted “the first oracle of his time, the first and greatest guardian of the tradition and old law,” of whom they said, that “God revealed to him things unknown to Moses,” was induced by this prophecy to acknowledge the impostor Bar-cochab, to the destruction of himself and of the most eminent of his time; fulfilling our Lord’s words John 5:43, “I am come in My fathers name, and ye receive Me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.”
Akiba, following the traditional meaning of the great prophecy which rivetted his own eyes, paraphrased the words, “Yet a little, a little of the kingdom, will I give to Israel upon the destruction of the first house, and after the kingdom, lo! I will shake heaven, and after that will come the Messiah.” [YES THE MESSIAH'S FIRST COMING - Keith Hunt]
Since the words can only mean “the Desire of all nations,” he or that which all nations long for, the construction of the words does not affect the meaning. [O YES IT SURE DOES AS ADAM CLARKE POINTS IT OUT - Keith Hunt]. Herod doubtless thought to advance his own claims on the Jewish people by his material adorning of the temple; yet, although mankind do covet gold and silver, few could seriously think that, while a pagan immoral but observant poet could speak of “gold undiscovered and so better placed,” or our own of the “pale and common drudge ‘Tween man and man,” a Hebrew prophet could recognize gold and silver as “the desire of all nations.” [YES AND HAGGAI CERTAINLY DID - Keith Hunt] Rabbi Akiba and Jerome’s Jewish teachers, after our Lord came, felt no difficulty in understanding it of a person. [BUT HE UNSERSTOOD IT WRONG! JEWS HAVE BEEN WRONG ON MANY THINGS - Keith Hunt]
We cannot in English express the delicacy of the phrase, whereby manifoldness is combined in unity, the Object of desire containing in itself many objects of desire. [YES AS ADAM CLARKE EXPLAINS PHYSICAL THINGS NOT A PERSON - Keith Hunt]
To render “the desire of all nations” or “the desires of all nations” alike fail to do this. A great pagan master of language said to his wife, “fare you well, my longings,” i. e., I suppose, if he had analyzed his feelings, he meant that she manifoldly met the longings of his heart; she had in herself manifold gifts to content them. So Paul sums up all the truths and gifts of the Gospel, all which God shadowed out in the law and had given us in Christ, under the name of “the good things to come.” A pious modern writer speaks of “the unseen desirables of the spiritual world.” A psalmist expresses at once the collective, “God’s Word” and the “words” contained in it, by an idiom like Haggai’s, joining the feminine singular as a collective with the plural verb; “How sweet are Thy word unto my taste,” literally “palate.”
It is God’s word, at once collectively and individually, which was to the Psalmist so sweet. What was true of the whole, was true, one by one, of each part; what was true of each part, was true of the whole. So here, the object of this longing was manifold, but met in one, was concentrated in One, 1 Corinthians 1:30. “in Christ Jesus, Who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” That which the whole world sighed and mourned for, knowingly or unknowingly, [NO THE WHOLE WORLD DID NOT SIGH OR MOURN FOR GOD'S MESSIAH, THEY WERE ONLY INTERESTED IN DOING THEIR OWN THING AND HAVING THEIR OWN MANY FALSE GODS - INTERESTED IN HIS MIRACLE BUT NOT HIS SPIRITUAL TEACHINGS. THE WHOLE WORLD AND ITS NATIONS, HAS NEVER SIGHED OR MOURNED FOR THE TRUE GOD AND HIS SON CHRIST - Keith Hunt] light to disperse its darkness, liberty from its spiritual slavery, restoration from its degradation, could not come to us without some one, who should impart it to us. [THE NATIONS DID NOT LONG FOR GOD'S LIGHT OR FOR A GOD TO COME TO EARTH BRINGING TRUTH AND LIGHT; BUT THAT LIGHT WAS VERY SMALL AT THE TIME OF JESUS, MORE LIGHT SPREAD OVER DECADES AND HUNDREDS OF YEARS. THEN IT WAS ONLY THE FEW, THE LITTLE FLOCK, THE SALT OF THE EARTH, CALLED BY GOD TO ACCEPT THE LIGHT. THE VAST VAST MAJORITY WERE NOT INTERESTED AS THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED TODAY - Keith Hunt]
