Day 37 – Wednesday -- The Book of Haggai

Day 37 – Wednesday

The Book of Haggai

Why did I grow up saying “Haggyai”? I don’t know. The main message is simple:
Stop procrastinating! Build a new temple!

Unlike other prophets’ books, this one is address to an individual. Well, two. God has a message for Zerubbabel and Joshua. (No, not that Joshua.) Zerubbabel is the Governor of Jerusalem after the exile; and Joshua is the High Priest. God tells them to get with it. Build a new temple! Haggai delivers these prophecies during a four month period. To be more exact, from August 29 to December 18 in the year 520 BCE.

About 50,000 Jews had returned from exile in Babylon. A foundation had been built for a new temple, but was halted for 18 years. A whole generation or two had no knowledge of a temple because it was destroyed 66 years before by the Babylonians.

It’s sort of a Stewardship Campaign. “The money will be there,” says God. “There is plenty of money all around you, and I’m going to turn nations upside down and shake all the money out of their pockets.”

Here is the “shaking” passage:

7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. 9 The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts (2.7-9).

There’s a lot of shakin’ going on:

 Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth… (2.21).

God is shaking things up.



FYI here is a temple time line:

967 BCE – Solomon starts building the first temple

960 BCE – the temple is completed

622 BCE – King Josiah repairs the aging temple

586 BCE – the Babylonians destroy the temple

536 BCE – returned exiles build the foundation for a new temple

520 BCE – Haggai tells the Jews to finish the temple

515 BCE – the Second Temple is completed

20 BCE – King Herod starts expanding the temple

64 CE – Herod’s renovation is completed

70 CE – the Romans destroy the Second Temple

691 CE – Muslims build the Dome of the Rock on the temple mount

Herod expanded the hilltop and shored it up with retaining walls, one of which survives today. It is the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall.


Finish this: Something that has begun in my life that I need to finish is…