Haggai
Verse 6. Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens] When the law was given on Mount Sinai, there was an earthquake that shook the whole
mountain, Exod. xix. 18. " The political or religious revolutions which were to be effected in the world, or both, are here," says Abp. Neivcome, " referred to; compare ver. 21, 22; Matt. xxiv. 29; Heb. xii. 26-28. The political ones began in the overthrow of the Persian monarchy by Alexander, within two centuries after this prediction; and if the Messiah's kingdom be meant, which is my opinion, this was erected in somewhat more than five centuries after the second year of Darius; a short period of time when compared with that which elapsed from the creation
to the giving of the law, or from the giving of the law to the coming of the Messiah's kingdom. It must be understood that the word pnx achath, once, has a clear sense, if understood of the evangelical age; for many political revolutions succeeded, as the conquest of Darius Codomanus, and the various fortunes of Alexander's successors; but only one great and final religious revolution. " — Newcome.
Verse 7. And the Desire of all nations shall come] The present Hebrew text is as follows: ^3 mon 1N31 □"Un. This is a difiicult place if understood of a person: butmon chcmdath, desire, cannot well agree with 1N3 bau, they shall come. It is true that some learned men suppose that nnan chemdoth, desirable things, may have been the original reading: but this is supported by no MS., nor is 1X3 found in the singular number in any. It is generally understood of the desirable or valuable things which the ditierent nations should bring into the temple; and it is certain that many rich presents were brought into this temple. All are puzzled with it. But the principal difficulty lies in the verb 1N31 ubau, they shall come. If we found man nN^l ubaa chemdath in the singular, then it would read as in our text. And the Desire of all nations shall come: but no such reading appears in any MS.; nor is it fairly acknowledged, except by the Vulgate, which reads, Et veniet desideratus cunctis gentibus, " And that which is desired," or the desired Person, " shall come to all nations." In ver. 7 God says he will shake or stir up all nations; that these nations shall bring their desirable things; that the house shall be filled with God's glory; that the silver and gold, which these nations are represented as bringing by way of gifts, are the Lord's; and that the glory of this latter house shall exceed the former. Bp. Chandler labours to vindicate the present translation; but he makes rash assertions, and is abandoned by the Hebrew text. The N3 ba, to come, is often used in the sense of bring, and that man chemdath, desire, may be considered as the plural for mion, having the point holem instead of the 1 vau, and thus mean desirable things, will not be de.
hy assurances of its exceeding
8 The silver is mine, and the
01. Lxv. 1. gold is mine, saith the Lord of
hosts. 9 'The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give " peace, saith the Lord of hosts.
10 Li the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying,
1 1 Thus saith the Lord of hosts; " Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying,
1 2 If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No.
1 3 Then said Haggai, If one that is ° unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be
tmclean? And the priests an- ^'n'.^slo' swcred and said, It shall be oi. lxv. i
14 Then answered Haggai, and ^- """"'"■ '^- said, P So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean.
1 5 And now, I pray you, i consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord:
16 Since those days were, 'when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the press-fat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty.
17 'I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail ' in all the labours of your hands; " yet ye turned not to me, saith the
nied by those who are acquainted with the genius and construction of the Hebrew language. Bp. Chandler thinks that N2, he came, cannot be used of things, but of persons only. Here he is wideh' mistaken, for it is used of dai/s perpetually; and of the arh, 2 Sam. vi. 9; and of mounts coming against Jerusalem, Jer. xsxii. 21; and of trees coming to adorn the temple, Isa. Ix. 13; and of silrer and gold coming into the temple, Josh. vi. 19; and Jer. vi. 20, Why doth incense come to me 1 See Abp. Secker''s notes. I cannot see how the words can apply to Jesus Christ, even if the construction were less embarrassed than it is; because I cannot see how he could be called THE Desire of all nations. The whole seems to be a metaphorical description of the Church of Christ, and of his filling it with all the excellences of the Gentile world, when the fulness of the Gentiles shall be brought in.
A'erse 9. And in this place will I give peace] Drlii/ shalom, a peace-offering, as well as peace itself; or Jesus Christ, who is called the Prince of peace, tlirough whom peace is proclaimed between God and man, between man and his fellows; and through whom peace is established in the disconsolate soul. And at this temple this peace was first promulgated and proclaimed.
