THEN ZERUBBABEL SON of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jehozadak, 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.
13Then Haggai, the LORD’s messenger, gave this message of the LORD to the people: “I am with you,” declares the LORD. 14So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God, 15on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.
Original Meaning
UNLIKE THE FIRST SECTION of Haggai (see 1:1), the date for 1:12–15 is provided at the end of the section: the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of Darius, twenty-three days after the first message. This date places the commencement of work in the midst of the grape, fig, and pomegranate harvests. Although the people may have responded positively immediately to the message (1:12), the work on the temple would have started after proper preparations had been made and the harvest was complete.
This section describes the people’s response to Haggai’s message in Hag. 1:1–11, which is given both from the divine and human perspective. At the center is the core promise: “I am with you.” This response represents a massive step of faith. Nearly two decades prior to this, an earlier group of Jews under their governor Sheshbazzar had responded to the invitation of Cyrus and began to work on the same temple site, yet with little success (see Ezra 1; 5:15–16). Now amidst threats from those in adjoining Persian provinces (see Ezra 3:3; 4:1–5; 5:1–6:15), a new generation begins the temple project anew. The message of God’s promised presence is essential to bolster the faith of these underdogs.
As already noted in the comments on Hag. 1:1–11, verses 12–15 need to be interpreted in light of verses 1–11. This is suggested by the inversion of the date formulae that appear in 1:1 and 1:15, a rhetorical technique that forges the two sections together,1 as well as by the close similarity between the lists of people in 1:1 and 1:12. This section thus functions as a narrative description of the people’s response to the message of the prophet in 1:1–11.
Detailed Analysis
THIS PASSAGE DESCRIBES the people’s reaction to the message of the prophet Haggai. As in 1:1, Zerubbabel and Joshua are listed, but the people are mentioned as well: “whole remnant of the people.”2 When the people were mentioned at Hag. 1:2, they were referred to as “these people” (1:2), a somewhat derogatory appellation that revealed a distance in the relationship between God and the covenant people. Now, however, they are identified as the “remnant,” a term drawn from the prophetic tradition. Mason sees the importance of this move: “May the editor be expressing the opinion that it was the prophetic word of Yahweh and their response to it which constituted them as the true Israel, the genuine ‘remnant’?”3 The notion of a remnant among the people is important for the classical prophets. God does not reject but rather disciplines his people. The remnant is the group that emerges from this discipline sanctified and purified for service.4
The initial response of the people with their leaders is twofold: obedience and fear. The phrase “obey the voice” (šamaʿ beqol) of God is a regular expression in Hebrew literature denoting a positive response to God’s covenant demands.
The second response is that of “fear.” Although it may be tempting to see here the typical covenant response in Deuteronomy and elsewhere (i.e., the posture of reverent submission and trust in Yahweh; e.g., Deut. 10:12, 20),5 the Hebrew phrase used here (yaraʾ mippeney, “to fear in the presence of”) is one used elsewhere for humanity’s response to judgment or to the awesome presence of God (Deut. 5:5; 13:11; 17:13; 19:20; 21:21).6 Both are appropriate here. Haggai has identified the presence of God in judgment in their recent past, and their response is one of trembling fear as they willingly receive the word.
Haggai’s message is equated with the voice of God by placing them in apposition. “The voice of the LORD their God” is not somehow distinct from the message of the prophet Haggai. Rather, the only message they have heard is the one that came through the prophet, and this is the voice of the Lord. Their response, therefore, echoes the response of the nation that first heard the covenant at Sinai, for it was the voice of God that they feared, and they begged Moses to become the prophetic mediator of the message of God (Ex. 20; Deut. 5). Haggai is thus cast into the role of Moses, delivering the message of God, his voice to a new generation.
