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HAGGAI

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 816 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HAGGAI , in the See also:

Bible, the tenth in See also:order of the " See also:minor prophets," whose writings are preserved in the Old Testament. The name Haggai ('m, Gr. 'Ay), aios, whence Aggeus in the See also:English version of the Apocrypha) perhaps means " See also:born on the feast See also:day," "festive." But Wellhausen1 is probably right in taking the word as a contraction for Hagariah (" Yahweh See also:bath girded "), just as Zaccai (Zacchaeus) is known to be a contraction of See also:Zechariah. The See also:book of Haggai contains four See also:short prophecies delivered between the first day of the See also:sixth See also:month and the twenty-See also:fourth day of the ninth month—that is, between See also:September and See also:December—of the second See also:year of See also:Darius the See also:king. The king in question must be Darius Hystaspis (521-485 B.c.). The See also:language of the See also:prophet in ii. 3 suggests the See also:probability that he was himself one of those whose memories reached across the seventy years of the captivity, and that his prophetic See also:work began in extreme 1 In See also:Bleek's Einleitung, 4th ed., p. 434. old See also:age. This supposition agrees well with the shortness of the See also:period covered by his book, and with the fact that Zechariah, who began to prophesy in the same autumn and was associated with Haggai's labours (See also:Ezra v. I), afterwards appears as the leading prophet in See also:Jerusalem (Zech. vii. 1-4).

We know nothing further of the See also:

personal See also:history of Haggai from the Bible. Later traditions may be read in See also:Carpzov's Introductio, pars 3, cap. xvi. See also:Epiphanius (Vitae prophetarum) says that he came up from See also:Babylon while still See also:young, prophesied the return, witnessed the See also:building of the See also:temple and received an honoured See also:burial near the priests. Haggai's name is mentioned in the titles of several See also:psalms in the See also:Septuagint (Psalms cxxxvii., cxlv.-cxlviii.) -and other versions, but these titles are without value, and moreover vary in See also:MSS. See also:Eusebius did not find them in the Hexaplar Septuagint.' In his first prophecy (i. 1-11) Haggai addresses Zerubbabel and See also:Joshua, rebuking the See also:people for leaving the temple unbuilt while they are busy in providing panelled houses for themselves. The prevalent See also:famine and See also:distress are due to Yahweh's indignation at such remissness. Let them build the See also:house, and Yahweh will take See also:pleasure in it and acknowledge the See also:honour paid to Him. The rebuke took effect, and the people began to work at the temple, strengthened by the prophet's assurance that the See also:Lord was with them (i. 12-15). In a second prophecy (ii. 1-9) delivered in the following month, Haggai forbids the people to be disheartened by the apparent meanness of the new temple.

The See also:

silver and See also:gold are the Lord's. He will soon shake all nations and their choicest gifts will be brought to adorn His house. Its See also:glory shall be greater than that of the former temple, and in this See also:place He will give See also:peace. A third prophecy (ii. 10-19) contains a promise; enforced by a figure See also:drawn from the priestly See also:ritual, that See also:God will remove famine and bless the See also:land from the day of the See also:foundation of the temple onwards. Finally, in ii. 20-23, Zerubbabel is assured of God's See also:special love and See also:protection in the impending See also:catastrophe of kingdoms and nations to which the prophet had formerly pointed as preceding the glorification of God's house on See also:Zion. In thus looking forward to a shaking of all nations Haggai agrees with earlier prophecies, especially Isa. See also:xxiv.-See also:xxvii., while his picture of the glory and peace of the new Zion and its temple is drawn from the See also:great See also:anonymous prophet who penned Isa. lx and lxvi. The characteristic features of the book are the importance assigned to the See also:personality of Zerubbabel, who, though a living contemporary, is marked out as the See also:Messiah; and the almost sacramental significance attached to the temple. The hopes fixed on Zerubbabel, the chosen of the Lord, dear to Him as His signet See also:ring (cf. Jer. xxii. 24), are a last See also:echo in Old Testament prophecy of the theocratic importance of the house of See also:David.

In the book of Zechariah Zerubbabel has already fallen into the background and the high See also:

priest is the leading figure of the Judean community.2 The See also:stem of David is superseded by the house of Zadok, the kingship has yielded to the priesthood, and the extinction of See also:national hopes gives new importance to that strict organization of the See also:hierarchy for which See also:Ezekiel had prepared the way by his See also:sentence of disfranchisement against the non-Zadokite priests. The indifference of the See also:Jews to the desolate conditions of their See also:sanctuary opens up a problem of some difficulty. It is See also:strange that neither Haggai nor his contemporary Zechariah mentions or implies any return of exiles from Babylon, and the See also:suggestion has accordingly been made that the return under See also:Cyrus described in Ezra i.-iv. is unhistorical, and that the community addressed by Haggai consisted of the remnant that had been See also:left in Jerusalem and its neighbourhood after the See also:majority had gone into See also:exile or fled to See also:Egypt (Jer. xliii.). Such a remhant, amongst whom might be members of the priestly and royal families, would gather strength and boldness as the troubles of Babylon ' See the See also:note on Ps. cxlv. 1 in See also:Field's See also:Hexapla; Kohler, Weissagungen Haggai's, 32; See also:Wright, Zechariah and his Prophecies, xix. 2 After the foundation of the temple Zerubbabel disappears from history and lives only in See also:legend, which continued to busy itself with his See also:story, as we see from the apocryphal book of Esdras (cf. See also:Derenbourg, Hist. de in See also:Palestine, See also:chap, i.).increased and her vigilance was relaxed, and might receive from Babylon and other lands both refugees and some See also:account at least of the writings of Ezekiel and the Second See also:Isaiah. Stimulated by such causes and obtaining formal permission from the See also:Persian See also:government, they would arise as a new See also:Israel and enter on a new phase of national See also:life and divine See also:revelation. In spite, however, of the plausibility of this theory, it seems preferable to adhere to the story of Ezra i.-iv. Apart from the weighty objections that the Edomites would have frustrated such a recrudescence of the remnant Jews as has been described, it must be remembered that the See also:main stream of Jewish life and thought had been diverted to Babylon. Thence, when the opportunity came under Cyrus, some 50,000 Jews, the spiritual heirs of the best elements of the old Israel, returned to found the new community. With them were all the resources, and the only people they found at Jerusalem were hostile gentiles and See also:Samaritans.

