In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest:
Haggai opens with a date, not a vision. He counts the year by a foreign king's reign, and names a governor and a high priest. Behind them stands a people who had come home from exile and then stopped building God's house. Three questions follow, and the book answers them. Why is the year counted by a Gentile king? Why did the work stop? And why does God speak now?
Time Measured By A Gentile King
The date is not decoration. It shows God standing by His own act of government.
F. B. HoleHis prophecy carries a careful date... The first thing to say is that God always treats His own acts of government as valid. He had set Israel aside as a nation, and the times of the Gentiles had begun. So the date follows the ruling Gentile power, not the Jews.
Fifteen Silent Years
The building had stopped long before this message came. One writer names how long, and why.
H. L. RossierThe work on the temple had stopped for fifteen years, from the second year of Cyrus to the second year of Darius the Persian (Ezra 4:24; Haggai 1:1). Four years later they finished the house of God. How much harm such delays do! They come from the fear of man, and from the lack of confidence in the Lord that the fear of man always brings.
Ezra and Haggai cover the same years. Why does Haggai never mention the enemies Ezra describes?
Hamilton SmithThe history of these times, as the book of Ezra gives it, shows the enemies stopping the building of the house, but says nothing about the condition of the people. Haggai never mentions the enemies. He goes straight to the low moral state of the remnant. History deals with events; prophecy deals with the moral state behind what the people of God do.
His Name And His Title
Haggai's own name carried a message to a discouraged people.
George DavisonHaggai means "festive". The name suggests that the prophet God raised up at that time would help the people see they were living in joyful days — if they had the faith and energy to respond to God's Word. That Word came to them, as we read, "by the hand of Haggai the prophet".
Later in the chapter God gives him a title. No prophet before him had ever carried it.
William KellyHow gracious it is to see the special care God takes for a day of weakness. As far as I know, no prophet before him ever carried the name "the LORD's messenger". Haggai is the shortest of the prophets who came after the captivity, and the first of them in time; yet he is the one given this rare name of honour. Men would never have chosen him for it... This prophet handles the plainest things — their panelled houses, their sowing much, their bags with holes, nothing but the most ordinary appeals, as it might seem — and he was the LORD's messenger.
Zerubbabel And Joshua
The word goes to two named men. Their family lines matter as much as their offices.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinZerubbabel and Joshua were the leading men of that day, in government and in religion. Zerubbabel was the son of Shealtiel (which means asking of God in prayer). Zerubbabel (sown in Babylon) came of royal blood, in direct descent from David... [Joshua] was the first high priest after the captivity, and Ezra and Nehemiah call him Jeshua... He and Zerubbabel are prophetic pictures of our Lord as the King-Priest.
Addressed To Leaders, Not Left To Them
God starts at the top, yet the message does not stop there.
George DavisonGod 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 He speaks to "the remnant of the people" as well. We must not think that leaders alone carry on the work of the Lord... let us be careful not to think that they are the only ones with work to do, and so leave it all to them.
Summary
- Word. Everything here starts with God speaking. The word of the LORD came, and a work stalled for fifteen years began again.
- Date. God dates His word by a foreign king's reign. He stands by the government He Himself set in place.
- Delay. The building stopped for fifteen years. Ezra blames the enemies; Haggai points to fear of man and cold hearts.
- Messenger. God gave His own message to the plainest speaker of them all — a prophet whose name means festive.
- Everyone. Governor and high priest hear first. The rest of the people hear too, so no one can leave the work to the leaders.