The people’s response elicits a short but important response from the Lord: “I am with you” (Hag. 1:13). This phrase draws from a legacy of assurance by God to those who assume a task from his hand (see Ex. 3:12; Judg. 6:12; Jer. 1:8, 19). Interestingly, when David desires to build the first temple, Nathan the prophet said “for the LORD is with you” (2 Sam. 7:3). The same assurance is now given to another generation seeking to fulfill the passion of David.
Verse 13 provides an excellent transition from the initial response of the people to the revelation of the work of God in verse 14. The core promise comprises two words in Hebrew, identifying the two partners in this new project: the people (“you”) and Yahweh (“I”). It begins the movement toward God as the source of this great project that climaxes in the following verse. A people, obedient yet filled with fear, are comforted by God, who reassures them by this simple promise that he accepts them and will accompany them in this great enterprise.
This reassurance of his presence flows into the divine perspective on the response of the people. The same participants are noted in verse 14 as in verse 12, but now instead of being the subjects of the verbs, the people are the objects and Yahweh the actor: Yahweh “stirs up” (Hiphil of ʿwr) their “spirits.” Elsewhere this verb refers to God’s action to set in motion the restoration of the people in the Persian period and is connected to his work through the Persian emperor Cyrus (2 Chron. 36:22–23; Ezra 1:1; Isa. 41:2, 25; 45:13). However, as Ezra 1:5 shows, this action also extended to God’s people. This verb emphasizes God’s active role in moving the affections of his people to respond to the message. It reflects the vision of the new covenant seen in Jeremiah (Jer. 31–33), in which God not only writes the law on the hearts of the people (31:33) but even moves their affections (32:40).
In light of the fact that Haggai is pictured as a second Moses who delivers the word of God to a responsive (obeying and fearing) generation, paralleling the Sinaitic covenant community, it is interesting that a similar verbal idea is used in the context of the building of the tabernacle (Ex. 35:29; 36:2) to refer to the willingness of the people to give and to work on the tabernacle.7 In that context, however, the people are the subjects of this verb, while in Haggai Yahweh is the subject, evidence of a shift toward the new covenant ethos proclaimed by Jeremiah.
As the text ends the description of the people’s response and closes the first section of the book, the author announces that the people begin to work on the temple. Note the repetition of the name “LORD Almighty” here, whose word began this section (1:2), and the subscription of the date, arranged in reverse order to that found in verse 1.
Bridging Contexts
IN THIS BRIEF DESCRIPTION of the people’s response to Haggai’s message, this passage emphasizes the qualities of human covenant faithfulness, the provision of God’s presence, and the authority of the prophetic word. The example and experience of this ancient community are instructive for us as Christians today who follow in their footsteps as we seek to fulfill God’s kingdom priorities for our generation. The precedent for Christian appropriation of a story like this is established by Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:1–13, where the apostle uses the experience of the desert community to encourage faithfulness among the Corinthian believers. This is appropriate, he says, because we are the ones “on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.” As the ultimate expression of the community of God, the church can learn from these ancient examples and, in even greater ways because of Christ’s sacrifice and the Spirit’s endowment, walk faithfully.
Remnant. In Hag. 1:12 the community that displays the qualities of covenant faithfulness is called the “remnant.” This word, as noted above, is a theological term connected to the rich Old Testament prophetic tradition. The concept of the remnant assumes both continuity and discontinuity with the community of old. A remnant is a portion that remains and assumes that formerly there was a community from which the portion was taken. A remnant, however, is only a portion, and although bearing similarities with the whole it becomes a new entity. As the prophets develop the theme of the remnant in the Old Testament, they show that God’s promises remain intact, but that they will be fulfilled through a purified community, the remnant.
The use of the remnant motif in Haggai is not surprising for it is intimately linked to the important themes of covenant discipline and the presence of God. The remnant represents those who have experienced the covenant discipline of God and have emerged purified. At the same time the remnant is pictured as a community who will experience the presence of God; in particular, they will have God’s Spirit within them (Ezek. 37:1–14; Joel 2:28–32).
