Introduction

The prophet Haggai, Hebrew Haggai – “festive” or “celebratory”; LXX: Αγγαῖος, Vulgate: Aggaeus, whose book occupies the tenth place among the twelve minor prophets in both the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, is the first prophet of God after the Babylonian captivity who left behind written records. The significant historical importance of the book of the prophet Haggai, which sheds definite light on the first days and years of the life of the Judeans after their return from captivity, is universally recognized. Many modern scholars (Schrader and others) believe that for the established dates of the beginning of the construction of the second Jerusalem temple, the only reliable source is the account of the book of the prophet Haggai (the 24th day of the 9th month in the 2nd year of the reign of Darius Hystaspes – according to Hag 2:15, see Hag 1:1 and following), which is entirely in agreement with the account of the book of the contemporary prophet Zechariah (Zech 1:16), whereas the account of the book of Ezra (Ezra 3:1–chapter 4) about the laying of the foundation of the temple in Jerusalem still in the reign of Cyrus, specifically in the 2nd month of the 2nd year after the return of the Judeans with Zerubbabel and Joshua from captivity Ezra 3:8 and following), is declared by them to lack historical authenticity in light of the silence of the books of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah about any work on temple construction before their time. The extremity and falsity of this view is evident: there is no necessity to deny the fact of the laying of the foundation of the second temple still in the 2nd year after the return of the Judeans from captivity around 536 B.C.; the account of this in the book of Ezra is entirely compatible with the dates of the books of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah concerning the resumption of construction work on the temple in the 2nd year of the kingdom, in 519 or 518. But here it is rightly noted that the book of the prophet Haggai demonstrates precision and definiteness of chronological dates and the entire historical situation.

Regarding the life and activity of the prophet Haggai – the only person of this name known from Scripture, besides what is reported in his own book and confirmed by the testimony of the first book of Ezra (Ezra 5:1) about the appearance of the prophet Haggai together with the prophet Zechariah with a proclamation concerning the resumption of work on the construction of the second Jerusalem temple – biblical literature has not preserved. Jewish tradition calls (Baba Batra 15a) the prophet Haggai a member of the so-called Great Synagogue (Knesset-Haggadolah), just as rabbis also included the prophets Zechariah and Malachi in this Great Synagogue, as well as many other somewhat distinguished figures of the post-captivity era; as members of this Great Synagogue, the prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi are attributed in the Talmud with the composition of many rules and ordinances of ritual character (Eruvin II, 1; Shekalim III, 1). But against the reliability of this testimony speaks the fact that, according to Jewish tradition itself, the Great Synagogue was instituted only by Ezra (458 B.C.), consequently only 62 years after Haggai’s appearance on prophetic ministry (about 520), and chiefly – the extreme questionableness, indeed complete unreliability of the very existence of the Great Synagogue. In ancient Christian tradition likewise, there was not preserved nor fully established a consistent view on the person of the prophet Haggai. According to what is transmitted by Pseudo-Epiphanius, Pseudo-Dorotheus, and Pseudo-Hesychius, it is known that Haggai came from Babylon to Judea in early youth, prophesied about the return of the people from captivity, saw in part the restoration of the temple, and was the first to sing “Alleluia” there; he died in Jerusalem and was buried there near the graves of the priests. It is difficult to say how reliable these accounts are, but it is possible that they rest on a genuine historical kernel, all the more since the work “De vita et morte prophetarum,” which contains all these accounts, is now recognized in scholarship to have been originally written in Hebrew. How little, however, was this view on the time and circumstances of Haggai’s prophetic ministry accepted as common in the ancient Church is evident from the fact that blessed Augustine (commentary on Psalm 147) believed that the prophets Haggai and Zechariah began their prophetic ministry already in Babylon, and even more from the fact that, according to the testimony of blessed Jerome and Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Origen and his followers and some others, on the basis of Hag 1:13, regarded Haggai not as a man but as an Angel sent by God for preaching. In his commentary on Hag 1:13, blessed Jerome writes: “Some think that John the Baptist, Malachi, whose name means the Angel of the Lord, and Haggai, whose book we now have in our hands, were Angels, but by God’s consent and command assumed human bodies and walked among men” (Blessed Jerome – in the Russian translation – One book of commentary on the prophet Haggai, to Paula and Eustochium. Works, Part 16: p. 333). This unacceptable opinion, which provoked refutation from blessed Jerome and Saint Cyril of Alexandria, could have arisen, besides a literal understanding of the term melakh Yah in Hag 1:13 – also from the absence of the customary indication of the prophet’s father’s name among the prophets, as well as from the obscurity of the prophet’s grave among the people.