But it is said that the glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former. Now this cannot be said because Jesus Christ made his personal aj)pearance in that tem])le, or rather in that built by Herod; for, though we allow that Jesus Christ is equal with God, we do not grant that he is greater. Now the first temple was the dicelling-place of God: here he manifested his glory between the cherubim, and it was his constant residence for more than four hundred years. But the glory of this latter house was greater because under it the grand scheme of human salvation was exhibited, and the redemption price paid down for a lost world. As all probably applies to the Christian Church, the real house of God, its glory was most certainly greater than any glory which was ever possessed by that of the Jews. See on ver. 22, 23.
Verse 10. In the four and twentieth day of the ninth month] Three months after they had begun to rebuild the temple, Haggai is ordered to go and put two questions to the priests. 1. If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and he touch any thing with his skirt, is that thing made holy? The priests answered. No! ver. 12. 2. If one has touched a dead body, and thereby become unclean, does he communicate his uncleanness to whatever he may touch? And the priests answered, Yes! ver. 13.
Verse 14. Then answered Haggai — So is this people] As an unclean man communicates his uncleanness to every thing he touches, so are ye unclean; and whatever ye have hitherto done is polluted in the sight of God. For your neglect of my temple has made you unclean, as if you had contracted legal pollution by touching a dead body.
Verse 16. Since those days were] I have shown my displeasure against you, by sending blasting and mildeu'; and so poor have been your crops that a heap of com which should have produced twenty measures produced only ten; and that quantity oC grapes which in other years would have produced ffty measures, through their poverty, smallness, &c., produced only twenty. And this has been the case ever since the first stone was laid in this tetnple; for your hearts
Prumises oj fi~uitful seasons.
01. LXV. 1. day and upward, from the four
Superbt"" and twentieth day of the ninth
the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider it.
19 "Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day will I bless you.
20 And again the word of the Lord came unto Haggai, in the four and twentieth day of tlie month, saying,
HAG GAL Predictions of mighty revolutions,
22 And ^ I will overthrow the "'supcrbK,'"" throne of kingdoms, and I will R- Rom^n., is. destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and '' I will overthrow the chariots, and those tliat ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.
23 In that day, saith the Lord of hosts will I take thee, 0 Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, '' and will make thee as a signet: for ■= I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of host s.
were not right with me, and therefore I blasted you in all the labours of your hands; and yet ye have not turned to me, ver. 17.
Verse 18. C nnsider now from this day'\ I will now change my conduct towards you: from this day that ye have begun heartily to rebuild my temple, and restore my worship, / tinll bless you. Whatever you soxo, whatever you plant, shall be blessed; your land shall be fruitful, and ye shall have abundant crops of all sorts.
Verse 20. Again the word of the Lord came] This was a second communication in the same day.
Verse 21. I will shake the heavens and the earth] Calmet supposes that the invasion of Camlyses, and his death, are what the prophet has in view by this shaking of the heavens and the earth: but this invasion and defeat happened three years before they had begun to work at the temple; and how could it be made a matter of interest to Zerubbabel! Calmet answers this, by translating the words in the past tense; and shows that the fact was recalled to Zerubbabel's attention, to fix his confidence in God, &c. Bp. Newcome says we may well understand this and the twentysecond verse of the calamity undergone by Babylon in the reign of Darius; of the Macedonian conquests in Persia; and of the wars which the successors of Alexander waged against each other: others understand it of the Romans.
Verse 23. In that day, saith the Lord] Some think, says this same learned ^^■riter, that Zerubbabel is put here for his people and posterity: but it may well be said that the commotions foretold began in the rebellion of Babylon, which Darius besieged and took; and exercised great cruelties upon its inhabitants. — Herod. lib. iii., sec. 220. Justin, i. 10. Prideaux places this event in the fifth year of Darius; others, with more probability, in the eighth year. Compare Zech. ii. 9.
And tcill make thee as a signet] I will e.xalt thee 0 high dignity, power, and trust, of which the seal was the instrument or sign in those days. Thou shalt j be under my peculiar care, and shalt be to me very i precious. See Jer. xxii. 24; Cant. viii. 6; and see the notes on these two places.
For I have chosen thee] He had an important and:
difficult work to do, and it was necessary that he should be assured of God's especial care and protection during the whole.
On the three last verses of this prophecy a sensible and pious correspondent sends me the following illustration, which I cheerfully insert. Though in many respects different from that given above, yet I believe that the kingdom of Christ is particularly designed in this prophecy.
" I think there is an apparent difficulty in this passage, because the wars of the Persians and Babylonians were not so interesting to the rising commonwealth of the Jews as many subsequent events of less note in the world, but which were more directly levelled at their own national prosperity; and yet neither the one nor the other could be termed ' a shaking of the heavens and the earth, and an overthrow of the throne of kingdoms.'
