In the seventh [month], on the one and twentieth [day] of the month, came the word of Jehovah by the prophet Haggai, saying,
Less than a month earlier, the people had gone back to work on the temple. Now God speaks again — not to rebuke them, but to steady hearts that had already obeyed. Why a second word so soon, and what was troubling the builders?
Every message in this book carries a date from the reign of Darius, a foreign king, not from Israel's own calendar. One commentator draws out what that dating says about Israel's place:
His prophecy carries exact dates, and this shows it divides into four sections, though all were spoken in the second year of Darius... Our first remark must be that God always recognizes the validity of His own governmental actions. He had set Israel aside as a nation, and the times of the Gentiles had begun. So the dating is that of the ruling Gentile power and not that of the Jews.
This day fell at the close of one of Israel's feasts. That setting sharpens the contrast with the mood of the builders:
It is striking (Haggai means feast of Jehovah) that this word came to the people of God on the 21st day of the 7th month. This appears to be the Old Testament equivalent of the last day of the feast, when Jesus stood up in the temple (John 7:37). Gloomy clouds of disappointment and despair darkened what should have been a time of the greatest joy.
The dates in this book are not filler. They show how closely God watches people who respond to His word:
The record of the date shows plainly how He delights in the obedience of His people. He watches over them with longing, and He notices the very first movements of response to His word!... Before a month had passed, "in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month," He spoke again to the hearts of His servants, to feed and encourage them. The subject of this message, like the earlier ones, is still the house of the Lord at Jerusalem.
Obedience had begun. But small results bring their own danger, and the whole message is built to meet it:
The remnant has been stirred up to "work in the house of the LORD." But in a day of ruin there is always the danger of losing heart in the LORD'S work, because the results look so small and there is so little outward display. To meet this danger... the remnant are asked to look back to the glory of the house in the past (1-3). They are reminded of their resources in the present (4, 5). And they are encouraged to look on to the coming glory in the future (6-9).
This message answers thoughts nobody had spoken aloud:
The point we want to draw attention to is that the Lord read these thoughts of His people, and sent a message of comfort and consolation. It is good for us to understand this. He regards even the feelings of His people with tender concern — feelings stirred up by His ways or by His service.
The names at the head of this message decide who the work belongs to:
The message comes first to the leaders of the people, Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest. But this work was not carried on by leaders only, for it names "the rest of the people" too. We must not think that the Lord's work belongs to leaders only. All of us are in this work today, just as they were in their day; we all have work to do according to the ability given to us.
The encouragement that follows does not promise easier circumstances. It points to two things they already had. The commentator quotes an older translation of the promise:
God did more than pledge His presence with them. He added, "The word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, and My Spirit, remain among you: fear not." He threw them back on the word He gave at the start of His dealings with them, a word they could trust to direct their ways. He threw them back, too, on the guidance and power of His Spirit, who was still among them.
So where should a discouraged worker look?
Instead of looking back and lamenting over what has been, let us rather look on with rejoicing to what will yet be. The greatest glory is not behind, it is still on before.
- Dated — the day follows a foreign king's reign. God stands by His own governmental dealings, even when they humble His people.
- Timed — the word came during a feast, when joy should have been at its height. Disappointment had settled in instead.
- Discerned — God read thoughts no one spoke aloud and sent comfort. He treats the feelings of His people with tender care.
- Shared — the message names the governor, the priest and everyone else. The work belongs to all, each according to the ability given.
- Directed — the word and the Spirit remain in hand now, and the greater glory lies ahead, not behind.
Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying,
God tells Haggai exactly whom to speak to: the governor, the high priest, and everyone left in the land. The names, the order, and the day each carry weight.
The word came on the twenty-first day of the seventh month. One writer links that date to a scene in the Gospels.
It is striking (Haggai means feast of Jehovah) that this prophetic word (2:1) came to the people of God on the 21st day of the 7th month. This seems to be the Old Testament equivalent of the last day of the feast when Jesus stood up in the temple (John 7:37). Disappointment and despair darkened what should have been a day of the greatest joy.
Among the workers were men old enough to remember the first temple.
Some among the remnant had seen Solomon's temple in all its splendour. When they compared it with the building they were now working on, they were downcast, even disheartened. We read of them in the book of Ezra.
Nobody had reported those feelings to God. He acted on them anyway.