But if Jesus was “the longed-for of the nations” before He came, [NO! HE WAS NOT LONGED FOR BY THE NATIONS BEFORE HE CAME. ANYONE STUDYING HISTORY OF NATIONS CLEARLY KNOWS THEY HAD NO INTEREST IN SEARCHING FOR THE TRUE GOD AND HIS WAY OF LIFE; THE ISRAELITES WERE NOT MUCH HELP FOR OTHER NATIONS TO FIND THE TRUE GOD, AS THEY MOST OF THE TIME REJECTED THEIR TRUE GOD AND HIS COMMANDMENTS; THEY WERE NOT THE EXAMPLE FOR OTHER NATIONS, AS GOD WANTED THEM TO BE, SEE DUET. 4 - Keith Hunt] by that mute longing of need for that which it wants (as the parched ground thirsteth for the rain how much more afterward!) So Micah and Isaiah describe many peoples inviting one another Micah 4:2; Isaiah 2:3. “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.” [THIS IS A PROPHECY FOR THE AGE TO COME, NOT IN THE AGE OF MAN, NOT IN HAGGAI'S TIME; NOT IN THE TIME BETWEEN HAGGAI AND THE FIRST COMING OF THE MESSIAH - Keith Hunt]. And in truth He became the “desire of the nations,” [NO HE WAS NOT DESIRED BY THE NATIONS; THEY WERE NOT LOOKING FOR HIM, ISRAEL WAS NOT THE EXAMPLE OF DEUT. 4. THEY ARE NOT LOOKING FOR HIM TODAY, EVEN WITH TRUE AND FALSE CHRISTIANITY PROCLAIMING HIM - Keith Hunt] much more than of the Jews; [BUT A SMALL PART OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NATIONS, AS THE GOSPEL SPREAD, AND IN THE MAJORIY OF THOSE LISTENING ABOUT JESUS, A FALSE CHRISTIANITY THEY ADOPTED - Keith Hunt] as, Paul says, (Romans 10:19-20; quoting Deuteronomy 32:21.Isaiah 65:2.) God foretold of old; “Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are not a people: by a foolish nation I will anger you. But Esaias is very bold and saith, I was found of them that sought Me not.” [STILL A VERY SMALL PART OF OTHER NATIONS ACCEPTED THE GOSPEL, AND MOST OF THAT IS FALSE, BUT ENOUGH TO PROVOKE JEALOUSLY IN THEM, ENOUGH TO FULFIL THIS PROPHECY - Keith Hunt]
So until now and in eternity, Christ is the longing of all holy souls, who long for nothing else, than to please Him, daily to love Him more, to worship Him better. So John longed for Him; “Come, Lord Jesus Revelation 22:20. So Isaiah Isaiah 26:8-9, “The desire of our soul is to Thy Name and to the remembrance of Thee: with my soul have I desired Thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me, will I seek Thee early.” So Ignatius, "Let fire, cross, troops of wild beasts, dissections, rendings, scattering of bones, mincing of limbs, grindings of the whole body, ill tortures of the devil come upon me, only may I gain Jesus Christ. - I seek Him Who for us died; I long for Him Who for us rose"
[ONLY THE SALT, ONLY THE ONES CALLED TO LOOK FOR HIM, - Keith Hunt]
[YES BUT ONLY THE SALT OF THE EARTH, THE LITTLE FLOCK AS JESUS PUT IT, ONLY THOSE WHO HAD BEEN CALLED BY GOD TO SALVATION—— ROMANS CHAP. 9 THROUGH 11, WHILE THE REST WERE LEFT IN SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS. AND MANY, HUGE PART OF CHRISTIANS WHO ACCEPT JESUS, ARE DECEIVED BY ANOTHER GOSPEL, A FALSE GOSPEL - Keith Hunt]
Hungerest thou and desirest food? Long for Jesus! He is the bread and refreshment of Angels. He is "manna," containing in Him all sweetness and pleasurable delight. Thirstest thou? Long for Jesus! He is the well of “living water,” refreshing, so that thou shouldest thirst no more. Art thou sick? Go to Jesus. He is the Saviour, the physician, nay, salvation itself. Art thou dying? Sigh for Jesus! He is “the resurrection and the life.” Art thou perplexed? Come to Jesus! He is “the Angel of great counsel.” Art thou ignorant and erring? Ask Jesus; He is “the way, the truth and the life.” Art thou a sinner? Call on Jesus! For “He shall save His people from their sins.” To this end He came into the world: “This is all His fruit, to take away sin.” Art thou tempted by pride, gluttony, lust, sloth? Call on Jesus! He is humility, soberness, chastity, love, fervor: “He bare our infirmities, and carried,” yea still beareth and carrieth, “our griefs.” [YES ALL TRUE WITHIN THE TRUE GOSPEL OF GOD; MOST HAVE BEEN DECEIVED BY THOSE WHO BRING CHRIST TO THEM; THEY HAVE EMOTIONS; THEY TRY TO BE EVER LEARNING BUT NEVER COMING TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH AS PAUL SAID - Keith Hunt]
Seekest thou beauty? He is “fairer than the children of men.” Seekest thou wealth? In Him are “all treasures,” yea in Him “the fullness of the Godhead dwelleth.” Art thou ambitious of honors? “Glory and riches are in His house.” “He is the King of glory.” Seekest thou a friend? He hath the greatest love for thee, who for love of thee came down from heaven, toiled, endured the Sweat of Blood, the Cross and Death; He prayed for thee by name in the garden, and poured forth tears of Blood! Seekest thou wisdom? He is the Eternal and Uncreated Wisdom of the Father! Wishest thou for consolation and joy? He is the sweetness of souls, the joy and jubilee of Angels. Wishest thou for righteousness and holiness? He is “the Holy of holies;” He “is everlasting Righteousness,” justifying and sanctifying all who believe and hope in Him. Wishest thou for a blissful life? He is “life eternal,” the bliss of the saints. Long then for Him, love Him, sigh for Him! In Him thou wilt find all good; out of Him, all evil, all misery. Say then with Francis, ‘My Jesus, my love and my all!’ O Good Jesus, burst the cataract of Thy love, that its streams, yea seas, may flow down upon us, yea, inebriate and overwhelm us.”
