Good Morning, Siblings!
Today we read the book of Haggai
Read today’s Bible readings at BibleGateway by clicking here.
Shawn Parris is providing notes today but I’ll be back on notes tomorrow.
Shawn’s Rabbit Trails
Haggai Quick Facts
- Haggai means: Festival or Festive
- The author of this book: Haggai
- Book was written: September 24, 520BC (Per Haggai 1:1)
Observations:
- Haggai is second only to Obadiah in briefness among the books of the Old Testament.
- Haggai’s name is mentioned 9 times in the book.
- Haggai is known only from this book as well as two references to him in the Book of Ezra: Ezra 5:1 & Ezra 6:14
- Haggai returned from Babylon with the remnant that returned under the leadership of Zerubbabel.
- Upon his return, he lived in Jerusalem.
- God used two prophets to urge the people to complete the construction of the Temple: Haggai & Zechariah
- Darius (522-486 B.C., Darius, Dareiawosh) was King of Persia of the Achaemenid dynasty (https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Daryavesh) during the time of the work of Haggai and Zechariah
- At the time of the book of Haggai, it had been 16 years since the initial work on rebuilding the Temple had begun.
Chronology of the rebuilding of the Temple:
- 536 B.C. – The work began.
- 534 B.C. – After two year (534 B.C.) the work was discontinued for 14 years.
- 520 B.C. – The work was resumed and completed four years later.
- 516 B.C. – The work on the Temple was completed.
NOTE: Six years of actual work was done over a twenty-year period.
Good thing about Bible prophesies: They repeat or they follow a pattern over multiple of times. We see this in the pattern of the House of Yehovah ie. The Tent of Meeting, Solomon’s Temple, Herod’s Temple, and the coming Third Temple.
Haggai is mentioned in Ezra (Ezra 5:1 and 6:14). We see that Haggai was around the time that the remnant of Judah was returning back from exile in Babylon to build the Temple. At this time the building of the Temple got delayed for various reasons, which is why we later see Ezra stepping in to get the Temple built. Did you know that only a small portion of Jews returned to Judah from the Babylonian exile? Daniel did not even return to Judah. He is commonly believed to be buried in Iran (Modern day Persia, https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tomb-of-daniel).
An interesting observation, the name of the High Priest in Haggai’s day was the same name as our King and Savior, Yeshua (Y’hoshua), commonly translated to Joshua in English (Haggai 2:2-5).
In chapter 2 of Haggai, we see Yehovah describing the condition of Judah (Haggai 2:13-19). They were unclean. In His time which He declares that He will clean them, He will restore them.
We live in exciting times! May we continue to seek Yehovah’s face and to test everything and to hold on what is good and to remove anything that tarnishes the Image of Yehovah (Genesis 1:26-27).
Test everything, hold tight to what is good.~ 1 Thess 5:21
We are saved by Grace alone: Obedience is not the root of our salvation, it is the fruit!
May YHWH bless the reading of His Word!