The remnant is also offered a new covenant experience in the writings of both Jeremiah and Ezekiel. There we learn that God envisions a new covenant, which, although utilizing the same law base of the old covenant, will rely on God’s internal work in the hearts of the people (Jer. 31:31–34; cf. Ezek. 16:59–63). The focus in covenant references in Jeremiah is on the work of God to accomplish covenant fidelity (Jer. 32:36–41, esp. 40). Ezekiel echoes this emphasis by linking this work to the Spirit in the context of rebuilding the temple (Ezek. 36:24–38). Interestingly, Ezekiel speaks of an everlasting covenant that combines the themes of the Davidic line, the sanctuary, and the remnant, also seen in Haggai 1 (Ezek. 37:15–28).
This remnant theme carries over into the New Testament and sets the stage for the advance of the church in Acts. One can hardly miss the allusions in Acts 2 to the returning of the remnant to the land of Israel (see the list of nations in Acts 2:9–11). Jews stream into Jerusalem from all over the ancient world, and as they do, they hear the wonders of God in their own languages. Peter explains these phenomena by quoting from Joel 2, a passage that refers to the remnant (the survivors) returning and receiving the Spirit of God (see Joel 2:32). This sermon results in the salvation of three thousand on that day, the foundation layer of the church.
As the church is born in Acts 2, it is described as the remnant community that has been purified and on whom rests God’s Spirit. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the church is pictured as the recipients of the new covenant through Christ (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25; 2 Cor. 3:6; Heb. 8:6; 9:15). As the “remnant,” the community of Christ needs to replicate the qualities of covenant faithfulness depicted in Haggai 1:12–15, that is, to stand in awe before God and respond in obedience to his Word as they pursue Christ’s kingdom.
Presence. To such a community God promises his presence: “I am with you.” The use of this phrase in a passage speaking of the building of the place of God’s manifest presence (temple) is important. Note how the event that breaks up the account of the tabernacle construction in Exodus 25–40 is the story of the golden calf rebellion and the subsequent interaction between Yahweh and Moses (chs. 32–34). The focus of that interaction is a fierce dialogue between Yahweh and Moses over the provision of his presence (ch. 33). God agrees to provide his presence with Moses as they build the tabernacle and continue their journey to the Promised Land. Likewise, Solomon is aware of the blessing of God’s presence with him and his people as he dedicates the temple (1 Kings 8:57).8
It is not surprising, then, that as Christ sends forth his disciples in Matthew 28:18–20, his parting promise is the provision of his presence. This presence is clearly outlined in John 14:15–31 as the Holy Spirit sent by Christ to his people. Acts pictures a community who experiences Christ’s presence through the Spirit as they take the gospel to the world (Acts 1:8; 2).
As Haggai promised Yahweh’s presence for those involved in the kingdom work of the temple in the Persian period, so Christ promises his presence for his disciples. That promise far transcends that of Haggai’s as the presence of Yahweh comes to fill each believer permanently. However, the link is unmistakable and provides an important connection to our life in Christ.
Revelation. Not only does this narrative emphasize the covenant partners, God and his community, but also the prophetic mediator who faithfully delivers God’s message to his people. The authority of the word of this mediator is stressed by equating the voice of God with the prophet’s message (“voice of the LORD their God and message of the prophet Haggai”) and by the declaration of the calling of the prophet (“the LORD their God had sent him . . . the LORD’s messenger . . . the message of the LORD to the people”). To hear the prophet was to hear God.
Such a respect for God’s message is displayed in the words the Israelites heard thundering from Sinai in Exodus 20:1–17. Significantly, the response of the Exodus generation to God’s word on Mount Sinai was identical to the reaction of Haggai’s generation: They “feared” (20:18). It is this experience that prompted Moses’ appointment as mediator of God’s word to his generation (Ex. 20:19–21), a model that shaped the prophetic movement throughout the history of Israel. The narrator here is emphasizing that Haggai shares a legitimate place in the long line of prophets, beginning with Moses, who mediated God’s word to his people. The response of the people emphasizes the authority of this Word.