The point we want to draw attention to is this: the Lord read these thoughts of His people, and sent a message of comfort and consolation. It is good for us to understand that even the feelings of His people — feelings that arise from His ways or His service — matter to Him. He treats them with tender concern.
God names the governor first and the priest second. One writer sees meaning in that order.
It is important to notice that God speaks to the Governor first, and then to the High Priest. Zerubbabel stands for the kingdom side of things; Joshua stands for the House. None of us can act rightly in relation to the House of God if we are not moving in line with the principles of the Kingdom of God. If we are subject to the authority of God, we can be sure that we will enjoy the privileges of the House, and enjoy them in a condition that matches them.
The fathers' names say something too. (Josedech below is an older spelling of Jehozadak.)
Shealtiel means "Asked of the Lord", and Josedech means "The righteousness of God". So in a day of brokenness we have this before us: God will keep to His own standard of righteousness, and He will let His people ask of Him.
The message does not stop with the two leaders. It also names the remnant, the rest of the people, whom older versions call the "residue".
God speaks first to the leaders of the people, Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest. But leaders alone did not carry this work, for God speaks to "the residue of the people" as well. We must not think that leaders alone carry the work of the Lord. All of us are in this work today, even as they were in their day; we all have work to do according to the ability given to us.
He does not lump people together, and He does not erase the differences He Himself made.
Notice that the Lord speaks to all the people — the people as well as their leaders. All are before His mind. We too often deal in generalities. The Lord is not like that. The lowliest of His servants never escapes His notice. So when He sets out to encourage His people, He cares for the small as well as the great. He recognises the difference He Himself has made, and so He names the governor and the priest. But He cares just as much for the people under their charge and direction.
The verse names a governor and a priest. One writer counts that as a reason to thank God.
We might have thought that in Haggai's day there would be no Governor or Priest left, but they were still there. And today we can thank God that there are men who take the lead among His people. If we are among the "residue" who value such a lead, we can enter into the present joy of the things of God and respond to Him.
- Dated — the word came on the twenty-first day of the seventh month, a day of great joy that disappointment had clouded.
- Read — no one told God how the older men felt. He read their thoughts and sent comfort.
- Named — Zerubbabel comes first, then Joshua. Submit to God's authority, and you can enjoy the privileges of His house.
- Shared — God speaks to the remnant as well as the two leaders. The work belongs to everyone, each according to the ability given.
- Supplied — a governor and a priest were still standing, and God still spoke. He gives a lead in a day of weakness.
Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? and how do ye see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?
God aims this question at the few men old enough to have seen Solomon's temple standing. It makes them measure the building rising under their hands against the one they remembered. Why would God press His discouraged workers to admit that their work looks like nothing — and what does He intend to do with that admission?
The sorrow behind this verse was reasonable. One writer sets the two buildings side by side and lists what the second one lacked — including the Shechinah, the visible glory of the Lord's presence:
This sorrow of the old men was completely natural. To the outward eye, the contrast in their minds was humbling in the extreme. Solomon built the first temple in the glory days of his reign. He was the king who pictured the Prince of peace, and he used all the resources of his mighty empire and of the peoples paying him tribute to build a house for Jehovah to live in among His people... But a few feeble captives were raising this house. They depended on a Gentile king for the very materials they used. Hostile tribes surrounded them. Beyond all this, they had none of the visible signs of the Lord's presence — no Shechinah, and no fire coming down from heaven to consume the sacrifices they laid on the altar.
Worse still, the same writer adds, the memory of past glory carried a sting. It reminded them that their own sins had cost them the first temple and left them in this low state.
God does not soften the comparison. He asks for it. One writer sees in the question a refusal to let His workers think well of themselves.
There is no allowance of self-complacent thoughts. God would make us real in our souls and ways. It is a good thing not to have too high imaginations, but the truth, a just weight and measure. At the same time let us leave room for the grace and power of God... There is no greater danger than forgetting the spirit that suits those to whom God has shown His mercy... The more we learn of God, the more we should cultivate lowliness of mind... We feel how far the church has fallen, and from what height, but we ought not to be discouraged. There is nothing of Christ in despair or distrust.
God asks because He had already heard the thoughts His message answers.
Here is the point we want to press. The Lord read these thoughts of His people, and sent them a message of comfort and consolation. It is well for us to understand this. Even the feelings of the saints — feelings that arise in connection with the Lord's ways or His service — He regards with tender concern.
The phrase "this house" carries weight. One writer notes that Scripture never splits the temple into two separate buildings. Through ruin and rebuilding, it stays one house.