These grounds are, of course, entirely insufficient, all the more so because at the present time the name of the prophet’s father may already be known. During excavations in the courtyard of Haram es-Sharif, formerly occupied by the Jerusalem temple, an ancient Hebrew seal was found with letters in ancient Hebrew script inscribed on it: “Haggai, son of Shevanyahu.” In view of the mention of a signet ring worn by men found only in the prophet Haggai, there is reasonable grounds to see in this seal the very seal of the prophet Haggai, and one may suppose that he could have lost it near the temple, in the vicinity of which he must have been frequently, since he followed with great interest the proper conduct of work on the temple construction (Professor A. A. Olesnitsky, The Old Testament Temple, p. 855).

Given such meagerness and questionability of the information preserved by tradition about the person, life, and activity of the prophet Haggai, the historical kernel can be perceived in the accounts of Epiphanius, Dorotheus, and Hesychius, on the basis of which lies, apparently, an ancient, original Hebrew tradition. In the spirit of this tradition, some modern scholars (for example, Reuss) suppose that the prophet Haggai belonged to the sacred Levitical tribe and returned from Babylon in his youth. The opposite opinion of other scholars (Ewald, Keil, and others) – which relies on an interpretation of Hag 2:3 – to the effect that the prophet Haggai belonged to those elders who still saw Solomon’s temple (see Ezra 3:12), and thus at the beginning of the temple construction was at least 80 years old, is not consistent with the former and has little probability. The account of Epiphanius and Dorotheus, in their essential features, is reproduced also in our Prologue and Menaion under December 16, when the Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the holy prophet Haggai. In the Menaion of Saint Dimitry of Rostov for December 16 we read the following about the prophet Haggai: “He was from the tribe of Levi, born in Babylon in captivity; still young, he came from Babylon to Jerusalem, and prophesied together with the holy prophet Zechariah for thirty-six years. They prophesied about the incarnation of Christ four hundred and seventy years before it, and openly the holy Haggai prophesied about the restoration. He saw in part the establishment of the church being renewed by Zerubbabel after the return from the Babylonian captivity. He died and was buried splendidly near the graves of priests because he too was from the priestly line. He was bald and old, with hair around his beard, and honorable in appearance, and testified by virtue. He was beloved and honored by all as a celebrated and great prophet, and his name means feast or one who feasts.” Here the chronological dates are little reliable both regarding the duration of the prophet’s ministry – according to Scripture his activity lasted only a few months – and regarding the time of the prophet’s life according to the definite testimony of Scripture itself; according to Scripture, the prophetic preaching of Haggai relates to the 2nd year of the reign of Darius, that is, around 520 B.C.; the same may be said regarding the indications of the external appearance of the prophet. As for the mention, omitted here, by Epiphanius and Dorotheus that the prophet Haggai was the first to sing “Alleluia” at the restoration of the temple, this circumstance is in all probability connected with the inscriptions found in ancient translations of the book of Psalms of certain psalms by the names of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah: psalms Ps 3:1 according to the LXX and Slavonic, while the last three psalms in the Greek text are inscribed: Αλληλούια Αγγαίου καί Ζαχαρίου; similarly the names of these prophets stand according to the text of the Vulgate in psalms Ps 111:1 and in the Peshitta – in psalms Ps 125:1 – Ps 126:1. But all these inscriptions, in which two contemporary prophets are usually and constantly connected, speak, evidently, not of the authorship of these prophets regarding the listed psalms, but only of the time of their greatest, namely liturgical use, namely during the period of the activity of both prophets named in the inscription.