WHILE ALL THIS IS TRUE WITHIN THE MESSIAH, AND THE TRUE GOSPEL, THE ORIGINAL HEBREW WARRANTS ANOTHER MEANING IN THE DAYS OF HAGGAI——
IT IS ADAM CLARKE AND HIS COMMENTARY THAT GIVES THE MORE CORRECT SCHOLARY WORK TO THIS PART OF HAGGAI--- Keith Hunt
ADAM CLARKE'S Bible Commentary-----
Verse 6
Verse 6. Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens — When the law was given on Mount Sinai, there was an earthquake that shook the whole mountain, Exodus 19:18. "The political or religious revolutions which were to be effected in the world, or both, are here," says Abp. Newcome----"referred to; compare Exodus 2:21-22; Matthew 24:29; Hebrews 12:26-28. The political ones began in the overthrow of the Persian monarchy by Alexander, within two centuries after this prediction; and if the Messiah's kingdom be meant, which is my opinion, this was erected in somewhat more than five centuries after the second year of Darius; a short period of time when compared with that which elapsed from the creation to the giving of the law, [AS CODIFIED AND GIVEN TO ISRAEL THROUGH MOSES - Keith Hunt] or from the giving of the law to the coming of the Messiah's kingdom. It must be understood that the word אחת achath, once, has a clear sense, if understood of the evangelical age; for many political revolutions succeeded, as the conquest of Darius Codomanus, and the various fortunes of Alexander's successors; but only one great and final religious revolution." - Newcome.
Verse 7
And the Desire of all nations shall come — The present Hebrew text is as follows: ובאו חמדת כל הגוים. This is a difficult place if understood of a person: but חמדת chemdath, desire, cannot well agree with באו bau, they shall come. It is true that some learned men suppose that חמדות chemdoth, desirable things, may have been the original reading: but this is supported by no MS., nor is באו found in the singular number in any. It is generally understood of the desirable or valuable things which the different nations should bring into the temple; and it is certain that many rich presents were brought into this temple. All are puzzled with it. But the principal difficulty lies in the verb ובאו ubau, they shall come. If we found ובאה חמדת ubaa chemdath in the singular, then it would read as in our text, And the Desire of all nations shall come: but no such reading appears in any MS.; nor is it fairly acknowledged, except by the Vulgate, which reads, Et veniet desideratus cunctis gentibus, "And that which is desired," or the desired Person, "shall come to all nations." In Haggai 2:7 God says he will shake or stir up all nations; that these nations shall bring their desirable things; that the house shall be filled with God's glory; that the silver and gold, which these nations are represented as bringing by way of gifts, are the Lord's; and that the glory of this latter house shall exceed the former. Bp. Chandler labours to vindicate the present translation; but he makes rash assertions, and is abandoned by the Hebrew text. The בא ba, to come, is often used in the sense of bring, and that חמדת chemdath, desire, may be considered as the plural for חמדות, having the point holem instead of the ו vau, and thus mean desirable things, will not be denied by those who are acquainted with the genius and construction of the Hebrew language. Bp. Chandler thinks that בא, he came, cannot be used of things, but of persons only. Here he is widely mistaken, for it is used of days perpetually; and of the ark, 2 Samuel 6:9; and of mounts coming against Jerusalem, Jeremiah 32:24; and of trees coming to adorn the temple, Isaiah 60:13; and of silver and gold coming into the temple, Joshua 6:19; and Jeremiah 6:20, Why doth incense come to me? See Abp. Secker's notes. I cannot see how the words can apply to Jesus Christ, even if the construction were less embarrassed than it is; because I cannot see how he could be called THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS [AS I'VE SAID JESUS WAS NEVER THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS; THEY WERE NOT LOOKING FOR HIM TO COME. BACK THEN AS TODAY, MOST NATIONS DO NOT DESIRE HIM IN ANY LAW AND THEOLOGY OR SLAVATION OR ETERNITY WAY; CERTAINLY NOT FOLLOWING HIM BY LIVING AS HE LIVED AND LIVING BY EVERY WORD OF GOD AS JESUS TUAGHT WE SHOULD - MATTHEW 4: 4 - Keith Hunt] The whole seems to be a metaphorical description of the Church of Christ, and of his filling it with all the excellences of the Gentile world, when the fulness of the Gentiles shall be brought in.
END QUOTE
ADAM CLARKE GETS THE GOLD MEDAL FOR HIS DETAILED STUDY ON THE ABOVE TWO VERSES.
AND SO CLARKE GIVES THE CORRECT MEANING AS HE HAS DONE THE MOST RESEARCH ON THOSE TWO VERSES. THIS SECTION IS TO DO WITH THE TEMPLE BEING UNDER CONSTRUCTION, AND AS WE SHALL SEE BESIDES PHYSICAL GOLD AND SILVER, IT WAS ALSO TO BE THE TEMPLE [WITH GREAT MODIFICATIONS BY HEROD, MORE PHYSICAL GLORY IN ITS LATTER TIME THAN ITS FORMER TIME, JUST AS PROPHECIED BY HAGGAI]
WHEN JESUS CAME BORN OF A WOMAN, AND
GRACED THE TEMPLE WITH HIS PRESENCE, AND HIS TEACHINGS AS DID THE FIRST APOSTLES - Keith Hunt
And I will fill this house with glory - The glory then was not to be anything, which came from man, but directly from God. It was the received expression of God’s manifestation of Himself in the tabernacle Exodus 40:34-35. in Soloman’s temple, 1Ki 8:11; 2 Chronicles 5:14; 2 Chronicles 7:1-12, and of the ideal temple Ezekiel 43:5; Ezekiel 44:4. which Ezekiel saw, after the likeness of that of Solomon, that “the glory of the Lord filled the house.” When then of this second temple God uses the self-same words, that He will “fill it with glory,” with what other glory should He fill it than His own? In the history it is said, “the glory of the Lord filled the temple;” for there man relates what God did. Here it is God Himself who speaks; so He says not, “the glory of the Lord,” but, “I will fill the house with glory,” glory which was His to give, which came from Himself. To interpret that glory of anything material, is to do violence to language, to force on words of Scripture an unworthy sense, which they refuse to bear.
