Introduction
The final two messages of Haggai came on the 24th day of the 9th month in the 2nd year of Darius (520 B.C.). Though they were on the same day, the Lord addressed two distinct audiences. The first message concerned His desire to bless the people upon the condition of cleanliness. The second message promised unconditional blessing through Christ, pictured in Zerubbabel. The first utterance considers an unclean people who lacked as a result, while the second displays the power of God and the absolute surety of His kingdom plan.
Message Four: Blessing for a Defiled People (vv10-19)
Israel didn’t see blessing despite completing three months of building on the foundation of the temple (1:15). Zechariah demanded repentance from the people for their evil, saying, “Turn ye unto me … and I will turn unto you” (Zec 1:3).1 He told them they were in danger of falling back into the sin that took Israel into captivity. Haggai went to the priests to probe their knowledge about defilement and holiness.
The Transmissibility of Holiness and Contamination of Uncleanness (vv10-14)
Haggai inquired about the law of the sin offering. He asked specifically about the interpretation of Leviticus 6:27, whether the meat in the pocket of the priest’s garment would transmit its ritual holiness to other food that the garment touched. The priests were spiritual leaders expected to teach the Word of God (Lev 10:8-11). Therefore, they would need to study it carefully. A careless, misinterpreting priest would lead the people into contamination, limiting God’s blessing. The priests rightly responded in the negative; the holiness would not extend to the other victuals though it did transmit to the worn garment. Teachers of God’s Word must handle it carefully and have foundational knowledge (1Ti 1:6-7). They must exercise care in what they say (Jas 3:1-2), realizing they speak with authority directly from God (1Pe 4:11), which will ensure blessing for God’s people in being “complete, equipped for every good work” (2Ti 3:17 ESV).
Haggai’s next question about contact with death was a serious ceremonial issue for the Israelites. A Jew contaminated by death required double sprinkling from a mixture of spring water and the ashes of a spotless red heifer during a seven-day isolation period before bathing and clothes-washing (Num 19). Haggai asked and received an affirmative answer about whether the unclean person could infect others with uncleanness. The application in verse 14 is plain: Uncleanness had infected Israel. Harding succinctly applies that “sin has greater infectious power than purity.”2
Take It to Heart to Be Blessed (vv15-19)
Haggai reflected on their lack of blessing in uncleanness (vv15-17) experienced between the time they began to rebuild and the present. Then he shared with the priests the expected blessing for holiness (vv18-19) from that day onward. These farmers received too much rain, scorching heat and storms with hail, limiting their yields. Now, as they began seeding their crops in the 9th month, God promised His blessing. Each of the previous messages had comforting words: “I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified” (1:8); “I am with you” (1:13; 2:4); and now the conditional promise, “From this day will I bless you” (2:19). Their blessing was conditional upon their obedience.
Message Five: A Promised Kingdom (vv20-23)
Haggai’s final message is an unconditional promise that foreshadows Messianic rule. This contrasts with the conditional promise of blessing. The Lord will bring a new kingdom through Zerubbabel.
Overthrowing the Kingdoms (vv20-22)
Haggai reminds us multiple times that Gentile political dominance prevailed then and will continue until the Son of Man returns to the earth to establish His kingdom (Luk 21:20-28). For this reason, the language of verses 21-22 encourages and promises the destruction of Gentile political rule. Note the similarity to 2:6-7, which focuses on a religious rather than a political aspect. Both sets of verses open with the promise of shaking “the heavens and earth.” In verses 6-7, the Lord of hosts states that He will also shake “the sea, and the dry land.” Also, He says, “I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory.” The people of God could rest assured that God’s glory would return to Jerusalem’s temple. God will be the center of worship, and the land that Joshua led them into will be restored to them.
Throughout the Scriptures, false religion and world politics joined to commerce continuously oppose God. Ever since God tested man in the dispensation of human government, Babylon has been its center. The two systems’ history is in Babel, where rebellious people declare, “Let us build us a city and a tower” (Gen 11:4). The city represented political insurgence toward the God who declared as part of the Noahic Covenant that they should be “fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein” (9:7). The tower in Shinar represents a religion of man’s own making. The people of the earth determined to make “a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven” (11:4). In both the city and the tower, the spirit of Babel seeks man’s glory rather than God’s glory, foreshadowing the trinitarian number of man, 666, in Revelation 13.
