If you open your Bible to the first chapter of the Book of Haggai (the prophet) you will see something rare and highly unusual in terms of a Jewish prophet and the society he is living in. When Haggai prophesied to the Jews in the society around him, the Jews actually obeyed! Whoa! Imagine that! The year is 520 B.C. the second year of King Darius. On the first day of the sixth month the Lord sends through Haggai a call to the people to “give careful thought to their ways” because they had “planted much and harvested little”. They “ate but never had enough”, “drank but never had their fill”, “earned wages only to put them in a purse with holes”. God was essentially challenging the people through Haggai about their priorities and asking them a rhetorical question about what appears to be a poverty-stricken existence that they are living in. The clinching statement in the challenge is verse 4. He asks them if it is time for them to be living in paneled houses, “while this house remains a ruin”. God is referring to the Temple which had not been repaired or rebuilt since coming back to Jerusalem from captivity because people appeared to be focusing on themselves and their destitute condition (spiritual and economic). The irony of the “paneled” statement is that God was saying these people had lavished so much, time, effort and finances to their own homes that they were paneled…like Solomon’s Temple use to be (1 Kings 6:9, 7:3-cedar).I guess what really surprises me here is God’s people were still either spiritually ambivalent or just hadn’t gotten the point of the exile. Because the people had gotten so use to thinking that they had found God in the material things of Israel and things like the Temple and not worshipping God proper He had sent them away to Babylonian exile to basically help them sort out their priorities and make them realize that God wasn’t the rituals and sacrifices and the Temple itself but they were only symbolic (this is the problem with idols, even the ones certain Christian denominations don't realize they have). God even said that he would not be with the people if they stayed behind in Jerusalem he would only dwell with those in exile, in Babylonian exile.
Jerusalem and the returnees from Babylonian exile seem to be in a state of moral paralysis and their priorities were completely messed up. Having expected to return to their land and having it be in a state they were familiar with the returned to a city nearly overrun by the desert and things were in ruins. They had no clue where to start or what to do. God was essentially telling them, “WE are starting from scratch and WE are starting with MY house”. God knew that everything else was secondary and being so…already the correct priority (1st, 2nd, 3rd…) of rebuilding was beginning to be established: God first, families, others, and self. It is just a shame that a prophet need to be utilized to get these folks to snap to attention and get with the program. As the first few verse in in this chapter allude and hint at, these people were sort of spiritually empty and “wandering in a spiritual desert”. We could learn a lesson about our priorities and importance of things in our lives today from this episode also. We are often naturally inclined to think of ourselves first before even thinking of even our family. It is sad that we think of the “me” and the “I” before the “we” and the “us”. What we should be doing before we even think at the human level is to think of how God would want us to handle a given situation.
He again exhorts the people to give careful thought to their ways or get their priorities right. Having realized that He should be their first priority God then tells them to go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house (Temple), so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored," says the LORD. He also mentions that they expected much but it turned out to be little. We begin to get the understanding that there is a direct correlation between the problems of the people and the condition of the Temple because of the statement, "Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house.” His signs of withholding blessings from His people were all over and they couldn’t claim ignorance of this fact. He withheld their dew and the earth its crops, He 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.
So they obeyed. Whole-heartedly. Zerubbabel, Joshua, 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. Because of this Haggai (God) gave this message of the LORD to the people: "I am with you," declared the LORD.
Baldwin, Joyce G.. "Now or Never." Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi: An Introduction & Commentary (The Tyndale Old Testament Commentary Series). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1981. 37-43. Print.
Lindsey, F. Duane., John Walvoord. "A Judgmental Call To Rebuild The Temple" Bible Knowledge Commentary Old Testament: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Bible Knowledge). Acambaro: Victor, 1985. 1538-1540. Print.
Art: Elevate Bible Story background by jermilex
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