HUMAN RESPONSE. By depicting the response of the people and designating this group as the “remnant,” Haggai 1:12–15 affirms this response as normative—that is, the proper response of God’s people is always obedience to his voice. This response is only possible because of a depth of covenant relationship with God, a relationship in which the people hear his word. Haggai’s message was accepted by a remnant that had open ears to hear. This obedience has two aspects: “fear” and “work.” The first is the internal quality of submissive reverence for the word of God, while the second is the external quality of committed action.
Our response to God’s Word today is no different. Based on the depth of covenant relationship with God through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and through the Spirit’s empowerment in our lives, we are called to listen attentively to God’s Word and to respond in obedience. Such obedience will arise from an internal depth of reverence for the God who speaks to us and will result in active obedience. James 1:22–25 echoes this concern:
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.
James’s instruction is not to discontinue listening to God’s Word, but rather to look “intently” and continue to “do this.” Notice how he reflects the message of Haggai by linking such obedience to blessings from God.
This teaching of James is especially appropriate for those who have been Christians for an extended period of time. One of the core values of the church is the preaching and teaching of God’s Word (e.g., Acts 2:41; Eph. 4:11–16; 1 Tim. 4:11–16). However, it is easy for regular parishioners’ (let alone pastors’) knowledge of that Word to exceed the appropriation of that Word in their life. This should affect our patterns as individuals and churches. It may be better for us to focus on fewer experiences in the Word followed by longer reflection on its implications for lives and godliness than to quickly move ahead to the next passage in our journey through the Bible. The danger is to become used to listening to the Word without responding in actions, to feed the intellect without moving the affections and impacting the will.
Prophetic word. The reverent response of the people cannot be separated from their conviction of the divine origin of Haggai’s prophetic word. However, several trends in contemporary Christian culture have led to a loss of this emphasis within the church. (1) With Bibles translated into our native tongues and multiple copies residing in many homes, it is easy to lose sight of the wonder of the revelation that we hold in our hands today. These words, now reproduced in written form, were delivered throughout the history of God’s people by his chosen servants, the prophets.
(2) Attacks on the veracity of the Scriptures have led to a lack of confidence in God’s Word as authoritative. For some the Bible contains God’s word but is not his word in totality.
(3) Recent hermeneutical reflection has called into question the ability of God’s people to interpret the biblical text, suggesting that interpretation is nothing more than the reflection of one’s own mind. Such factors have led to a devaluing of the ancient Scriptures in the life of the church.
With such factors a reality today, how can we recover appropriate reverence and respect for God’s Word? Surely one must meet theological challenges to the doctrine of Scripture through careful study of the biblical text, theological history, and philosophy. But this is not enough. Recovering reverence and respect for the Word of God will mean reshaping our approach to that Word.
(1) This needs to happen on the individual level. A friend of mine was asked to deliver a seminar on the authority of Scripture in preaching at a national meeting of his denomination. Surprising to some, he focused his seminar not on the latest theological debates over the authority of Scripture. Instead, he taught them how to pray through Scripture, seeking to guide the pastors into a conversation with God over the passages they had studied so faithfully. Without minimizing the importance of theological debate over authority, I believe that this was an important strategy for recovering the practical authority of Scripture within the church today. People must approach God’s Word as revelation and respond to him in the depth of their affections through prayer as a pathway to response, that is, to act out their presumed beliefs.
