THE name Haggai means "my feast"; given, according to COCCEIUS, in anticipation of the joyous return from exile. He probably was one of the Jewish exiles (of the tribes Judah, Benjamin, and Levi) who returned under Zerubbabel, the civil head of the people, and Joshua, the high priest, 536 B.C., when Cyrus (actuated by the striking prophecies as to himself, Isa 44:28 45:1) granted them their liberty, and furnished them with the necessaries for restoring the temple (2Ch 36:23 Ezr 1:1 2:2). The work of rebuilding went on under Cyrus and his successor Cambyses (called Ahasuerus in Ezr 4:6) in spite of opposition from the Samaritans, who, when their offers of help were declined, began to try to hinder it. These at last obtained an interdict from the usurper Smerdis the Magian (called Artaxerxes in Ezr 4:7-23), whose suspicions were easy to rouse. The Jews thereupon became so indifferent to the work that when Darius came to the throne (521 B.C.), virtually setting aside the prohibitions of the usurper, instead of recommencing their labors, they pretended that as the prophecy of the seventy years applied to the temple as well as to the captivity in Babylon (Hag 1:2), they were only in the sixty-eighth year of it [HENDERSON]; so that, the proper time not having yet arrived, they might devote themselves to building splendid mansions for themselves. Haggai and Zechariah were commissioned by Jehovah (Hag 1:1) in the second year of Darius (Hystaspes), 520 B.C., sixteen years after the return under Zerubbabel, to rouse them from their selfishness to resume the work which for fourteen years had been suspended. Haggai preceded Zechariah in the work by two months.

The Written Prophecy of Haggai

By H. A. (Buster) Dobbs

I.  Introduction.
    A.  The man.
        1.  Little is known of Haggai.
        2.  He returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel.
    B.  The background.
        1.  The captivity.
            a.  Warnings were ignored.
            b.  Punishment came in the form of invasion and destruction.
            c.  After years of suffering in a foreign land, the people were 
                allowed to return.
        2.  God stirred up Cyrus to allow the Jewish people to return to 
            their homeland (2 Chron. 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-8).
        3.  Many Jews assisted those of their number who elected to go 
            back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the temple, but only 
            a few (42,360 plus 7,337 servants) returned (Ezra 2:64-65).
            a.  The Samaritans offered to join in the work of rebuilding 
                (Ezra 4:2).
            b.  The Jews said no because the Samaritans were 
                compromised by corrupt teaching and worship (4:3).
            c.  The Samaritans then stopped the rebuilding by appealing 
                to king Artaxerxes (Ezra 4:4-24).
        4.  It was during this time of struggling to rebuild the altar, the 
            temple and the city, that the prophet Haggai prophesied.
II.  The book.
     A.  Haggai's first sermon (1:1-15).
         1.  The people are rebuked for allowing the house of Jehovah 
             to lie in waste while they saw to their own needs (1:1-6).
             a.  The people said it is not time to build God's house (1:2).
             b.  The prophet implies that the people would never be happy 
                 nor prosper unless they put God first (1:4-6).
         2.  The people urged to consider their ways and get busy 
             building God's house (1:7-11).
             a.  They neglected God and his temple.
             b.  God neglected them and sent disaster.
         3.  People responded by going back to work (1:12-15).
             a.  God stirred up the spirit of leaders and people to take up 
                 the task of rebuilding (1:14-15).
             b.  God stirred them up through the preaching of Haggai 
                 (1:12-13).
     B.  Haggai's second sermon (2:1-9).
         1.  The disappointment upon seeing the foundation of the 
             second temple (2:1-3).
         2.  God will shake the earth (2:4-7).
         3.  The shaking will result in filling the second temple with a 
              greater glory than the glory of  Solomon's temple (2:7-9).
         4.  The greater glory of the second temple would be that from it, 
             God will give peace (2:9).
     C.  Haggai's third sermon (2:10-17).
         1.  The word of God came to Haggai (2:10).
         2.  Touching something that has been offered to God (holy or 
             consecrated flesh) will not make the thing touched holy 
             (2:12).
         3.  If an unclean things touches a clean thing, the clean thing is 
             defiled, or made unclean (2:13).
         4.  The nation of Israel was corrupted and what they touched 
             was defiled (2:14-19).
             a.  Living in the promised land did not make the people pure.
             b.  Failure to build the temple and offer sacrifices upon the 
                 altar corrupted the nation.
             c.  Therefore, take up the work of rebuilding.
     D.  Haggai's fourth sermon (2:20-23).
         1.  Additional revolutions about to occur (2:20-22).
             a.  This was a time of peace throughout the world. The 
                 Medes and Persian were in control and had no serious 
                 enemies.
             b.  Another power was about to be released -- the Greek 
                 Empire -- and it would shake the world.
         2.  Israel will be preserved and the coming wars will not 
             overthrow the nation (2:23).
             a.  The purpose of this information was to encourage the 
                 rebuilding of altar, temple, wall and city.
             b.  Alexander the Great, in his expansion of power, did not 
                 destroy Jerusalem or the Jews. He was, to the contrary, a 
                 friend to Israel.