The gold upon the walls, even had the second temple been adorned like the first did not fill the temple of Solomon. However richly any building might be overlaid with gold, no one could say that it is filled with it. A building is filled with what it contains; a mint or treasure-house may be filled with gold: the temple of God was “filled,” we are told, with “the glory of the Lord.” His creatures bring Him such things as they can offer; they bring Isaiah 60:6 “gold and incense;” they Psalms 72:10 “bring presents” and “offer gifts;” they do it, moved by His Spirit, as acceptable to Him. God was never said to give these offerings to Himself.
Verse 8
The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine - These words, which have occasioned some to think, that God, in speaking of the glory with which He should fill the house, meant our material riches, suggest the contrary. For silver was no ornament of the temple of Solomon. Everything was overlaid with gold. In the tabernacle there were bowls of silver, in Soloman’s temple they and all were of gold 1Ki 7:50; 2 Chronicles 4:8. Silver, we are expressly told, “was nothing accounted of 1 Kings 10:21 in the days of Solomon: he 1 Kings 10:27. made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones - for abundance.” Rather, as God says by the Psalmist Psalms 50:10-12, “Every beast of the forest is Mine, so are the cattle upon a thousand hills: I know all the fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is Mine and the fullness thereof:” so here He tells them, that for the glory of His house He needed not gold or silver: for all the wealth of the world is His. They had no ground “to grieve then, that they could not equal the magnificence of Solomon who had abundance of gold and silver.” All was God’s. He would fill it with divine glory..........Christ, should come, [HIS FIRST COMING; GOD COMING TO EARTH AND GIVING GLORY TO THE TEMPLE BY HIS PRESENCE IN IT - Keith Hunt] and be a glory, to which all created glory is nothing.
God says really and truly, that the silver and gold is His, which in utmost bounty He created, and in His most just government administers, so that, without His will and dominion, neither can the bad have gold and silver for the punishment of avarice, nor the good for the use of mercy. Its abundance does not inflate the good, nor its want crush them: but the bad, when bestowed, it blinds: when taken away, it tortures.
It is as if He would say, "Think not the Temple inglorious, because, may be, it will have no portion of gold or silver, and their splendor. I need not such things. How should I? For Mine is the silver and Mine the gold, saith the Lord Almighty. I seek rather true worshipers: with their brightness will I guild this Temple. Let him come who hath right faith, is adorned by graces, gleams with love for Me, is pure in heart, poor in spirit, compassionate and good.” These make the Temple glorious and renowned….. being glorified by Christ. [WHO CAME TO THAT TEMPLE - Keith Hunt]. For they have learned to pray, Psalms 90:17. “The glory of the Lord our God be upon us.”
Verse 9
The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former - or, perhaps, more probably, “the later glory of this house shall be greater than the former;” for he had already spoken of the present temple, as identical with that before the captivity.
“Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory, and how do you see it now?” He had spoken of its “first glory.” Now he says, in contrast, its later glory should be greater than that of its most glorious times. In this case the question, whether the temple of before was a different material building from that of Zerubbabel, falls away.
In either case, the contrast is between two things, either the temple in that its former estate, and this its latter estate after the captivity, or the two temples of Solomon and Zerubbabel. There is no room for a third temple. God holds out no vain hopes. To comfort those distressed by the poverty of the house of God which they were building, God promises a glory to this house greater than before. A temple, erected, after this had lain waste above 1800 years, even if Antichrist were to come now and to erect a temple at Jerusalem, could be no fulfillment of this prophecy. [THERE WILL BE NO THIRD TEMPLE. THE END PROPHECIES NEED NO PHYSICAL TEMPLE OR ANIMAL SACRIFICES; THAT FALSE TEACHING FROM THE FUNDAMENTAL PROTESTANTS, COMES FROM THE IDEA MADE FAMOUS IN SCOFIELD'S BIBLE AND NOTES, PUBLISHED AROUND 1910. HE PUTS THE 70TH WEEK OF DANIEL 9 AT THE END OF THIS AGE; TOTALLY INCORRECT, WHICH HAS LED TO THE FUNDAMENTAL PROTESTANTS AND THEIR WRONG AND WILD IDEAS OF THE LAST 7 YEARS OF THIS AGE - Keith Hunt]
In material magnificence the temple of Solomon, built and adorned with all the treasures accumulated by David and enlarged by Solomon, far surpassed all which Herod, amid his attempts to give a material meaning to the prophecy, could do. His attempt shows how the eyes of the Jews were fixed on this prophecy, then when it was about to be fulfilled. While taking pains, through the gradualness of his rebuilding, to preserve the identity of the fabric, he lavished his wealth, to draw off their thoughts from the king, whom the Jews looked for, to himself. The friendship of the Romans who were lords of all, was to replace the “all nations,”[WE HAVE SEEN WHAT ADAM CLARKE EXPLAINED ON "ALL NATIONS" - Keith Hunt] of whom Haggai spoke; he pointed also to the length of peace, the possession of wealth, the greatness of revenues, the surpassing expenditure beyond those before. A small section of Erastians admitted these claims of the murderer of his sons.