Scripture, on the contrary, is careful, as we may see in Haggai, to maintain in faith the unity of God's house. "Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now?" (Hag. 2:3). It is "Jehovah's house" while it is "waste" (Hag. 1:9), no less than when it is magnificent.
The comparison could have ended in tears. Haggai points his people somewhere else.
Haggai does not suggest that this fact should lead to weeping. Instead, surprisingly, he goes on at once to say "be strong… and work" (v. 4)... The prophet brings before them a two-fold encouragement... First, he points to present resources: the Lord with them, His Word and His Spirit (vv. 4-5). Second, he draws their attention to future glory... Their present building may be far poorer than Solomon's, but it is linked with one that will be greater than Solomon's.
This verse names a real risk for anyone serving God today. We can measure the present by a golden past until our work seems pointless.
Sighing and grieving over what the past was like will not achieve anything real today. Those past days were days of responsibility for the saints who lived through them, and they are now in heaven. Today is our day. We have our own responsibility to do the work of the Lord... God's rest is still before us; today is the time to work.
- Nothing — God makes His builders admit their work looks like nothing next to the old glory. He clears away self-satisfaction before He gives strength.
- Noticed — the Lord read the very feelings that discouraged them, and sent this prophecy as His answer.
- One house — Scripture never treats the poor building as a different house. It is Jehovah's house in ruins as much as in splendour.
- Resources — the cure is not comparison but what God gives now: the Lord with them, His Word and His Spirit.
- Forward — the small work ties into a glory still to come. So the answer to a humbling comparison is "be strong… and work," not tears.
But now be strong, Zerubbabel, saith Jehovah; and be strong, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith Jehovah, and work for I am with you, saith Jehovah of hosts.
The Jews had begun to rebuild the temple, and the new house looked poor beside the one Solomon built, so the older men lost heart. Into that mood God sends three commands and one reason — and the reason is not what the builders have, but who is with them.
This is not a demand for more grit. One writer gives the word's literal sense and the mood it met.
"Yet now be strong" translated literally is, "And now be comforted, O Zerubbabel, says Jehovah; be comforted all the people of the land... for I am with you, says the LORD of Hosts." They were discouraged because their cause was so small. It is then that the Lord delights to comfort and to cheer His trusting people.
God names Zerubbabel the governor, then Joshua the high priest, then all the people of the land. The third address matters as much as the first two.
It will be noticed that the Lord addresses all the people — the people as well as their leaders. All are before His mind. We too often deal in generalities. Not so Jehovah; the humblest of His servants does not escape His notice... His heart is large enough to embrace the whole multitude of His saints. Yet He also singles out every one, so that all alike may feel that they are the objects of His mind and heart.
Another writer turns this into a warning for us:
We must not think that leaders alone carry on the work of the Lord. All of us are in this work today, just as they were in their day. We all have work to do according to the ability given to us. We may thank God for those to whom He has given grace and ability to enlighten and lead the saints in a right path. But let us beware. If we think they alone have work to do, we will be inclined to leave it to them.
The command comes three times, once to each party. That says something about how they stand toward one another.
He looks at them as being in it together. One was not to be more strong than another. The word "Be strong," repeated three times, would truly put them in fellowship. The call that follows makes it plainer still: "and work; for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts."
The word "for" ties the command to the promise. That tie changes how the builders measure their enemies.
The exhortation He sends is, "Be strong." The source of their strength is knowing that He is with them... If He is with us, we rest confidently in what He is for us. Then we measure our foes and difficulties not by what we are, or by our own resources, but by what He is in all His own almighty power. Then we can boldly say with the apostle, "If God is for us, who can be against us?"
A small group might count God's presence a poor second to their fathers' glory. The truth runs the other way.
"I am with you" is the saving principle for faith in the weakest possible day — and, let me repeat it, what did they have better in the brightest day?... To have the most blessed servants would be a small thing if they did not have the Master Himself... The words were few, but they carried every help and blessing; and they sank deep into godly hearts.
God did not deny the ruin they were in. He gave the promise inside it.
It is precious to remember that, though we are in wretchedness, God is with us. Haggai 2:4 says it, when the Jews began to build: whatever your state of ruin, I am with you. My Spirit is with you as in the day when I brought you up out of Egypt. Nothing but faith can reconcile these two things — wretchedness and the love of God.
