Bible Book of Haggai | Priorities and the Temple
An urgent call for the returned exiles to prioritize rebuilding God's house over their own personal comforts. Haggai chapters explained with summary and commentary.
About Haggai
Genre: Minor Prophet. Theme: Priorities and the Temple
- Author
- Haggai
- Date
- c. 520 BC
- Read Time
- 10 mins
- Purpose
- Encourage exiles to finish Temple rebuilding.
- Key Verse
- Hag 1:4 - Is it time for you... to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?
- Christ
- The Desire of All Nations.
- Audience
- Returned exiles who had stopped rebuilding the Temple to focus on their own houses
- Priority
- Focus on putting God first.
- Specific Dating
- The most precisely dated book, containing four sermons delivered in just four months.
- Economic Reality
- The teaching that financial struggle is often a result of putting God's kingdom second.
Haggai provided the necessary 'spiritual kick' to a people who had become comfortable in their apathy.
A punchy, rhetorical style that repeatedly asks the people to 'Consider your ways'.
Jesus is the 'Desire of All Nations' (2:7) whose presence makes the glory of the latter house greater than the former.
Overview of Haggai
Haggai 1 - The Command to Rebuild the Temple
The LORD says: "Consider your ways! You never have enough because the temple lies in ruins." So the people worked on the temple.
Haggai 2 - The Coming Glory of the Temple
The LORD says: "The latter glory of this temple shall be greater than the former. This nation is unclean. But now I will bless you."