OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
H A G G A I.
THE captivity in Babylon gave a very remarkable
turn to the affairs of the Jewish church both in history and prophecy.
It is made a signal epocha in our Saviour's genealogy,
Matthew 1:17.
Nine of the twelve minor prophets, whose oracles we have been hitherto
consulting, lived and preached before that captivity, and most of them
had an eye to it in their prophecies, foretelling it as the just
punishment of Jerusalem's wickedness. But the last three (in whom the
Spirit of prophecy took its period, until it revived in Christ's
forerunner) lived and preached after the return out of captivity, not
immediately upon it, but some time after. Haggai and Zechariah appeared
much about the same time, eighteen years after the return, when the
building of the temple was both retarded by its enemies and neglected
by its friends. Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah
the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Jerusalem, in
the name of the God of Israel, even unto them (so we read
Ezra 5:1),
to reprove them for their remissness, and to encourage them to revive
that good work when it had stood still for some time, and to go on with
it vigorously, notwithstanding the opposition they met with in it.
Haggai began two months before Zechariah, who was raised up to second
him, that out of the mouth of two witnesses the word might be
established. But Zechariah continued longer at the work; for all
Haggai's prophecies that are recorded were delivered within four
months, in the second year of Darius, between the beginning of the
sixth month and the end of the ninth. But we have Zechariah's
prophecies dated above two years after,
Zechariah 7:1.
Some have the honour to lead, others to last, in the work of God. The
Jews ascribe to these two prophets the honour of being members of the
great synagogue (as they call it), which was formed after the return
out of captivity; we think it more certain, and it was their honour,
and a much greater honour, that they prophesied of Christ. Haggai
spoke of him as the glory of the latter house, and Zechariah as
the man, the branch. In them the light of that morning star
shone more brightly than in the foregoing prophecies, as they lived
nearer the time of the rising of the Sun of righteousness, and now
began to see his day approaching. The LXX. makes Haggai and Zechariah
to be the penmen of
Psalms 138:1-8
and of
cxlvii., and cxlviii.
Chapter
Matthew Henry "Verse by Verse Commentary for 'Haggai' Matthew Henry Bible Commentary".
.