God gives strength for labour. The question is which day that labour belongs to.
Sighing and lamenting over what marked the past will not achieve anything substantial today. The days now past were days of responsibility for the saints who lived through them, and who are now in heaven. But today is our day. We have our responsibility to do the work of the Lord, until He takes us out of the sphere of service too. The rest of God is still before us; today is the time of labour.
- Comfort — "Be strong" reads as "be comforted." God speaks it to people discouraged by how small their cause is. That is when He delights to cheer them.
- Everyone — God names the governor, the priest and the ordinary people. The humblest servant does not escape His notice, so no one may leave the work to leaders.
- Together — the word comes three times, with "and work" added. It puts them in fellowship, and no one is stronger than another.
- Because — the strength is not in their resources but in His presence. So we measure our difficulties by what He is.
- Now — "I am with you" is as good in the weakest day as in the brightest. Faith holds ruin and His love together. Today, not yesterday, is the time to work.
The word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, and my Spirit, remain among you fear ye not.
The rebuilt temple in Jerusalem looked poor next to the one Solomon had raised. The small group back from exile in Babylon was ready to give up. God answered their discouragement with no display of power. He pointed to what He had never taken back.
The prophet does not offer the people something new. He points them back to what God promised when Israel came out of Egypt. The years in Babylon cancelled none of it.
The prophet encourages the Jews. He tells them that the Spirit was with them when they came out of Egypt, because God granted the Spirit to them at that time. The Spirit remained and was with them still, despite the captivity... the words of Haggai mean that what God gave when they came out of Egypt was not lost, but still remained with them.
The people who came back from Babylon saw none of the miracles their ancestors saw. The verse speaks straight into that gap.
In their present circumstances there was nothing that matched this miraculous display of power. God had indeed delivered them from Babylon. But no cloud by day, or pillar of fire by night, had marked their way. No rock was struck to quench their thirst. No manna came to meet their hunger. All the outward signs of power were gone. Yet in the mercy of God, the Spirit remained with the same power. That power now showed itself, not in outward display, but in spiritual power. It enabled faith to rise above every enemy and to care for the glory of the LORD.
Commentators are careful about how much this verse promises. The Spirit here is not what came after Christ went up to heaven. It is the work God had already done in Israel.
This is not the Spirit given in the special power, still less His personal presence, granted when Christ went up to heaven and the church was formed on earth. Instead, God had worked by the Spirit in Israel at the first. In the same way He would work in grace even after the captivity in Babylon.
The command not to fear rests on the sentence before it. God tells them to measure their situation by Him, not by themselves.
If He is with us, we rest in what He is for us. Then we measure our enemies and our difficulties, not by what we are or by our own resources, but by what He is in all His own almighty power... He would draw their eyes to Himself, so that they could work in faith and fear no enemy. Their God was with them, and He had thrown His unbreakable shield around them.
Another writer looks at what God did not do for them:
There was no angel striking down the firstborn, no miracle done for them, not a word about plagues on their enemies. There was only this: "My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not." Whenever Israel was afraid of their enemies, they had no strength. But when they looked to the Lord, they forgot their enemies.
Long after Haggai's day, God was still keeping this word. One writer traces the promise into the opening pages of the New Testament:
Note too how God had been true to His covenant word in Haggai: "My Spirit remains in your midst." Zacharias and Elizabeth are filled with the Holy Spirit. John was to be filled from his mother's womb. And the Holy Spirit was upon Simeon.
Some translations join the word and the Spirit as the two things that remain. Read that way, the verse gives the discouraged builder two supplies that never run out.
He threw them back on two things. First, on the trustworthy word He gave at the beginning of His dealings with them, to direct their ways. Second, on the guidance and power of His Spirit, who was still among them. What resources are still available for believers today? We would have to answer that we still have the true word of God... and then that the Holy Spirit, poured out on the Day of Pentecost, still lives in believers. So if we do not grieve Him, His power is still available for us.
- Remains — the key word. The exile never took back what God gave when Israel left Egypt; the Spirit was still there.
- Remains, not renewed — not the Spirit as given after Christ went up to heaven, but the same work God had done in Israel from the start.
- Remains without signs — no cloud, no manna, no rock struck. The power stayed; only the visible display was gone.
- Remains, so fear not — measure your enemies by God's presence, not by your own strength.
- Remains still — God's word to direct and His Spirit to guide are never lost, however weak the day.