The Jews generally were not diverted from looking on to Him who should come. Those five things, the absence whereof they felt, were connected with their atoning worhip or God’s presence among them; “the ark with the mercy-seat and the cherubim, the Urim and Tummin, the fire from heaven, the Shechinah, the Holy Spirit.” Material magnificence could not replace spiritual glory. The explanations of the great Jewish authorities, that the second temple was superior to the first in structure (which was untrue) or in duration, were laid aside by Jews who had any other solution wherewith to satisfy themselves. “The Shechinah and the five precious things,” says one, “which, according to our wise of blessed memory, were in it, and not in the second house, raised and exalted it beyond compare.” Another says, “When Haggai saith, ‘greater shall be the glory of this later house than the first,’ how is it; that the house which Zerubbabel built through the income which the king of Persia gave them was more glorious than the house which Solomon built? And though it is said that the building which Herod made, was exceeding beautiful and rich, we should not think that it was in its beauty like to the house which Solomon built. For what the wise of blessed memory have said of the beauty of the house of Herod is in relation to the house which Zerubbabel built. How much more, since Scripture saith not, ‘Great shall be the beauty or the wealth of this latter house above the first,’ but the glory: and the glory is not the wealth or the beauty, or the largeness of the dimensions of the building, as they said in their interpretations, for the ‘glory’ is in truth spoken of the glory of God, which filled the tabernacle, after it was set up, and of the glory of God which filled the house of God, which Solomon built, when he brought the ark into the holy of holies, which is the Divine cloud and the Light supreme, which came down thither in the eyes of all the people, and it is said, ‘And it was when the priests came out of the Holy place, the cloud filled the house of God, and the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of God filled the house of God.’ And this glory was not in the second house.
And how shall it be said, if so, "great shall be the glory of this later house above the first?" The poor unconverted Jew did not know the answer to his question: “Through the presence of God, in the substance of our flesh; through the son given to us, Whose name should be Mighty God.” The glory of this temple was in Him "Who (John 1:14) was made Flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." “There Christ, the Son of God, was, as a Child, offered to God: there He sat in the midst of the Doctors; there He taught and revealed things, hidden from the foundation of the world. The glory of the temple of Solomon was, that in it the majesty of God appeared, veiling itself in a cloud: in this, that same Majesty showed itself, in very deed united with the Flesh, visible to sight: so that Jesus Himself said, John 14:9. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” [THE GLORY WAS THE MESSIAH GOD IN THE TEMPLE AS BARNES HAS JUST RELATED - WHAT COULD BE MORE GLORIOUS THAN GOD, NOT IN A CLOUD IN THE TEMPLE, BUT LITERALLY GOD IN THE FLESH IN THE TEMPLE - Keith Hunt]
This it was which Malachi sang with joy Malachi 3:1, “The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in.” [THIS IS A PROPHECY OF THE SECOND COMING OF THE MESSIAH. HE WILL COME TO HIS TEMPLE, THE CHURCH OF GOD, THE PHRASE "THE TEMPLE" IN THE NEW TESTAMENT IS 98% SPOKEN AS THE PEOPLE OF GOD. WHO DELIGHT IN HIM AND HIS NEW COVENANT, AND PROMISES OF WHAT THE NEW AGE WILL BE LIKE - Keith Hunt]
And in this place I will give peace - Temporal peace they had now, nor was there any prospect of its being disturbed. They were quiet subjects of the Persiam empire, which included also all their former enemies, greater or less. Alexander subdued all the bordering countries which did not yield, but spared themselves. Temporal peace then was nothing, to be then given them, for they had it. In later times they had it not. The temple itself was profaned by Antiochus Epiphanes (1 Macc. 1:39, 40). “Her sanctuary was laid waste like a wilderness. As had been her glory, so was her dishonor increased.” Again by Pompey (Josephus, Ant. xiv. 4. 4. B. J. i. 7.) by Crassus (Josephus, Ant. xiv. 7. 1. B. J. i. 9. 8), the Parthians (Josephus, Ant. xiv. 13. 3. 4.) before it was destroyed by Titus and the Romans [70 A.D.] Jews saw this and, knowing nothing of the peace in Jesus, argued from the absence of outward peace, that the prophecy was not fulfilled under the second temple. “What Scripture says, ‘and in this place I will give peace,’ is opposed to their interpretation. For all the days of the duration of the second house were “in strait of times and not in peace,” as was written in Daniel, “and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again and the fosse, and in strait of time,” and, as I said, in the time of Herod there was no peace whatever, for the sword did not depart from his house to the day of his death; and after his death the hatred among the Jews increased, and the Gentiles straitened them, until they were destroyed from the face of the earth.”