But however meager and obscure the biographical information about the prophet Haggai provided by tradition, so clear are those historical circumstances and relations that most directly occasioned the prophetic preaching of Haggai and generally constituted, so to speak, the historical background of his activity. The Judeans who returned according to the decree of Cyrus (2 Chr 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-3) in 538–537 B.C. – in the number of 42,360 free persons, 7,337 servants, and 245 male and female singers (Ezra 2:64-65; Nehem 7:66-67) – in the first year in the seventh month – Tishrei – built an altar to Yah in Jerusalem and restored the proper performance of sacrifices and all worship in general (Ezra 3:2-6), and in the second month – Iyar – of the following second year, full of hope for the fulfillment of the promises connected with the return from captivity, they zealously prepared building materials and laid the foundation of the Lord’s temple (ibid., Ezra 3:7-11). This apparent haste in the settlers’ concern for building the temple is entirely natural and fully understandable in light of the important significance in the Old Testament of the temple as the true center and vital nerve of the theocracy (see Deut 12:5; 1 Sam 8:29; 2 Sam 21:4; Jer 32:34). God’s covenant with the chosen people and the promises given by God to Israel required, for the realization of beneficial communion between God and the people, a special place – the temple, and the new Judean community by laying the foundation of the temple factually testified to its sincere desire to restore its communion with God, broken and as it were interrupted by the destruction of Solomon’s temple, and to obtain the fulfillment of the promises. The prevailing mood of the masses at first was cheerful and full of energy and joy (Ezra 3:7). However, in the general chorus of rejoicings there immediately sounded a discord at the very laying of the new temple, and likewise, of course, in the subsequent time along with the rejoicings of the young generation there sounded also the weeping of the elders who had seen the magnificence of Solomon’s temple and who, by the laying of the new temple, judged concerning the comparative poverty and insignificance of the latter (Ezra 3:12-13; Hag 2:4), and this greatly weakened the zeal for construction and, besides, presented occasion to doubt the fulfillment of God’s promises connected with the temple.

Further unfavorable external obstacles affected the energy of the builders and the success of the construction. The Samaritans had proposed to the Judeans their participation in the building, and when their proposal was rejected by the Judeans, they began to hinder the work of construction, which was facilitated by the absence of Cyrus, who was at that time conducting a fatal war with the Massagetae, and after the death of Cyrus (529 B.C.), the Samaritans obtained from the Persian court an official prohibition of the construction of the Jerusalem temple (Ezra 4:2-6). The construction, stopped by royal decree, was then not resumed during the entire reign of Cyrus’s son – Cambyses (529–522 B.C.), nor during his successor – False Smerdis (522–521 B.C.). This continued until the beginning of the reign of Darius Hystaspes (521–485 B.C.). The very external state of the Judean community in the first years after their return from captivity did not at all correspond to those brilliant hopes which undoubtedly the returning people cherished on the basis of prophetic predictions connecting with the return from captivity the complete renewal and worldwide glorification of Israel (see, for example, Isa 60:1 and Isa 62:1 chapters): instead of this, the settlers were oppressed by the joyless consciousness of their servile dependence on the Persians (Nehem 9:36), their extreme poverty, and all sorts of failures (Hag 1:6 and others).

All this led to the fact that the initial zeal and energy for building the temple among the people disappeared and was replaced by complete indifference to the begun work; there even arose the conviction that “it is not time to build the house of the Lord” (Hag 1:2). Instead, the Judeans occupied themselves with the building of their own dwellings, sometimes even very adorned (Hag 1:4), and generally with the arrangement of their own prosperity. But God did not bless the success of these labors: the land was constantly visited by droughts and complete harvests failures (Hag 1:6). And this, in connection with all that has been mentioned, aroused in the people a feeling of abandonment by God, a conception of the cessation on God’s part of the covenant relations with his people, a taking away of his Spirit (Hag 2:5).

When, thus, not only could the construction of the temple be postponed for an indefinite time, but great danger of spiritual death threatened the entire religious and moral life of the theocratic community, then God raised up Haggai for prophetic ministry. The purpose and meaning of the activity of the prophet Haggai, evidently, consisted in explaining to the people the causes of their disastrous state and lack of success in their labors and undertakings; raising the fallen spirit of the settlers, convincing them with threats and exhortations to speed up the construction of the temple; inspiring in them faith in the immutability of God’s covenant relations with the Judeans and God’s promises, which were to be fulfilled precisely in the temple being built – convincing them that in it the Messiah would appear and lay the foundation of his eternal and universal Kingdom, and that the upheavals among earthly kingdoms that were to precede that would not be fatal for the Judeans as those standing under God’s protection.