For thus saith Jehovah 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];
Discouraged exiles were rebuilding the house of God, and their work looked like nothing beside the empires around them. God answers their disappointment with a promise to shake heaven and earth. So what is this shaking, when does it come, and why should it comfort people whose work looks small?
The title matters as much as the promise. The people lived under a ruler they had not chosen. The One who promises the shaking holds that ruler in His hand.
Verse 6 raises another interesting matter. It was especially relevant in the day Haggai prophesied, but it is just as important today. "For thus says the LORD of hosts" — a sentence appearing many times in this book — "Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land." The people were living under the decrees of a man who had seized the kingdom by cunning, pretending to be the rightful king. But about these outward conditions the Lord of hosts makes known that He is in full control of them all.
Commentators say the shaking is still ahead of us. They answer the objection that "a little while" must mean something in Haggai's own century.
First comes the announcement, "I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land." Have these violent shakings happened? Kingdoms have been shaken in politics, and the earth has often been shaken physically and in other ways. Even so, this prophecy is still to be fulfilled... Critics object to this view because this shaking of everything is to come in "a little while." So they apply it to the nearer political events of that period. But prophecy often foreshortens the future. Besides, the little while is not man's little while, but God's. With Him a thousand years is as a day. Also, in the political events after the Jews returned from Babylon, not all nations were involved.
The New Testament takes up this verse, and one small word in it carries the weight.
In these words the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews gave a free rendering of a prediction first spoken by the prophet Haggai. He quoted them to stress the word "once." Let us note it well! "Once more" — then of course, since no further shaking will take place, it will be the final thing. It will be an act of God. So the next verse of the chapter explains: "This phrase, 'Yet once more,' indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain." So we know how everything that sin has undermined will end.
The shaking is not the end in itself. It clears the way for an arrival promised in the next verse. Older translations read there, "the desire of all nations shall come," where the ESV has, "the treasures of all nations shall come in."
Others think the desire of all nations will be the Lord Jesus Christ, and surely they are right. Examine Haggai 2:6-9, and that will appear very plain. The words "The Desire of all nations shall come" stand between the Lord of hosts shaking all things in judgment and His filling the house of the Lord, the Temple, with His glory. That glory will surpass even the scene at the first dedication by King Solomon, when the priests could not stand because of the overwhelming glory.
Commentators differ on whether the nations themselves desire Him. One writer reaches the same destination by another road:
Now Christ personally can hardly be spoken of as the "desire" of all nations, since when He appears in glory, so that every eye sees Him, "all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him"... But the nations have always desired such peace and fruitfulness, such prosperity, and quietness and assurance for ever, as is predicted in Isaiah 32:15-18. These very desirable things will only come to pass and be enjoyed when the Lord Jesus comes again.
Haggai spoke to a small group of returned exiles whose building work looked like nothing. A shaking that removes empires changes how you measure such a work.
In the day of the remnant the world empires looked very imposing, and the work of the remnant in connection with the house of God appeared to be very insignificant. But whatever the outward appearance might be, in fact the remnant were engaged with a work that will last. That work will be displayed with all the glory of the Lord when the mightiest kingdoms of the earth have crumbled to dust and passed away.
The same logic is applied to readers today, with a warning about where the heart makes its home.
We are brought to what is forever stable and beyond all risk of change or decay. Unless our souls are truly settled in this truth, we cannot serve God acceptably. Our thoughts and hopes will be taken up mostly with things that belong to the earth, which will soon be shaken.
- Shaken by whom — the speaker is the Lord of hosts. The ruler over the builders was already in the hand of the One who promises the shaking.
- Shaken when — commentators place this still in the future, since the Letter to the Hebrews holds it out as a promise. "A little while" is God's measure, not man's.
- Shaken once — the word "once" makes it final; nothing is left to be shaken afterwards.
- Shaken for whom — the removal clears the way for the coming of Christ and the filling of the house with glory greater than before.
- Shaken, but not you — work tied to God's purpose outlasts the empires that dwarf it. That certainty frees you to serve God instead of clinging to what will be shaken.
and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith Jehovah of hosts.
Haggai speaks to a small group of returned exiles who are rebuilding a temple that looks like nothing beside Solomon's. God answers their disappointment with a promise: He will shake all nations, and then what older Bibles call "the desire of all nations" — and newer ones "the treasures" — will come.
God sent the prophet to people who had stopped valuing what God valued.