" I know not if the following view may be admitted as an explanation of this difficult passage. I take ' the shaking of the heavens and earth' here (as in ver. 6) to have a more distant and comprehensive meaning than can belong to Zerubbabel's time, or to his immediate posterity; and that it extends not only to the overthrow of kingdoms then existing, but of the future great monarchies of the world; and not excepting even the civil and ecclesiastical estabhshments of the Jews themselves. For 1 take ' the heavens,' in the prophetic language, uniformly to denote the true Church, and never the superstitions and idols of the nations.
" What, then, are we to understand by the promise made to Zerubbabel, ' I will make thee as a signet V In the first place, the restitution of the religious and civil polity of the people of Israel, conformably to the promises afterwards given in the four first chapters of Zechariah. And, secondly, as the royal signet is the instrument by which kings give validity to laws, and thereby unity and consistence to their empire; so Jehovah, the God and King of Israel, condescends to promise he will employ Zerubbabel as his instrument of gathering and uniting the people again as a distin- guished nation; and that such should be the permanency of their political existence, that, whilst other nations and mighty empires should be overthrown, and their very name blotted out under heaven, the Jews should ever remain a distinct people, even in the wreck of their own government, and the loss of all which rendered their religion splendid and attractive.
" In confirmation of this interpretation, I would refer to the threatening denounced against Jeconiah, (called Coniah, Jer..\.\ii.,) the last reigning king of Judah, and the progenitor of Zerubbabel. I apprehend I may be authorized to read Jer. xxii. 21 thus: ' As I hve, saith the Lord, though Coniah, the son of Jehoiakini, king of Judah, be the signet upon my right hand, yet will I pluck thee thence, and I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life,' &c.
" If it be considered that the kings of Judah were in an especial and peculiar manner the delegates of Jehovah, governing in his name and by his authority, a peculiar propriety will appear in their being resembled to signets, or royal seals contained in rings. Compare Gen. xli. 42; Esth. iii. 10, 12, viii. 2, 8; Dan. vi. 7. And the promise to Zerubbabel will be equivalent to those which clearly predict the preservation of the Jewish people by the Divine command, see Zech. ii.; and the faithfulness of God to his covenant concerning the Messiah, who should be born of the seed of Abraham, and in the family of David, of whose throne he was the rightful Proprietor.
" Accordmg to this view, by the promise, ' In that day — I will make thee as a signet,' &c., must be understood, that the preservation of the Jews as a distinc* people, when all the great empires of the heathen were overthroion, would manifest the honour now conferred on Zerubbabel as the instrument of their restoration after the Babylonish captivity. Thus the promise to Abraham, Gen. xii., ' I will make of thee a great nation — and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed,' evidently referred to a very distant future period; and the honour connected with it could not be enjoyed by Abraham during his mortal life."
I think, however, that we have lived to see the spirit of this prophecy fulfilled. The earth has been shaken; another shaking, and time shall be swallowed up in eternity.
^ECHARIAH, the eleventh of the twelve minor prophets, was son of Berechiah, and grandson of Iddo. He returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel: and began to prophesyin the second year of the reign of Darius, son of Hystaspes, in tlie year of the world 3484 before Christ, 516; before the vulgar era, 520; in the eighth month of the holy year; and two months after Haggai had begun to prophesy.
These two prophets, with united zeal, encouraged at the same time the people to go on with the work of the temple, which had been discontinued for some years.
The time and place of the birth of Zechariah are miknown. Some will have him to have been born at Babylon, during the captivity; others think he was born at Jerusalem, before the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were carried away. Some maintain that he was a priest; but others affirm that he was no priest. Many say he was the immediate son of Iddo; others believe, with much more reason, that he was son of Berechiah, and grandson of Iddo.
He has been confounded with one Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, who lived in the time of Isaiah; and with Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist; which opinion is plainly incono-ruous. Lastly, he has been thought to be Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom our Saviour mentions, and says he was killed between the temple and the altar; though no such thin tr is anywhere said of our prophet. A tomb is shown to this day at the foot of the Mount of Olives, which, it is pretended, belongs to the prophet Zechariah. Dorotheas maintains that he was buried in a place called Bethariah, one hundred and fifty furlongs from
Zechariah is the longest and the most obscure of all the twelve minor prophets. His style is interrupted, and without connection. His prophecies concerning the Messiah are more particular and express than those of the other prophets. Some modern critics, as Mede and Hammond, have been of opinion that the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of this prophet were written by Jeremiah; because in Matthew, chap, xxvii. 9, 10, under the name of Jeremiah, we find quoted Zechariah; (chap. xi. 12;) and as the aforesaid chapters make but one continued discourse, they concluded from thence that all three belonged to Jeremiah. But it is much more natural to suppose that, by some unlucky mistake, the name of Jeremiah has slipped into the text of St. Matthew instead of that of Zechariah.