The thread continues in Old Testament prophecy in Daniel and Zechariah. We will not speak of Zechariah here, but politics and religion in Daniel 2-3 display the next time Babylon is prominent since its mention in Genesis.3 Nebuchadnezzar dreams of an image composed of different layered materials, symbolizing Gentile kingdoms topped by a golden Babylonian head; the image is destroyed by Christ, a stone cut without hands, becoming a mountain, establishing His kingdom. Next, Nebuchadnezzar demands worshipof a golden image in the plain of Dura. The three Hebrews, who also symbolize a preserved remnant through the fire (Zec 13:9), would not bow and were preserved, prompting the decree that no one should speak against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
These two aspects are depicted in final form in Revelation 17-18, describing the demise of Babylon’s ecumenical counterfeit religious system and its commercial corruption. Here it is evident that monetary gain, “the love of money,” is indeed “the root of all evil” (1Ti 6:10) and the driving force of Babylon. As four Alleluias echo in heaven at Babylon’s destruction, the coming King of kings and Lord of lords is manifested in chapter 19 to establish His kingdom and sit on the throne of His glory (Mat 25:31). The Word of God from the opening to its final chapters confirms these promises in Haggai that the Lord of hosts will overthrow all opposition to His rule and worship.
Establishing His King (v23)
There was a problem with the Messianic promise of a king in the line of David. God promised David an everlasting throne through his seed (2Sa 7:11-16), but his descendant Jeconiah, or Jehoiachin (called Coniah in Jeremiah 22:22-30), was cursed by God. Jeremiah said that he was not the Lord’s servant (“a vessel wherein is no pleasure,” v28); he was not His signet ring (“though Coniah … were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee from thence,” v24); and, he was not His chosen (“no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David,” v30). It is possible that Zerubbabel, listed as a regal descendant of Jeconiah (Mat 1:11-12), allowed this issue to weigh upon him.
The words to Zerubbabel picture the coming Christ as a servant in contrast to Jeconiah – chosen and a signet, a precious possession containing the owner’s authority. God displayed Christ as His precious signet ring of authority through His teaching (Mat 7:29), forgiveness of sins (9:6), and the laying down and taking back of His life (Joh 10:18). Indeed, Christ prayed to His Father, “You have given him authority over all flesh” (17:2 ESV). Matthew 12:18 draws attention to Isaiah 42:1 as the Lord’s servant and chosen. Peter (1Pe 2:4,6) cites Isaiah 28:16, who brings together that Christ is elect and precious.
The problem remained of how God would bypass Jeconiah but not renege on His covenant with David. God used another bloodline of David through Nathan, even converging at Zerubbabel, before diverging again to the Lord Jesus’ mother, Mary. The genealogy of Christ through Mary given in Luke 3 demonstrates how God physically went around Jeconiah yet still fulfilled His promises. Ironside writes, “In Luke we evidently have the line of Mary the daughter of Heli, Joseph’s father-in-law, through Nathan, thus preserving the bloodline of David while avoiding the curse of Coniah.”4 Haggai confirms that God can keep seemingly irreconcilable promises to both David and Jeconiah in His Son via Zerubbabel. Nothing can spoil His program; some blessings are unconditional. God’s people would go on to finish the work of the temple through the encouragement of Haggai and Zechariah four years later (Ezr 6:15)
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV unless otherwise noted.
2 P. Harding and J.J. Stubbs, What the Bible Teaches: Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi (Kilmarnock: John Ritchie Ltd., 2007).
3 For comments on these verses, see Daniel Rudge’s March 2022 article in Truth & Tidings on “Zechariah’s Night Visions”: Visions Six and Seven.
4 H.A. Ironside, Notes on the Prophecy and Lamentations of Jeremiah: The Weeping Prophet (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1928), 107.