Haggai - festive, one of the twelve so-called minor prophets. He was the first of the three (Zechariah, his contemporary, and Malachi, who was about one hundred years later, being the other two) whose ministry belonged to the period of Jewish history which began after the return from captivity in Babylon. Scarcely anything is known of his personal history. He may have been one of the captives taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. He began his ministry about sixteen years after the Return. The work of rebuilding the temple had been put a stop to through the intrigues of the Samaritans. After having been suspended for fifteen years, the work was resumed through the efforts of Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 6:14), who by their exhortations roused the people from their lethargy, and induced them to take advantage of the favourable opportunity that had arisen in a change in the policy of the Persian government. Haggai's prophecies have thus been characterized:, "There is a ponderous and simple dignity in the emphatic reiteration addressed alike to every class of the community, prince, priest, and people, 'Be strong, be strong, be strong' (2:4). 'Cleave, stick fast, to the work you have to do;' or again, 'Consider your ways, consider, consider, consider' (1:5, 7;2:15, 18). It is the Hebrew phrase for the endeavour, characteristic of the gifted seers of all times, to compel their hearers to turn the inside of their hearts outwards to their own view, to take the mask from off their consciences, to 'see life steadily, and to see it wholly.'", Stanley's Jewish Church.

The temple sat untouch for 15 years, until Haggai rose up and under God's hand motivated the people to start work again in only 23 days. The temple was completed only 5 years later.

The dates of his four distinct prophecies are accurately given: (1) The first (Hag 1:1-15), on the first day of the sixth month of the second year of Darius, 520 B.C., reproved the people for their apathy in allowing the temple to lie in ruins and reminded them of their ill success in everything because of their not honoring God as to His house. The result was that twenty-four days afterwards they commenced building under Zerubbabel (Hag 1:12-15). (2) The second, on the twenty-first day of the seventh month (Hag 2:1-9), predicts that the glory of the new temple would be greater than that of Solomon's, so that the people need not be discouraged by the inferiority in outward splendor of the new, as compared with the old temple, which had so moved to tears the elders who had remembered the old (Ezr 3:12,13). Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel had implied the same prediction, whence some had doubted whether they ought to proceed with a building so inferior to the former one; but Haggai shows wherein the superior glory was to consist, namely, in the presence of Him who is the "desire of all nations" (Hag 2:7). (3) The third, on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month (Hag 2:10-19), refers to a period when building materials had been collected, and the workmen had begun to put them together, from which time forth God promises His blessing; it begins with removing their past error as to the efficacy of mere outward observances to cleanse from the taint of disobedience as to the temple building. (4) The fourth (Hag 2:20-23), on the same day as the preceding, was addressed to Zerubbabel, as the representative of the theocratic people, and as having asked as to the national revolutions spoken of in the second prophecy (Hag 2:7).