Haggai 1, Rebuild the Temple!

Haggai is a prophet in Jerusalem at the end of the Babylonian exile. The date is 520 BC.

Haggai 1:1-2, "The people say..."

In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest: This is what the LORD Almighty says: 

"These people say, `The time has not yet come for the LORD's house to be built.'"  

Darius the Great ruled the Persian/Babylonian Empire from 522 to 486 BC. Alden and Baldwin give the date of this prophecy as late August, 520 BC. The people who have returned to Palestine give excuses for not restoring the temple. "But who are they to speak?" asks YHWH.

Zerubbabel is governor of Judah. He is in David's lineage (see 1 Chronicles 3, especially verse 19, and Matthew 1:12.) Joshua/Jeshua is high priest. These two leaders will play an important role, with Haggai, in rebuilding the temple. This reconstruction begins in Ezra 3 and is the theme of the book of Ezra. (See especially Ezra 5:1-2 for Ezra's mention of these three men.)

Haggai 1:3-6, The temple remains a ruin

Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 

"Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?" 

Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: 

"Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it."  

It is indeed time for the temple to be rebuilt! The people have been happy to build nice houses but have ignored the temple. Haggai says that the lack of good crops and water are because the people have procrastinated in doing their duties to God.

Haggai's warning recalls the blessings and curses promised in Deuteronomy 28. The cursed ground is described in five pairs of parallel contrasts:

    "plant much but harvest little,

    eat but not enough,

    drink but not be satisfied

    dress in clothes but not be warm,

    earn wages but purse has holes,"

Haggai 1:7-9, "Bring down timber"

This is what the LORD Almighty says: 

"Give careful thought to your ways.  Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,"

says the LORD.  

"You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?"

declares the LORD Almighty.

"Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house.  

Both verses 5 and 7 begin with the instruction, "Give careful thought to your ways." The apathy of people are being challenged. Haggai then gives the main message of his prophecy -- the people are to go into the mountains to find good timber for God's house and rebuild it!

Haggai 1:10-11, Drought

Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands."  

God has alerted the people to the urgency of this need by withholding rain and dew. Like verse 6, the withheld abundance comes in pairs: 

    "field and mountains, 

    grain and new wine, 

    oil and what the ground produces, 

    men and cattle."

The pairs are broken at the end by a single summary line, "the labor of of your hands."

Baldwin sees wordplay in the use of ḥō·reḇ for "drought" and ḥā·rêḇ for "ruin" (of the temple); the consequence of ḥā·rêḇ is ḥō·reḇ.

Haggai 1:12, Obedience

Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the LORD their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD.  

Zerubbabel and Joshua respond in obedience. The people follow.

Haggai 1:13-15, Haggai speaks, Zerubbabel responds

Then Haggai, the LORD's messenger, gave this message of the LORD to the people: 

"I am with you," 

declares the LORD.  

So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.     

     
As the people respond, Haggai has one more message: God is with them. The entire community responds in enthusiasm, an enthusiasm "stirred up" by YHWH. They begin work on the temple three weeks after Haggai receives the first message from God.

Often the term "messenger" (Hebrew malak, Greek Septuagint angelos) is used to indicate a supernatural being. But here the word is used to describe Haggai; this passage is one of many in which that word is used for a human messenger.

First published December 8, 2025; updated December 8, 2025