Haggai

Haggai (Heb. Chaggay, “festal”) is the first of the three post-exilic prophets. His book gives the most precise dating of any prophetic work: four oracles delivered between the first day of the sixth month and the twenty-fourth of the ninth month in the second year of Darius the Persian — that is, between 29 August and 18 December 520 BC. Sixteen years earlier the returned exiles under Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, and Joshua, the high priest, had laid the foundation of the second temple (Ezr.3), but opposition from the surrounding peoples and a creeping discouragement had brought the work to a halt. Meanwhile the people had been busy panelling their own houses. Haggai’s first oracle confronts them sharply: “Consider your ways” (Hag.1.5,7). Within twenty-four days the work resumes. The remaining oracles encourage the builders that the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former (Hag.2.9), that the LORD will shake the nations, and that Zerubbabel is a signet ring chosen of the LORD (Hag.2.23), a Messianic note picked up by the New Testament (Mat.1.12). The temple was completed in 516 BC under his and Zechariah’s ministry (Ezr.6.14–15).