Haggai 1

 

Haggai 1:1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,

• Haggai from Hag = feast, or festival
• Zerubbabel = Hebrew = born in Babylon: because he was of the royal seed of Judah born (or seed sown) in Babylon
• Shealtiel = Hebrew asked for from God
• The son of Jeconiah (Jehoiachin), who was taken captive to Babylon (2Kings 24:15) (1Chron 3:17)
• Governor ruling Judea as a Persian province, with a Persian title pechah, from which we have the modern pasha = perfect, or satrap.
• Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest
• Joshua = The first high priest after the return
• Josedech Hebrew = God is righteous
• Son = put by = for grandson
• Disapprobation at neglect
• The word of God, In the second year
• The king. In Aramaic and later books these words follow the name.
• In the earlier O.T. books they nearly always precede it.
• King David, King Hezekiah
• Sixth month - our August - September
• The first day. Therefore the feast-day or Sabbath of the full moon.
• By = by the hand of
• The Hebrew idiom for God speaking "by the prophets".

2 Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built.

• This people's saying = but they had time to build their houses
• Cited by God
• Not Zerubbabel or Joshua

3 Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying,

• God's speaking to Haggai

4 Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?

• The people's saying = Reply of God
• This proves that the Temple had not then been commenced = but they were building their houses
• You, O ye = you, even you, or that ye yourselves.
• Ceiled = paneled.
• Used of the lining of an arched roof = Showing that their houses were not only roofed

5 Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.

• Call to consider = Consider = set your heart on; or give your attention to
• Your ways: the ways in which ye have been led, your experiences which are detailed in the next verse.

6 Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.

• Ye have sown and have not enough (Deut 28:38-39)  = are not satisfied (Lev 26:26)
• God is saying, consider your ways, you will work, but I will take it all from you = I will put holes in your pockets.
• God is saying = Put My Work First = study My Word  = teach My Word

7 Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.

• If God isn't happy, you're not going to be blessed
• You can't be doing the ways of the world, and when you need something, think you're going to ask God. Do you think He going to give it to you.
• You got to be doing things for God first

8 Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.

• Mountain = Mount Zion
• Take pleasure = he pleased
• I will be glorified = I will get My honour
• This is one in a list of twenty-nine words which are without the letter He (= H) at the end
• This letter = five (Ap. 10), and later Talmudists regard it as betokening the fact that five things were lacking in the second Temple.
• (1) the ark
• (2) the sacred fire
• (3) the Shekinah
• (4) the Urim and Thummim
• (5) the spirit of prophecy.
• This list is to safeguard = the other occurrences of the word, which have this letter at the end, among them being.
• Saith the LORD = hath said God

9 Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.

• Because you let My House go and started building your house
• Don't leave God out, Put God first

10 Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.

• You can forget the latter rain = God's word
• You're never going to have God Blessing

11 And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.

• That which = all which
• If you leave Me out of your life, I'm not going to be there for you
• These that follow the ways of the world = they teach hate
• God's going put holes in their pockets
• They're never happy, they're always trying to go against God's Ways
• The mark in the hand = Your working for Satan

12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord.

• The remnant = which had returned from Babylon

13 Then spake Haggai the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord.

• If you're doing things God's Ways, you can remind Him of His Promises
• Isaiah 43:26 Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.

14 And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God,

• God's with those that Love him
• John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
  16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
  17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
• A building or pastor will not save you. It's up to you to study God's Word
• The only thing you take with you after you die = your works

15 In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.

• In the = This reads on from verse 14, giving the date when Haggai's message took effect about three weeks later.
• It is not the commencement of another message, as some have supposed

• Exactly 2520 years from the exile of Benjamin, Iceland became an independent nation.

 

•  The first tribe to be conquered by the Assyrians was Manasseh, in 745 B.C. Exactly 2520 years later America became a nation on July 4, 1776.

(Leviticus. 26: 28-46) God warned Israel that if they persisted in continually breaking His Laws, not only would curses come upon them.

He would punish them for seven times, (a time being 360 years, seven times would be 2520 years) and would banish them from the land of Palestine and scatter them among the heathens (like lost sheep)

• Study the book: Abrahamic Covenant, (A study outline of the identity of God's people) By E. Raymond Capt - page 25