The Call to Repent and RebuildHaggai 1:1

Main Idea: The book of Haggai is the story of God’s people who were focused on their own satisfaction and failed to flourish because of it. Their repentance and obedience would result in God’s blessing.

1. The Longing Prophet
2. The Persian Government

The book of Haggai is a bit of an anomaly in the OT canon, particularly among the prophetic books, because Haggai’s message gets through and people respond in repentance and obedience. In a sea of prophetic books that decry disobedience only to see the people of God brush off the admonition and continue in their sin, Haggai stands out as an encouraging light, an example of what can happen when God’s people listen to God’s word delivered through God’s prophet and experience God’s blessing. We really know very little about the prophet Haggai, though we can surmise a few things from textual evidence.

The Longing Prophet

Haggai was probably an older man, likely in his 70s at least. Haggai 2:3 indicates that Haggai may have seen the original temple, which would have enabled him to understand the significance of God’s call to rebuild the temple as well as the value of the temple. Haggai would have understood the importance of the land and the centrality of worship that were vital to the flourishing of God’s people. His awareness of this would surely lend weight to God’s message, as he would plead with the Israelite people to abandon their apathy and take up, once again, the work of rebuilding the temple. As for the dating of the book, we know that Haggai was part of the returning remnant that was being brought back to Jerusalem after King Darius’s decree in 538 BC. After living for years in captivity, the return to their land must have been quite energizing for the Israelite people.

The Persian Government

The Persian government ruled over the people of Israel. After approximately 50,000 Israelites returned home, there was urgent concern for the temple and immediate effort made to rebuild it. The foundation was quickly rebuilt, and the people of Israel rightly celebrated this accomplishment (Ezra 3:8-13). However, in response to their building success, their Samaritan neighbors contrived to slow down their work and were successful in frustrating the progress of the temple. They succeeded, in part, by appealing to the governing authorities (Ezra 4:1-5,24).

The project lay dormant for 16 years, from 536 BC until two years after Darius became King of the Persian Empire. In 520 BC Haggai began to prophesy among the people of God. He pled with them to get over their apathy and to delay their obedience no longer. His pleas were successful and the nation of Israel repented, obeyed God, and began to rebuild the temple.

This book is the story of God’s people, and in many ways it’s the same story that we see of God’s people throughout all of Scripture. God has designed the world to work in a specific way. When the people of God disobey him by sinning, humanity is not able to flourish as God intended. This lack of human flourishing can be made right if the people repent and obey Him. The prophet, then, is God’s good gift to the people, calling them to repentance and obedience and sharing with them the hope of God’s blessing.