Such an approach to Scripture is reflected in prayers in the Bible. For instance, Ezra 9, Nehemiah 1 and 9, and Daniel 9 are filled with allusions to and quotations from the books of the Law. These texts show how exegesis became prayer.9
(2) This advice must also be appropriated on the communal level. The use and treatment of Scripture in our contexts of worship and fellowship both reflect and shape our view of God’s Word. A few years ago I attended a church in Glasgow, Scotland on a Sunday morning. The first item in that service was not the invocation or the procession of the pastor. Instead, an elderly man appeared from behind the platform with a gargantuan Bible in his hand. He gingerly climbed the steps up to the raised pulpit of the church, carefully set the Bible on the pulpit, and descended. This ritual, practiced weekly at that church, reminded the people of the importance and authority of God’s Word for that community of faith. Other churches I have attended communicate this reverence in other ways, whether through standing as the Bible is read aloud or by declaring “thus far God’s Word.” These rituals subtly shape a community’s view of the Word.
We find evidence of these kinds of rituals in Nehemiah 8. There we see that when Ezra opens the book of the Law, the people stand up and then bow down and worship the Lord. So reverent are these people for the words of this book that when they hear them, they begin to weep because of their lack of obedience to its demands. This example shows us a community whose respect for God’s Word leads to a depth of response that grips their affections.
The “remnant” in Haggai’s day had a deep respect for the Word of God delivered to them through the Lord’s prophet. Such respect had deep roots within this community. How do we nourish that kind of respect? Clearly it will mean a deep stirring in the hearts of our people and community, something accomplished by the Spirit’s work but also by human response. It also means recovering the kind of rituals that remind us of the importance of this Word—that is, rhythms that create an ethos of respect for the Word in which the Spirit can do a new work. May we find creative ways to foster this within our individual and corporate lives today.
Divine provision. Haggai 1:12–15 reminds us that God graciously grants us the resources to fulfill his priorities, making it clear that even the human response is a work of the Almighty God as he stirs his people to action and then promises his presence to sustain the work. This does not preclude human involvement; rather, it assumes it. However, in the new covenant, God accompanies the call with his empowerment (see Jer. 31:31–34). He provides the spiritual resources, especially through the Spirit, to fulfill his mandate within our generation. This is the great mystery of Philippians 2:12–13, in which Paul calls the people to “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” The resources are provided by the sovereign God as we respond to his call.
There is also an implicit warning to the church in the description of the response in Haggai 1:12–14. Once the response is described in verse 12, the focus of attention quickly moves to God’s promised presence (“I am with you”) and the revelation that even this response found its source in God’s prompting. In fulfilling the work of the kingdom, it is surprising how often the church focuses on the human level and thus robs God of the glory due him. The first order of business in building projects or evangelistic campaigns is often the hiring of a slick advertising or fundraising organization rather than securing the presence of the Lord Almighty and asking him to stir up a community empowered by the Spirit to accomplish the great task ahead. By this I am not suggesting that God cannot work in and through the human participants; rather, I am pointing out the speed by which we move to the human at the expense, I believe, of the divine.
Christ has promised his presence with us through his Spirit today. The church today needs to live in recognition of the Spirit’s work in our lives and communities and cry to God for the work of the Spirit in our midst (Luke 11:13).
Martin Lloyd-Jones ends his study of revival by commenting on the prayer of Isaiah in Isaiah 64:1–2 (“Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!”). He calls the church to cry to God for the presence of God’s Spirit among us in order to fulfill their mission:
The reason why men and women are outside the Church is that they do not know God, they do not know his name. . . . And they will never know it until they see a manifestation of it, and, so we pray, descend, come down, rend the heavens that these adversaries may know thy name. Nothing will make them listen but that. We have tried everything else, have we not? The church has never been so brilliant in her organisations as she is at the present time and as she has been during the whole of this century, she is using every means that the world can use and can give her, but the statistics go on repeating their miserable tale. . . .
What is the matter? These people do not know the name of the Lord, and there is only one thing that we can do, we must pray to him to rend the heavens and to make his name known, so that not only may they know it, but further, so that the nations may “tremble at thy presence,” that knowing the name of the Lord, they may begin to fear him, and to desist from sin.10
May this prayer be the prayer of our churches today as we return to God in obedience and cry for the renewal that only his presence through his Spirit can bring.