But spiritual peace is, throughout prophecy, part of the promise of the Gospel. Christ Himself was to be Isaiah 9:6-7 “the Prince of peace: of the increase of His government and of His peace there was to be no end;” in His days Psalms 72:3, Psalms 72:7 “the mountains were to bring peace to the people; there should be abundance of peace, so long as the moon endureth; the work of righteousness was to be peace Isaiah 32:17, "the chastisement of our peace (that which obtained it) was upon Him." Isaiah 53:5, “great should be the peace of her children” Isaiah 54:13, in the Gospel God would give peace, true peace, to the “far off and the near” Isaiah 57:19. He would extend Isaiah 66:12 “peace to her like a river:” the good things of the Gospel was “the publishing of peace” Isaiah 52:7. The Gospel is described as Ezra 34:25, “a covenant of peace:” the promised king Zechariah 9:10 “shall speak peace to the Pagan;” He himself should be “our peace” Micah 5:5. And when He was born, the angels proclaimed Luke 2:14 “on earth peace, goodwill toward men” Luke 1:79. “The Dayspring from on high visited us, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” He Himself says John 14:27, “My peace I leave with you.” He spake, that John 16:33 “in Me ye might have peace.” Peter sums up "the word which God sent unto the children of Israel, (as Acts 10:36) preaching peace" by Jesus Christ Romans 14:17. The kingdom of God is joy and peace Ephesians 2:14-15, Ephesians 2:17; "Christ is our peace; made peace; preaches peace. God calleth us to peace" 1 Corinthians 7:15 in the Gospel Romans 5:1, "being justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord" Galatians 5:22,"the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace." Spiritual peace being thus prominent in the Gospel and in prophecy, as the gift of God, it were unnatural to explain the peace which God promised here to give, as other than He promised elsewhere; peace in Him who is “our peace, Jesus Christ.”
Peace and tranquility of mind is above all glory of the house; because peace passeth all understanding. This is peace above peace, which shall be given after the third shaking of heaven sea earth, dry land, when He shall destroy all powers anti principalities (in the day of judgment). - And so shall there be peace throughout, that, no bodily passions or hindrances of unbelieving mind resisting, Christ shall be all in all, exhibiting the hearts of all subdued to the Father. [FULL PEACE FOR THE AGE TO COME, AS ALL PROPHECY FOR THAT AGE PROCLAIMS - Keith Hunt]
Ask now the priests concerning the law - The priests answer rightly, that, by the law, insulated-unholiness spread further than insulated holiness. The flesh of the sacrifice hallowed whatever it should touch, but not further; but the human being, who was defiled by touching a dead body, defiled all he might touch Numbers 19:22. Haggai does not apply the first part; namely, that the worship on the altar which they reared, while they neglected the building of the temple, did not hallow. The possession of a truly tiring does not counterbalance disobedience. Contrariwise, one defilement defiled the whole man and all which he touched, according to that James 2:10, “whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”
In the application, the two melt into one, for the holy thing, namely, the altar which they raised out of fear on their return, so far from hallowing the land or people by the sacrifices offered thereon, was itself defiled. “This people” and “this nation” (not “My people”) since they in act disowned Him. “Whatever they offer there,” i. e., on that altar, instead of the temple which God commanded, is unclean, offending Him who gave all.
And now, I pray you - Observe his tenderness, in drawing their attention to it , “Consider from this day and upward.” He bids them look backward, “from before a stone was laid upon a stone,” i. e., from the last moment of their neglect in building the house of God; “from since those days were,” or from the time backward “when those things were,” (resuming, in the word, “from-their-being”, the date which he had just given, namely, the beginning of their resuming the building backward, during all those years of neglect) “one came to a heap of twenty measures.” The precise measure is not mentioned: the force of the appeal lay in the proportion: the heap of grain which, usually, would yield twenty, (whether bushels or seahs or any other measure, for the heap itself being of no defined size, neither could the quantity expected from it be defined) there were ten only; “one came to the pressvat to draw out fifty” vessels out of the press, or perhaps fifty poorah, i. e., the ordinary quantity drawn out at one time from the press, there were, or it had become twenty, two-fifths only of what they looked for and ordinarily obtained. The dried grapes yielded so little.
I smote you with blasting and mildew, - two diseases of grain, which Moses had foretold Deuteronomy 28:27. as chastisements on disobedience and God’s infliction, of which Amos had spoken in these self-same words. Amos 4:9. Haggai adds the hail, as destructive of the vines. Psalms 78:47. Yet (And) ye turned you not to Me literally “there were none” - your, (accusative i. e., who turned you unto Me). The words are elliptical, but express the entire absence of conversion, of any who turned to God.
From the day that the foundation of the Lord’s house - Zechariah, in a passage corresponding to this, uses the same words Zechariah 8:9, “the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built,” not of the first foundation, but of the work as resumed in obedience to the words by “the mouth of the prophets,” Haggai and himself, which, Ezra also says, was Ezra 4:24; Ezra 5:1. “in the second year of Darius.” But that work was resumed, not now at the time of this prophecy, but three months before, on the 24th of the sixth month. Since then the word translated here, from, is in no case used of the present time, Haggai gives two dates, the resumption of the work, as marked in these words, and the, actual present. He would then say, that even in these last months, since they had begun the work, there were as yet no signs for the better. There was yet no “seed in the barn,” the harvest having been blighted and the fruit-trees stripped by the hail before the close of the sixth month, when they resumed the work. Yet though there were as yet no signs of change, no earnest that the promise should be fulfilled, God pledges His word, “from this day I will bless you.”
