Mining the Minors: Haggai (2)

In his first year on the throne, Cyrus king of Persia ordered the rebuilding of the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem and furnished the returning 42,000 exiles, mostly Jews, with everything they needed to do it. The work started well, then met with opposition from Arab and mixed race locals, then finally came to a halt by order of Artaxerxes, the new Persian monarch, who was obviously unfamiliar with Cyrus’s original edict.

Some Jews probably heaved a sigh of relief when instructed to lay down their tools.

A Huge Job Delayed

Why? Building a new temple was a huge job. Nothing as grand and glorious as Solomon’s temple, an extravagant edifice that was the envy of its day but, still, significant labor and planning were involved. Details of the first temple’s construction are difficult to interpret because certain technical terms have lost their meaning over time, but the highest point of Solomon’s temple was probably something like 207 feet and its inside ceiling 180 feet by 90 feet, or thereabouts. The new temple was a much less-ambitious 90 × 90 layout small enough to make the old men of Israel cry. Still, even a less ostentatious temple was a great deal of work for such a comparatively small group of men in the process of rebuilding their society, working for a living and raising their families.

Sure, some Jews would have been greatly grieved to stop work on the temple but, after all, they were under orders from the king of Persia. What were they supposed to do? At least they had an altar and could continue sacrificing to YHWH. Perhaps that would be enough for now.

Oh, and also the time off would give them a chance to take care of some long-neglected work around the house. At least seventeen years’ worth …

1/ Get Your Priorities in Order

Haggai 1:1-2 — The Word of the Lord

“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: ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.’ ”

Prophetic Ministry Confirmed

When God claims to have spoken, you may choose to agree or disagree whether that is the case. What is not up for argument is that there is something major at stake in what you decide to do about it. If God has indeed spoken, we ignore him at our own peril. Here the word of the Lord came through Haggai. Unlike at some times in human history, his people treated it that way.

If we have the chronology right, the last significant prophecy addressed to the Jewish people prior to this would have been in Babylon around two decades earlier, found in chapters 10-12 of Daniel. As indicated in Ezra, Zechariah was a contemporary of Haggai, but his lengthier, more diverse and more difficult to interpret prophetic ministry began two months later. Haggai’s word from the Lord came in a comparative vacuum, yet it seems he was believed even prior to Zechariah’s confirming ministry.

Before ever addressing himself to the people, Haggai addressed himself first to the governor and the high priest. These two personages have some significance during the period, and are almost always paired in scripture.

Zerubbabel the Son of Shealtiel

If Zerubbabel doesn’t sound like a typical Hebrew name, it’s because it is not. It’s Babylonian, and means “seed of Babylon”. He was the man who would not be king, though he was of Judah’s royal line, a descendant of David and (technically at least) became an ancestor of Messiah. Matthew’s genealogy of Christ has this same Zerubbabel in the line of Joseph, the adoptive father of the Lord Jesus, ten generations prior. (There is also a Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel in Luke’s genealogy — thought by some to be through Mary — but since this father and son pair are descended from David through Nathan rather than Solomon, either: (1) they are different people with the same names, or (2) one of the genealogies is through Shealtiel’s mother rather than his father. This presents the same sort of difficulty as attributing Luke’s genealogy to Mary’s line when it names Joseph as its termination point.)

How could Zerubbabel be appointed governor of Judah by Darius yet not even be privately acknowledged as royalty by his fellow Jews? To find out, we have to go back to a passage in Jeremiah where God curses Zerubbabel’s grandfather Jehoiachin (aka Jeconiah and Coniah) as follows: “Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah.” Perhaps the Jews were fearful of failing to acknowledge the curse in Jeremiah. More likely, they prudently recognized Persia would view any attempt to anoint a king of their own as an act of rebellion.

In any case, Zerubbabel was an obedient servant of God mentioned in 1 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah, and a major spiritual figure during this time period, as well as prophetically. There are debates about whether he was actually the son or nephew of Shealtiel, and whether he was the first governor of Judah (identifying him with the “Sheshbazzar” of Ezra, which is also an ancient Babylonian name) or the second (continuing Sheshbazzar’s work), but neither question materially reduces his spiritual significance. (I tend to think Sheshbazzar was another name for Zerubbabel. Ezra calls Sheshbazzar “the prince of Judah” (how many of these could there be?) and “one whose name was Sheshbazzar”, which sounds formal enough to be a title, as well as indicating Cyrus had made him governor.)

We will find out more about Zerubbabel as we proceed through Haggai and Zechariah.

Joshua the Son of Jehozadak

Throughout the post-exilic writings, both historical and prophetic, Joshua (called Jeshua in Ezra and Nehemiah) is mentioned repeatedly in connection with Zerubbabel. As high priest, his word carried the second greatest clout among the exiles after that of the governor. His sphere of influence was more religious than political, but there would still have been a fair bit of overlap as in Israel the priests were the teachers and preservers of law.

Zechariah 3 describes a vision of a purified priesthood focused on Joshua, and a promise made to him by the angel of the Lord that he will remove not just the iniquity of the priesthood but the iniquity of the entire land. Zechariah 6 makes Joshua a type or picture of Christ, and promises the nation a priest on the throne, an unprecedented uniting of the offices of priest and king that only Messiah could possibly fulfill. Yet another vision in Zechariah 4 does not mention Joshua by name, but obviously alludes to him. Lord willing, we will get to these visions in detail in our study of Zechariah.

In both Haggai and Ezra, little is said about the man himself beyond his involvement in leading the exiles to rebuild the temple. Nehemiah also mentions Jeshua briefly, and Ezra sadly notes that some of Jeshua’s sons had married foreign women. When confronted, these pledged to put away their foreign wives and offered a guilt offering for themselves. It’s a reminder to the modern reader that in days of decline, even the most devout parents do not always produce equally devout children. The prevailing moral climate has as much or more influence than a godly example.

Joshua was a descendant of Zadok. You may remember Solomon took the priesthood away from Abiathar, sole survivor of Saul’s massacre of the priests of Nob, because Abiathar conspired with Joab and Adonijah to steal the kingdom from Solomon. Joshua’s descendants occupied the highest priestly office for several more centuries until the rise of the Hasmoneans in 167 BC.

A Private Address

This first chapter of Haggai records two separate incidents in which God rebukes his people. First Haggai brings a word from the Lord to Zerubbabel and Joshua indicting the people for their complacency concerning the temple: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.”

The indictment was not personal. It is not “You people say” but “These people say”. The Lord does not directly rebuke either Zerubbabel or Joshua, which is interesting since both serve as types of Christ in the prophetic literature. No, the problem was with the attitude of the people of Judah more generally. They had gotten their priorities out of order. It was not just that they had been made to stop building the temple by force, but they had actually gotten used to the idea and begun to justify their own cowardice to themselves. “The time has not yet come,” they said, as if that were an adequate explanation for their failure to move forward.

A similar spirit has afflicted some former church attenders who stopped meeting when Western governments orders lockdowns during the COVID scare. Many have returned to regularly gathering with their fellow Christians. Equally, many have not.

Perhaps “the time has not yet come”? Or perhaps the government edict turned out to be a too-convenient jumping off point for those less committed.