Such is the circle of principal ideas of the book of the prophet Haggai, small in volume (38 verses in its two chapters). It consists of four speeches, precisely dated by the time of their pronouncement. The first speech in chapter 1 Hag 1:1-11 was pronounced on the first day (on the festival of the new moon) of the 6th month (Elul) of the 2nd year of the reign of Darius Hystaspes. In it the prophet reveals the actual cause of the stoppage in the construction of the temple and shows its groundlessness, urgently demands the resumption of work on the temple construction, pointing at the same time to the calamities experienced by the people at present and possible in the future, as a manifestation of God’s anger for the neglect of God’s work. The speech is accompanied by a historical note, Hag 1:12-15, about the favorable consequences of the prophet’s first appearance: the resumption of temple construction. The second speech, Hag 2:1-9, is dated the 21st day of the 7th month (Tishrei) of the same year (on the 7th day of the Feast of Tabernacles) and contains an exhortation – to continue the construction courageously, not being disturbed by its visible poverty and the lack of means to furnish the new temple with the splendor of the first, Solomon’s temple; then it shows those high spiritual blessings – the mercies of God’s covenant and the grace of the presence of Yah, and then also of the Messiah – which would be present in the new temple in even greater degree than in the first. In the third speech, Hag 2:10-19, pronounced on the 24th day of the 9th month (Kislev) of the same year, the prophet, to sustain the zeal of the temple builders, points out that without the temple, in which people obtain purification and sanctification, all were unclean, even the sacrifices were not pleasing to God, and God in his anger punished people with the unfruitfulness of the land; but when the Judeans already showed their zeal for the arrangement of the temple, the Lord announces his blessing on the people and all spiritual and material blessings that it brings to people. The last, fourth speech, Hag 2:20-23, pronounced on the same day as the preceding, is addressed specifically to Zerubbabel, and announces to him, as a descendant of David and faithful and obedient servant of Yah in the work of building the temple, wholeness, preservation, and prosperity under the special protection of Yah at that very time when great political upheavals and worldwide catastrophes were to occur.

All these speeches, as is evident even from a cursory review of them, are distinguished, firstly, by peculiar brevity, because of which many scholars have seen in them no more than an abridgment of longer speeches pronounced to the people (see Hag 1:13), – and then – direct (as in the 1st and 2nd speeches) or indirect (speeches 3rd and 4th) relation to the construction of the temple. The latter characteristic led some Protestant scholars to accept a diminished estimate of the theology of the prophet Haggai – considering, for example, a lack in his book an “un-prophetic zeal for the restoration of ancient worship” (De Wette) and even supposing that the prophet Haggai with his zeal for the building of the temple was guilty of the blame cast by the prophet Jeremiah on people saying: “Here is the temple of the Lord” (Jer 7:4) (Duhm). But such views are fundamentally false and collapse of themselves in light of the known central significance of the temple in the religion and theocracy of the Old Testament. The high biblical theological significance of the content of the book of the prophet Haggai is confirmed also by other ideas contained in it of divinely revealed teaching. Such is, in connection and agreement with the general biblical teaching on God’s providence, the prophet’s thought that God punishes those who neglect the glory of his name with barrenness (Hag 1:6, see Deut 28:22; Jer 12:13; Mic 6:15; Zech 8:10). Profoundly important and justified by the New Testament is the messianic thought about the superiority of the glory of the second temple over the glory of the first, and about the coming bestowal of peace in the second temple (Hag 2:9): in this temple the Lord Jesus Christ appeared and preached his Gospel of peace. Even the two legal questions in Hag 2:11-14 are set forth and resolved not only in exact agreement with the letter of the law (Lev 6:26; Num 19:22), but are accompanied in the prophet with definite and elevated moral requirements. Finally, high theological and messianic meaning has the idea that amid the shakings of nations and kingdoms, of earth and heaven, the Lord saves the chosen and receives them all into his immovable Kingdom (Hag 2:6-7. See Heb 12:26-28).

The authenticity and unity of the book of the prophet Haggai, with few exceptions, is universally recognized in scholarship (only Andre denies the authenticity of the section Hag 2:10-19, and Böhme considers the section Hag 2:20-23 spurious, but on grounds that are too insufficient and untenable). In the language of the book, as one composed already after the captivity, scholars rightly point out considerable stylistic peculiarities of biblical Hebrew in its later stage of development.

Literature for the study of the book of the prophet Haggai:

A) In Russian language translations: 1) blessed Jerome. Works part 14; 2) Saint Cyril of Alexandria – Works part X; 3) blessed Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus. Works part V. 1907. Of textbooks, the best is – D. N. Narcissus. A Guide to the Study of the Prophetic Books of the Old Testament. 1904.

B) Foreign. Andre, Le prophete Aggee. Paris. 1895. Keil, Biblischer Commentar über die zwöll kleinen. Propheten. 1886. Lange. Die Propheten HaggaI, Sachara Mateachi 1876. Marti, Dodekapropheton. Tübingen 1904, s. 378 ff. and others.