The prophet Zechariah exactly foretold the siege of Babylon by Darius, son of Hystaspes. This prince laid siege to that rebellious city at the beginning of the//i!/tyear of his reign, and reduced it at the end of twenty months. The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah had foretold this calamity, and had admonished the Jews that inhabited there to make their escape when they perceived the time draw nigh. Isaiah says to them, " Go ye forth to Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans; with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye. The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob." And Jeremiah says, " Remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he-goats before the flocks." And elsewhere, " Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man
his soul; be not cut off in her iniquity: for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance, He will render unto her a recompense." Lastly, Zechariah, a httle before the time of her fall, writes thus to the Jews that were still in this city: " Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith the Lord; for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of heaven, saith the Lord. Deliver thyself, 0 Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, after the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you, ior he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye. For, behold, I will shake mine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants; and ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me."
It is probable that the Jews took advantage of these admonitions, and retimied from Babylon into their country; or, at least, withdrew into a place of more security till the city was taken. We do not liear, either from the history or the prophecies, that they suffered any thing by this siege, or that Darius, son of Hystaspes, bore them any grudge for the revoh of Babylon; which seems to indicate that they had no part in it.
The Mohammedans do not distinguish between the prophet Zechariah, and Zachariah the father of John the Baptist. Some of them make him to be descended from David; and others, from Levi. By an anachronism that is still more insupportable, these confound Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, with Mary or Miriam, the sister of Moses, which they derive even from the Koran itself.
The author of Tarik Montekhib relates that, when Jesus Christ was born of the virgin, the prophet Zechariah could not believe that a child could be born without a father; and that, declaring his sentiments upon this point, the Jews entertained a suspicion of him, and obliged him to betake himself to flight. He withdrew; and hid himself in a hollow oak, which the Jews sawed in two.
Such is the ignorance of the Mussulmans as regards the history both of the Old and New Testaments.
Chronological Notes relative to this Book.
Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3484. — Year of the Julian Period, 4194. — Year of tlie Jewish era of the world, 3241. — Year from the Flood, 1828. — Year from the vocation of Abram, 1401. — Year since the tirst celebration of the Olympic games in Elis, by the Ida?i Dactyli, 934. — Year since the destruction of Troy, according to the general account, 664. — Year since the foundation of the monarchy of the Israelites by the Divine appointment of Saul to the regal dignity, 576. — Year t'rom the foundation of Solomon's temple, 492. — Y''ear from the division of Solomon's monarchy into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, 456. — Year since the re-establishment of the Olympic games in Elis by Lycurgus, Iphitus, and Cleosthenes, 365. — Year since the conquest of Coroebus at Olympia, usually called the first Olympiad, 257. — First year of the sixty-Jifth Olympiad. — Year from the building of Rome, according to the Yarronian or generally received computation, 234. — Year from the building of Rome, according to Cato and the Fasti Consulares, 233. — Year from the building of Rome, according to Polybius the historian, 232. — Year from the building of Rome, according to Fabius Pictor, 228. — Year of the era of Nabonassar, 228.— Year since the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, 202. — Year since the destruction of the kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 68. — Year since the destruction of the Chaldean empire by the Persians, 18. — -Year before the birth of Christ, 516. — Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 520. — Cycle of the Sun, 22. — Cycle of the Moon, 14.— Second year of Darius I., king of Persia. — Twenty-eighth year of Amyntas, king of Macedon. — Seventh year of Demaratus, king of Lacedffimon, of the family of the Proclidae. — Eleventh year of Cleomenes, king of Lacedasmon, of the family of the Eurysthenida;. — Fifteenth year of Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of the Romans. — This was about twelve years before the commencement of the consular government. According to some chronologers this was the age of Confucius.
The prophet earnestly exhorts the people to repentance, that they may escape sucn punisnments as had been inflicted on their fathers, 1—6. The vision of the horses, with the signification, 7—11. The angel of the Lord successfully intercedes in behalf of Jerusalem, 12-17. The vision of the four horns, and of the four carpenters, 18—21.
TN the eighth month, ^ in the the word of the Lord ''unto
Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,