Thenceforth, from their obedience, God would give them those fruits of the earth, which in His Providence had been, during their negligence, withheld. “God,” said Paul and Barnabas, Acts 14:17. “left not Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”
All the Old and New Testament, the Law, the prophets and the Psalms, the Apostles and our Lord Himself, bear witness to the Providence of God who makes His natural laws serve to the moral discipline of His creature, man. The physical theory, which presupposes that God so fixed the laws of His creation, as to leave no room for Himself to vary them, would, if ever so true, only come to this, that Almighty God knowing absolutely (as He must know) the actions of His creatures (in what way soever this is reconcilable with our free-agency, of which we are conscious), framed the laws of His physical creation, so that plenty or famine, healthiness of our cattle or of the fruits of the earth or their sickness, should coincide with the good or evil conduct of man, with his prayers or his neglect of prayer. The reward or chastisement alike come to man, whether they be the result of God’s will, acting apart from any system which He has created, or in it and through it.
It is alike His Providential agency, whether He have established any such system with all its minute variations, or whether these variations are the immediate result of His sovereign will. If He has instituted any physical system, so that the rain, hail, and its proportions, size, destructiveness, should come in a regulated irregularity, as fixed in all eternity as the revolutions of the heavenly bodies or the courses of the comets, then we come only to a more intricate perfection of His creation, that in all eternity He framed those laws in an exact conformity to the perfectly foreseen actions of men good and evil, and to their prayers also: that He, knowing certainly whether the creature, which He has framed to have its bliss in depending on Him, would or would not cry unto Him, framed those physical laws in conformity therewith; so that the supply of what is necessary for our wants or its withholding shall be in all time inworked into the system of our probation. Only, not to keep God out of His own world, we must remember that other truth, that, whether God act in any such system or no, He Hebrews 1:3. “upholdeth all things by the word of His power” by an everpresent working; so that it is He who at each moment doth what is done, doth and maintains in existence all which He has created in the exact order and variations of their being. Psalms 148:8. “Fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind fulfilling His word,” are as immediate results of His Divine Agency, in whatever way it pleaseth Him to act, and are the expression of His will.
I will shake - Haggai closes by resuming the words of a former prophecy to Zerubbabel and Joshua, which ended in the coming of Christ. Even thus it is plain, that the prophecy does not belong personally to Zerubbabel, but to him and his descendants, chiefly to Christ. There was in Zerubbabel’s time no shaking of the heaven or of nations. Darius had indeed to put down an unusual number of rebellions in the first few years after his accession; but, although he magnified himself on occasion of their suppression, they were only so many distinct and unconcerted revolts, each under its own head. All were far away in the distant East, in Babylonia, Susiana, Media, Armenia, Assyria, Hyrcania, Parthia, Sagartia, Margiana, Arachosia. The Persian empire, spread “probably over 2,000,000 square miles, or more than half of modern Europe,” was not threatened; no foreign enemy assailed it; one impostor only claimed the throne of Darius. This would, if successful, have been, like his own accession, a change of dynasty, affecting nothing externally.
But neither were lasting, some were very trifling. Two decisive battles subdued Babylonia: of Media the brief summary is given “the Medes revolted from Darius, and having revolted were brought back into subjection, defeated in battle.” The Susianians killed their own pretender, on the approach of the troops of Darius. We have indeed mostly the account only of the victor. But these are only self-glorying records of victories, accomplished in succession, within a few years. Sometimes the satrap of the province put the revolt down at once. At most two battles ended in the crucifixion of the rebel. The Jews, if they heard of them, knew them to be of no account. For the destroyer of the Persian empire was to come from the West Daniel 8:5, the fourth sovereign was to stir up all against the realm of Grecia Daniel 11:2, and Darius was but the third. In the same second year of Darius, in which Haggai gave this prophecy, the whole earth was exhibited to Zechariah as Zechariah 1:11, “sitting still and at rest.”
The overthrow prophesied is also universal. It is not one throne only, as of Persia, but “the throne,” i. e., the sovereigns, “of kingdoms;” not a change of dynasty, but a destruction of their “strength;” not of a few powers only, but “the kingdoms of the pagan;” and that, in detail; that, in which their chief strength lay, the chariots and horsemen and their riders, and this, man by man, “every one by the sword of his brother.” This mutual destruction is a feature of the judgments at the end of the world against Gog and Magog Ezekiel 38:21; and of the yet unfulfilled prophecies of Zechariah Zechariah 14:17. Its stretching out so far does not hinder its partial fulfillment in earlier times. Zerubbabel stood, at the return from the captivity, as the representative of the house of David and heir of the promises to him, though in an inferior temporal condition; thereby the rather showing that the main import of the prophecy was not temporal. As then Ezekiel prophesied, Ezekiel 34:23. “I will set up One Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, My servant David” Ezekiel 37:24-25; “And David My servant shall be king over them; and My servant David shall be their prince forever;” and Jeremiah Jeremiah 30:9. “They shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them; and Hosea, that Hosea 3:5. after many days shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king,” meaning by David, the great descendant of David, in whom the promises centered, so in his degree, the promise to Zerubbabel reaches on through his descendants to Christ; that, amid all the overthrow of empires, God would protect His sons’ sons until Christ should come, the King of kings and Lord of lords, whose Daniel 2:44. “kingdom shall never be destroyed, but it shall break in pieces and consume all those kingdoms, and shall stand fast forever.” [THE DAVID HERE IS KING DAVID; NO NEED TO PUT IT AS JESUS; JESUS IS HEAD OF ALL IN THE AGE TO COME; THE APOSTLES ARE TO RULE ONE TRIBE OF ISRAEL EACH, AS JESUS PROMISED THEM IN THE GOSPELS. KING DAVID WILL BE RESURRECTED AND RULE OVER THE 12 TRIBES UNDER CHRIST JESUS - Keith Hunt]
I will make thee 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 thee thence; and I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy 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 thy heart, as a seal upon thy 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, i. e., Christ, the son and antitype of Zerubbabel, is the signet in the hand of the Father, both passively and actively, whereby 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, i. e., 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,
i. e., those which He promulgated and taught in the Gospel.
