Haggai 2:7

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 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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."