A lack of appreciation was clear among the people of God in Haggai's day. Their own low state of soul kept them from seeing how low the house of God had sunk. So God sent the prophet to wake their interest and to revive their appreciation of the things of their God. He is saying in effect, "You may not think much of My house, but I will establish all that I have said in relation to it, and I will fill it with My glory." The fulfilment of this looks on to a future day. But it also involves the coming of the One blessed Person who alone could bring it about. So the "desire" must take in the Messiah.
The Hebrew itself is awkward, and that is the root of the split between "desire" and "treasures".
The question is, who is the desire of all nations? It deserves a closer look, because critics have worked hard to explain away the Messianic meaning of this sentence. Some read it as "the desirable things of all nations", that is, costly treasures brought in to beautify the temple. But the Hebrew is a strange phrase. The subject is a noun, feminine and singular; the predicate is plural and masculine. The word "chemdath" — desire — is the same one used in Daniel 11:37, the desire of women. Word for word it would read: "And the desire of all nations, they shall come."
Faced with that, one writer argues that word-for-word accuracy is not the only test of a good translation.
I believe that "the desire, or object of desire, of all the Gentiles" is as literal and, what matters more, more true, as far better suiting the grandeur of the verse than that which some would force on us, "the precious things," meaning the gold and silver, etc., which are distinctly named afterwards. It must be borne in mind that the most literal version is not necessarily the most faithful or best.
If Christ is meant, an obvious objection follows: the nations do not want Him. The answer turns on the gap between what people feel and what is truly precious.
It is fair to ask in what sense the Messiah could be the desire of all the nations. We need not say He is their desire in the sense of something they feel inside. But in Himself He is the precious treasure of all nations, and one day they will own Him as such. In the past or the present, which of them has prized Him as they ought? He is not only the hope of Israel; He will bring true riches and blessing to all other nations. The world can never be fully happy until He comes. I see no more difficulty in this phrase than in what Malachi says to the Jews: "The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight" (Malachi 3:1). Jews and nations alike have been far from feeling the worth of Jesus as they should.
Commentators differ here. One takes the "desire" to be the conditions the nations crave, not the Person Himself:
You can hardly call Christ Himself the "desire" of all nations. When He appears in glory, and every eye sees Him, "all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him" (Rev. 1:7). Yet the nations have always wanted the peace and fruitfulness, the prosperity, and the quietness and assurance for ever that Isaiah 32:15-18 promises. These very desirable things will only come, and be enjoyed, when the Lord Jesus comes again.
One writer settles the timing from the way the New Testament uses this promise.
First comes the announcement, "I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land." Have these upheavals happened? Kingdoms have been shaken politically, and the earth has often been shaken in physical and other ways. Yet this prophecy is still not fulfilled. The Holy Spirit bears witness to it in the New Testament, for we read in Hebrews 12:26-28... This settles the question: the prophecy is future.
The shaking is what finally teaches the nations what they were missing.
When the shaking of all the nations comes according to Haggai's prophecy, we shall see men in their utter misery, in the complete failure of all their efforts to put things right, discovering that what they want — peace, righteousness, prosperity, plenty — will never come through an earthly dictator... The nations will at last discern that only the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the Prince of peace, can bring in their desire, that desire being purified and lifted through the sorrows of the great tribulation. Their desire will be the Son of God at last, and in Him they will find every desire amply fulfilled.
The modest building the exiles were raising is not written off; God keeps calling it "this house".
It weakens the truth to speak of "the second temple", as the rabbis in their unbelief did. Scripture, as we may see in Haggai, is careful to hold in faith the unity of God's house. It is "the LORD's house" while it lies in ruins (Hag. 1:9), no less than when it is magnificent. So even in the grand future, "I will fill this house with glory."
- Discouragement. Haggai's hearers had stopped valuing God's house, so God gave this promise to revive their appreciation of it.
- Difficulty. The Hebrew joins a singular noun to a plural verb. So versions differ: "the desire" or "the treasures" of all nations.
- Desire. Christ is the precious treasure of the nations, whether they feel it yet or not — just as He is the One the Jews "delight in" in Malachi 3:1.
- Difference. Commentators differ. Some say the title names Christ Himself. Others say the nations long for the peace and prosperity only He can bring.
- Deliverance. The shaking of heaven and earth is still future, according to Hebrews 12:26. When it comes, the nations' desire will be the Son of God, and God will fill this house with glory.