“No one,” John saith John 1:18, “hath seen God at any time: the Only-Begotten Son Who is the Image the Father, He hath declared Him.” [A SIMPLE VERSE BUT MOST OF CHRISTENDOM DO NOT BELIEVE IT; JUST AS THEY DO NOT BELEIVE JESUS WHEN HE SAID "NO MAN HAS ASCENDED TO HEAVEN BUT THE SON OF MAN"—- JOHN 3: 13 - Keith Hunt] 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, i. e., 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 mnay 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 guardeth us against the temptations of the flesh, the world and the devil, and makes us followers, soldiers, and martyrs of Christ crucified. Whence 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 aforetime been governor of Judah, and afterward he did not rise to any higher dignity than what he was up to that day: and in like 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 thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit it,” and beyond doubt this covenant was confirmed of 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 thy 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 saith he, ‘In that day I will take thee?’ 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 thee as a signet, for thee have I chosen?’ For the signet is as the seal-ring which a man putteth on his hand, it departeth not 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, will God take His vengeance of these nations ‘which have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling place;’ and so he says ‘I will overthrow the thrones, etc.,’ and He sheweth 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; and God saw good to shew 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 thou shalt not reign in the time of the second temple, nor any of thy seed, but in that day when God shall overthrow the throne of the kingdoms of the nations, when He gathereth His people Israel and redeemeth them, then shalt thou reign over My people, for of thy seed shall he be who ruleth from Israel at that time forever, and therefore he saith, ‘I will take thee, O Zerubabbel etc.,’ for because the Messiah was to be of his seed he saith, 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…… [THE PROPHECY IN EZEKIEL 37 IS THE LITERAL KING DAVID RESURRECTED, RULING OVER THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL, UNDER THE MESSIAH. IT IS A PROPHECY FOR WHEN JESUS SHALL RETURN - Keith Hunt]
For I have chosen thee - God’s forecoming love is the ground of all the acceptableness 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 boastfulhess 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...... So God says of Him Isaiah 42:1, “Behold My Servant whom I uphold, Mine elect in whom My soul delighteth;” and God bare witness to Him Matthew 3:17; Matthew 17:5, “This is My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” [YES ZERUBBABEL YOU COULD SAY WAS THE TYPE OF THE MESSIAH, THAT WOULD COME TO GIVE GLORY TO THE TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM. HEROD MADE THE TEMPLE PHYSICALLY GLORIOUS, AND GOD IN THE FORM OF MAN, THE CHRIST, MADE IT COMPLETELY FULL OF GLORY WHEN HE WAS IN IT, TEACHING THE TRUTHS OF GOD THE FATHER - JESUS AS GOD IN THE FLESH SURELY GAVE A PHYSICAL TEMPLE AS GLORIOUS AS GLORY COULD BE Keith Hunt]
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WE SHOULD NOW BE ABLE TO SEE THIS PROPHECY HAS TO DO WITH THE SECOND TEMPLE; AND ITS ULTIMATE GLORY, BOTH PHYSICALLY AND SPIRITUALLY.
THE BOOK OF HAGGAI HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH A TEMPLE BEING BUILT BY THE JEWS, WHO WILL PERFORM ANIMAL SACRIFICES THEREIN, AT THE END OF THIS AGE, JUST YEARS BEFORE JESUS WILL RETURN.
IT IS THE PROPHECY OF THE FINAL GLORY OF THIS REBUILT TEMPLE; AND THE GLORY OF GOD [CHRIST] WHO WOULD TEACH IN IT. ZERRUBBABEL WAS A TYPE OF THE CHRIST, THE MESSIAH THAT WOULD COME TO THIS TEMPLE.
IT WAS LOOKING BEYOND THEIR PRESENT, INTO A TIME OF GLORY, WHEN THE MESSIAH WOULD COME AS GOD IN THE FLESH, AND FILL THE PHYSICAL TEMPLE WITH HIS PRESENCE.
THIS BOOK OF HAGGAI HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH END TIME JEWS BUILDING A TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM, ANIMAL SACRIFICES, AND THE ANTI-CHRIST DESACRATING THE TEMPLE.
ALL OF THAT FUNDAMENTAL PROTESTANT TEACHING FOR THE END YEARS LEADING TO JESUS' RETURN, I HAVE ANSWERED IN MANY STUDIES, ON MY WEBSITE, MY BLOG, AND MY YOUTUBE [KEITH MALCOLM HUNT].
Keith Hunt
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