Haggai's Prophecy about the New Temple

Haggai is one of the most neglected books of the Old Testament. This is unfortunate. Haggai was a great prophet, and his book contains some of the most powerful and uplifting prophecies in all of Scripture. Today, I want to talk about one of these prophecies, namely, the prophecy about the new temple in Haggai 2:4b-9. (The prophecy actually begins in 2:2, but I will focus on 2:4b-9.)

Haggai lived and prophesied during the post-exilic period. For those who are not familiar with this period, a little historical background may be helpful. In about the year 1000 B.C., David formed the united kingdom of Israel. In about the year 922, under king Rehoboam, a son of Solomon, the united kingdom of Israel split into two halves. The northern half was called the kingdom of Israel, and it contained most of the twelve tribes. The southern half was called the kingdom of Judah, and it largely consisted of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, together with many Levites. King David came from the tribe of Judah, and his tribe predominated in the kingdom of Judah. (You will remember that the tribe of Benjamin was nearly destroyed in the book of Judges.) At any rate, the Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel in about 722. The Assyrians deported many of the Israelites to their eastern provinces, and they settled many non-Israelites in the former northern kingdom of Israel. These people became the Samaritans. The southern kingdom of Judah continued until 597, when the Babylonians attacked and deported the king. By 587/6, many of the Israelites of Judah, including a great many nobles and prominent citizens, had been deported to Babylon. This was the beginning of the exile. The exile lasted about seventy years, as Jeremiah had prophesied. At the end of this time, the Persians defeated the Babylonians, rescued the Israelites, and sent them back to Judah with funds to help rebuild the temple. All of this is narrated in 1-2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. It is also discussed by many of the prophets, including Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

The exile was incredibly traumatic for the ancient Israelites. Many were killed by the Babylonians. Jerusalem lay in ruins. The Temple was desecrated and destroyed. The line of Davidic kings had been interrupted. There were still Davidides – the line of David had not been extinguished – but there was no throne for a Davidic king to occupy. The Israelites had lost their temple, their king, their city, and many of their citizens. Reading about these losses in Lamentations in heartbreaking. Here is Lamentations 2:20-21:

See, O Lord, and behold,
To whom You have done this!
Alas, women eat their own fruit,
Their new-born babes!
Alas, priest and prophet are slain
In the Sanctuary of the Lord!
Prostrate in the streets lie
Both young and old.
My maidens and youths
Are fallen by the sword;
You slew them on Your day of wrath,
You slaughtered them without pity.

And here is Lamentations 3:16-20:

He has broken my teeth on gravel,
Has ground me into the dust.
My life was bereft of peace,
I forgot what happiness was.
I thought my strength and hope
Had perished before the LORD.
To recall my distress and misery
Was wormwood and poison;
Whenever I thought of them,
I was bowed low.

The exile was a tragedy of the greatest proportions. Many Israelites no doubt gave up hope, convinced that YHWH had abandoned them. But prophets such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel prophesied restoration, and they were proved right – the Persians returned the Israelites to Judah after defeating the Babylonians, and they even gave the Israelites money to start rebuilding the temple, as the books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell us.

You would think that the Israelites would have rejoiced when returning to Judah. And many did rejoice, but many also wept. When the new temple was built, there were tears of joy, but there were also tears of sadness. The young were apparently overjoyed to have a temple at all, while many of the elderly remembered the greater grandeur of the old temple and cried in sorrow. Here is Ezra 3:12-13:

Many of the priests and Levites and the chiefs of the clans, the old men who had seen the first house, wept loudly at the sight of the founding of this house. Many others shouted joyously at the top of their voices. The people could not distinguish the shouts of joy from the people’s weeping, for the people raised a great shout, the sound of which could be heard from afar.

And here is Haggai 2:3:

Who is there left among you who saw this House in its former splendor? How does it look to you now? It must seem like nothing.

So, the Israelites returned to Judah after the exile, and they finally rebuilt the Temple, but it was much less impressive than the old temple, which some of the elderly still remembered. On top of this, the Israelites faced serious military threats from the locals, they still had no Davidic king, and much of Jerusalem still lay in ruins.

Things were looking pretty grim for the Israelites. But then Haggai revealed an amazing prophecy:

Be strong, all you people of the land—says the LORD—and act! For I am with you—says the LORD of Hosts. So I promised you when you came out of Egypt, and My spirit is still in your midst. Fear not! For thus said the LORD of Hosts: In just a little while longer I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land; I will shake all the nations. And the precious things of all the nations shall come [here], and I will fill this House with glory, said the LORD of Hosts. The glory of this latter House shall be greater than that of the former one, said the LORD of Hosts; and in this place I will grant prosperity—declares the LORD of Hosts. (2:4b-9)

What an incredible revelation! There is much to say about this passage, but I want to concentrate on three essential points.

First, this passage is a wonderful testimony to God’s faithfulness. The Israelites had rebelled against God and committed heinous sins from the very day that God freed them from slavery in Egypt. Think of the golden calf, the complaints about eating manna, the refusal to enter the Promised Land, the disobedience under Joshua, the idolatry of the period of the Judges (and all subsequent periods), the crimes against the poor – there is no end to the list of their sins. Despite all God had done for Israel, the Israelites never really accepted God’s rule, not for a single day. God was merciful, but He was also just, and eventually He punished the Israelites with the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions. God utterly destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and exiled the southern kingdom of Judah for their sins. But God forgave, and He turned back to Judah, and He rescued them from exile. And, though the Israelites had committed heinous sins for generations and generations, God told them that He was still with them just as He was at the time of the exodus. I think that this is one of the most moving passages in all of Scripture. God’s love burns brilliant and bright. It is white with heat, and nothing can extinguish it. Not even sin. I stop here for a moment to praise God for His faithful love, and in particular for His faithfulness to His covenant promises.

Second, this promise of God’s continued presence wasn’t just a comfort to the ancient Israelites – it is a comfort to us today. I won’t spend too much time on this point, but it should be mentioned that God didn’t cease to be present with His people when the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 A.D. No, when Jesus arrived on the scene, God was present with His people in a new way, and God is present with His people today, apart from the temple. Jesus remains our eternal advocate in heaven, and the Father and the Son have sent the Holy Spirit, our Comfort and our Help, to lead us and indwell us on earth. But we should not forget the exodus, and we should not forget the words that God revealed to Haggai. When God rescued the Israelites from Egypt, He promised to remain with them always, and He was faithful to His word. Similarly, when Christ rescued us from sin, He promised to preserve us and never to lose us, and He was faithful to His word as well. I am speaking here of the preservation of the saints: God will preserve His children in faith, as He promised in passages like 1 Thessalonians 5: 23-24, and as He foreshadowed – or just plain declared – in passages like Haggai 2:4b-9. I stop here for a moment to praise God for His preservation of the saints, which is connected to His covenant faithfulness, and so to His faithful love.

Third, God uses punishment and suffering to discipline our hearts and teach us love. I won’t go into any details here, because this post is already quite long. I will simply observe that God succeeded to a great extent in purging the worship of alien gods and many other sinful practices from ancient Israel, but it came at a terrible cost. In particular, it came through the Assyrian destruction of the north and the defeat and exile of the south at the hands of Babylon. God will not let sin go unpunished forever, and He often purges of us sin through punishment, which is painful. We should reflect on these two facts when we experience the Father’s discipline, and we should allow these facts to move us to repentance even when we don’t feel His hand upon us. Let us not be like Israel and Judah of old. Lord, we pray this in Your Most Holy Name. We also thank You for Your Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and we thank You for Your Word as revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. Amen.