BRAVE ENCOURAGEMENTS

’In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month, came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai, saying, 2.  Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, 3.  Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? 4.  Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work:  for I am with you, saith the Lord of Hosts:  5.  According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remaineth among you:  fear ye not. 6.  For thus saith the Lord of Hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; 7.  And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts. 8.  The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts. 9.  The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts:  and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of Hosts.’—­HAGGAI ii. 1-9.

The second year of Darius, in which Haggai prophesied, was 520 B.C.  Political intrigues had stopped the rebuilding of the Temple, and the enthusiasm of the first return had died away in the face of prolonged difficulties.  The two brave leaders, Zerubbabel and Joshua, still survived, and kept alive their own zeal; but the mass of the people were more concerned about their comforts than about the restoration of the house of Jehovah.  They had built for themselves ‘ceiled houses,’ and were engrossed with their farms.

The Book of Ezra dwells on the external hindrances to the rebuilding.  Haggai goes straight at the selfishness and worldliness of the people as the great hindrance.  We know nothing about him beyond the fact that he was a prophet working in conjunction with Zechariah.  He has been thought to have been one of the original company who came back with Zerubbabel, and it has been suggested, though without any certainty, that he may have been one of the old men who remembered the former house.  But these conjectures are profitless, and all that we know is that God sent him to rouse the slackened earnestness of the people, and that his words exercised a powerful influence in setting forward the work of rebuilding.  This passage is the second of his four short prophecies.  We may call it a vision of the glory of the future house of Jehovah.