Tag Archive | Haggai

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 262

Sep19

Day 262 – Reading – Haggai 1 – 2

Read the Scriptures first. What catches your attention?  

Haggai 1.

(Remember back in Ezra, when the Samaritan adversaries had caused the rebuilding of the Temple to be stopped for many years? Ezra said God sent two prophets to encourage them.  We’ll study them today and over the weekend.  (“Now the prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. Then Zerubbabel and Jeshua the high priest arose and began to rebuild the house of God that is in Jerusalem, and the prophets of God were with them, supporting them.” Ezra 5:1-2)  Today we’ll read Haggai’s message.)

During the time when they were “forbidden” to work on the Temple, the people had begun building and remodeling their own houses, and planting crops and weaving material for new clothes.  But… the harvests were nothing, and the people were hungry and cold.  There was no money to furnish their homes.  WHY?

The prophet Haggai said why.  Because the Temple lay unfinished, with only the foundation built.  Now that Darius had given the green light, they were to “go up to the hills and bring wood and build the House, that I (God) may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified.”

Then Zerubbabel and Jeshua the high priest, with all the remnant of people feared the Lord and obeyed the voice of the LORD their God and the words of Haggai the prophet.

“I am with you,” declared the LORD.

And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God. 

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Haggai 2.

As the people worked on the rebuilding, they couldn’t help but see (or remember hearing of) the difference between what they were doing, and the great Temple that Solomon build. 

“Who of you saw this House in its former glory?” asked Haggai. “How do you see it now?  Is it not as nothing in your eyes?  But be strong O Zerubbabel and O Jeshua.  Be strong, all you people of the land, for the LORD says,

  • ‘Work, for I am with you. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.  I will shake the heavens and the earth, the see and dry land, and all the nations, so the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I WILL FILL THIS HOUSE WITH MY GLORY.  THE LATTER GLORY OF THIS HOUSE SHALL BE GREATER THAN THE FORMER.  AND IN THIS PLACE I WILL GIVE PEACE.'”

(NOTE: God, of course was referring to the glorious Millennial Kingdom and Temple.  The Jews viewed the Temple as one continual building, existing in different forms at different times.  Solomon’s until now. And then Herod’s great renovated one in Jesus’ time which would be again destroyed.  And then, perhaps a rebuilt one in time of Antichrist, but then … the final one in which God would dwell among them for 1,000 years.)

Haggai reminds the people how nothing went right for them when the neglected the rebuilding. But now, since they had begun, God promises to bless them.

 Then, Haggai was spoke God’s words to Zerubbabel the governor of Judah, about the future of the nations.  And “I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, and make you like a signet ring, for I HAVE CHOSEN YOU.”

Zerubbabel was in the royal line of King David.  He was also in the line of both Joseph (Jesus’s step father) and Mary (Jesus’s own flesh & blood mother). See Matthew 1:12-13 and Luke 3:27.

A signet ring was a symbol of honor, authority and power.  It responded to a king’s scepter.  Zerubbabel represents the Davidic dynasty and resumes the Messianic line disrupted by the exile.

(Zerubbabel was the grandson of King Jehoiachin, who gave himself up to Nebuchadnezzar in the second deportation, and years later was brought from prison and honored all the rest of his life by a later king of Babylon.)

(God is so faithful to accomplish all He promises. Hallelujah!  I can trust Him explicitly to do as He says. Thank YOU!!)

2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 262

Sep18

    Day 262—We are in the NINETH month of Bible reading, with more of Israel’s history and a look at HAGGAI’s prophecy.

    Day 262 – Haggai 1 – 2  (encouraging & scolding messages to the returned  Jews about rebuilding the temple)

Haggai should be read alongside the first part of Ezra.

Haggai 1.  The people cared for their own houses instead of starting/finishing the temple. In Haggai’s message to Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua (Jeshua in Ezra), they are to tell the people to “build the House of the LORD, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified.”  He tells them that THAT is the reason for all the setbacks. They are putting themselves ahead of their God.

When Zerubbabel, Joshua, and all the returned people set their hearts to obey the voice of the Lord, God’s message was, “I am with you.”  And they came and worked on the House of the LORD of hosts, their God, on the 24th day of the sixth month in the second year of Darius the king. (Scholars say that was August 24, 520 BC.)

Haggai 2.  Haggai then tells the governor and high priest to comfort the old-timers who remember Solomon’s temple compared to the one they are building. He says, “How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?  Yet now be strong, all you people of the land.  Work, for I am with you, according to the covenant I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.”

Then God tells them of a future time when he will shake the nations, and all the treasures of the nations shall come, and He will fill His house with glory.  “The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former.  And in this place, I will give peace.”

Then, the LORD and Haggai, the prophet, discuss holy and clean things versus unclean things. God reminds him (and the people) that HE, His glory, His temple, etc., should be first in their hearts. If not, their “unclean hands and heart” would make the temple they are building “unclean” also. But now that their hearts are set to finish the project, they will see the LORD blessing them.

Then Haggai is told to give Zerubbabel a special message from God about a future time. On that day (the day of the Messiah’s triumph), says the LORD of hosts, “I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant (a Messianic title), and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you.”

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(NOTE: Zerubbabel is the official representative of the Davidic dynasty and shows the resumption of the messianic line (from his grandfather, King Jehoiachin. See Jeremiah 22:24 with 1 Chronicles 3:17, 19), which was interrupted by the exile. Zerubbabel is in David’s kingly line, both from Joseph’s and Mary’s side. See Matt. 1:12, Luke 3:27, showing both the title and blood lines.)