41 lines
7.3 KiB
HTML
41 lines
7.3 KiB
HTML
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<title>Blue Letter Bible: Text Commentaries</title>
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PriorBook = 'Zephaniah';
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PriorBookURL = './Comm/jfb/Zep/Zep000.html';
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PriorChapter = 'Zephaniah 3';
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NextChapter = 'Haggai 1';
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Title = 'The Book of Haggai';
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SubTitle1 = 'Commentary by A. R. FAUSSET';
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SubTitle3 = 'INTRODUCTION';
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authorCite = 'Robert Jamieson; A.R. Fausset; and David Brown';
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<p align="center">Commentary by A. R. FAUSSET<br>INTRODUCTION
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<p style="font-size: 85%; text-align: center">(See "<a href="./Comm/jfb/intro_prophetical_restoration.html" target="_blank">Introduction to Prophets of the Restoration</a>")
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<p id="Introduction">The name <i>Haggai</i> 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, <a onclick="return mV('Isa',44,28);">Isa 44:28</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Isa',45,1);">45:1</a>) granted them their liberty, and furnished them with the necessaries for restoring the temple (<a onclick="return mV('2Ch',36,23);">2Ch 36:23</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Ezr',1,1);">Ezr 1:1</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Ezr',2,2);">2:2</a>). The work of rebuilding went on under Cyrus and his successor Cambyses (called Ahasuerus in <a onclick="return mV('Ezr',4,6);">Ezr 4:6</a>) 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 <a onclick="return mV('Ezr',4,'7-23');">Ezr 4:7-23</a>), 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 <i>the seventy years</i> applied to the temple as well as to the captivity in Babylon (<a onclick="return mV('Hag',1,2);">Hag 1:2</a>), 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 (<a onclick="return mV('Hag',1,1);">Hag 1:1</a>) 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.
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<p>The dates of his four distinct prophecies are accurately given: (1) The first (<a onclick="return mV('Hag',1,'1-15');">Hag 1:1-15</a>), 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 (<a onclick="return mV('Hag',1,'12-15');">Hag 1:12-15</a>). (2) The second, on the twenty-first day of the seventh month (<a onclick="return mV('Hag',2,'1-9');">Hag 2:1-9</a>), 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 (<a onclick="return mV('Ezr',3,12,13);">Ezr 3:12-13</a>). 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" (<a onclick="return mV('Hag',2,7);">Hag 2:7</a>). (3) The third, on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month (<a onclick="return mV('Hag',2,'10-19');">Hag 2:10-19</a>), 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 (<a onclick="return mV('Hag',2,'20-23');">Hag 2:20-23</a>), 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 (<a onclick="return mV('Hag',2,7);">Hag 2:7</a>).
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<p>The prophecies are all so brief as to suggest the supposition that they are only a summary of the original discourses. The space occupied is but three months from the first to the last.
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<p>The Jews' adversaries, on the resumption of the work under Zerubbabel, Haggai, and Zechariah, tried to set Darius against it; but that monarch confirmed Cyrus' decree and ordered all help to be given to the building of the temple (<a onclick="return mV('Ezr',5,3);">Ezr 5:3</a>, etc. <a onclick="return mV('Ezr',6,1);">Ezr 6:1</a>, etc.). So the temple was completed in the sixth year of Darius' reign 516-515 B.C. (<a onclick="return mV('Ezr',6,14);">Ezr 6:14</a>).
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<p>The style of Haggai is consonant with his messages: pathetic in exhortation, vehement in reproofs, elevated in contemplating the glorious future. The repetition of the same phrases (for example, "saith the Lord," or "the Lord of hosts," <a onclick="return mV('Hag',1,2,5,7);">Hag 1:2, 5, 7</a>; and thrice in one verse, <a onclick="return mV('Hag',2,4);">Hag 2:4</a>; so "the spirit," thrice in one verse, <a onclick="return mV('Hag',1,14);">Hag 1:14</a>) gives a simple earnestness to his style, calculated to awaken the solemn attention of the people, and to awaken them from their apathy, to which also the interrogatory form, often adopted, especially tends. Chaldaisms occur (<a onclick="return mV('Hag',2,3,6,16);">Hag 2:3, 6, 16</a>), as might have been expected in a writer who was so long in Chaldea. Parts are purely prose history; the rest is somewhat rhythmical, and observant of poetic parallelism.
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<p>Haggai is referred to in <a onclick="return mV('Ezr',5,1);">Ezr 5:1</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Ezr',6,14);">6:14</a>; and in the New Testament (<a onclick="return mV('Hbr',12,26);">Hbr 12:26</a>; compare <a onclick="return mV('Hag',2,6,7,22);">Hag 2:6-7, 22</a>).
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