Full of See also:

enthusiasm, they set about rebuilding the temple and realizing the glowing promises about the prosperity and dominance of Zion that had fallen from the lips of the Second Isaiah (xlix. 14-26, xlv. 14). See also:Bitter disappointment, however, soon overcame them, the Samaritans were strong enough to thwart and hinder their temple-building, and it seemed as though the divine favour was withdrawn. Apathy took the place of enthusiasm, and sordid worries succeeded to high hopes. " The like collapse has often been experienced in history when bands of religious men, going forth, as they thought, to freedom and the immediate erection of a See also:holy See also:commonwealth, have found their unity wrecked and their enthusiasm dissipated by a few inclement seasons on a barren and hostile See also:shore."3 From this torpor they were roused by tidings which might well be interpreted as the restoration of divine favour. Away in the See also:East Cyrus had been succeeded in 529 B.C. by See also:Cambyses, who had annexed Egypt and on whose See also:death in 522 a Magian impostor, Gaumata, had seized the See also:throne. The See also:fraud was short-lived, and Darius I. became king and the founder of a new See also:dynasty. These events shook the whole Persian See also:empire; Babylon and other subject states See also:rose in revolt, and to the Jews it seemed that See also:Persia was tottering and that the Messianic era was nigh. It was therefore natural that Haggai and Zechariah should urge the speedy building of the temple, in order that the great king might be fittingly received. It is sometimes levied as a reproach against Haggai that he makes no See also:direct reference to moral duties. But it is hardly See also:fair to contrast his See also:practical counsel with the more ethical and spiritual teaching of the earlier See also:Hebrew prophets.

One thing was needful—the temple. " Without a sanctuary Yahweh would have seemed a foreigner to Israel. The Jews would have thought that He had returned to See also:

Sinai, the holy See also:mountain; and that they were deprived of the temporal blessings which were the gifts of a God who literally dwelt in the midst of his people." Haggai argued that material prosperity was conditioned by zeal in See also:worship; the prevailing distress was an indication of divine anger due to the people's religious apathy. Haggai's reproofs touched the See also:conscience of the Jews, and the book of Zechariah enables us in some measure to follow the course of a religious revival which, starting with the restoration of the temple, did not confine itself to matters of ceremony and ritual worship. On the other See also:hand, Haggai's treatment of his theme, practical and effective as it was for the purpose in hand, moves on a far See also:lower level than the aspirations of the prophet who wrote the closing chapters of Isaiah. To the latter the material temple is no more than a detail in the picture of a work of restoration eminently ideal and spiritual, and he expressly warns his hearers against attaching See also:intrinsic importance to it (Isa. lxvi. 1). To Haggai the temple appears so essential that he teaches that while it See also:lay See also:waste, the people and all their See also:works and offerings were unclean (See also:Hag. ii. 14). In this he betrays his See also:affinity with Ezekiel, who taught that it is by the See also:possession of the sanctuary that Israel is sanctified (Ezek. See also:xxxvii. 28). In truth the new See also:movement of religious thought and feeling which started from the fall of the Hebrew See also:state took two distinct lines, of which Ezekiel and the anonymous 2 G.

A. See also:

Smith, Minor Prophets, ii. 235. authors of Isa. xl.-lxvi. are the respective representatives. While the latter See also:developed their great picture of Israel the mediatorial nation, the systematic and priestly mind of Ezekiel had shaped a more material conception of the religious vocation of Israel in that picture of the new See also:theocracy where the temple and its ritual occupy the largest place, with a sanctity which is set in See also:express contrast to the older conception of the holiness of the See also:city of Jerusalem (cf. Ezek. xliii. 7 seq. with Jer. xxxi. 40, Isa. iv. 5), and with a supreme significance for the religious life of the people which is expressed in the figure of the living See also:waters issuing from under the See also:threshold of the house (Ezek. xlvii.). It was the conception of Ezekiel which permanently influenced the citizens of the new Jerusalem, and took final shape in the institutions of Ezra. To this consummation, with its necessary See also:accompaniment in the extinction of prophecy, the book of Haggai already points. y-ophets,as by Kohler, Pressel (See also:Gotha, 1870), See also:Dods (1879) and others. he older literature will be found in books of introduction or in Rosenmuller's Scholia.

The learned commentary of Marckius may be specially mentioned. On the place of Haggai in the history of Old Testament prophecy, see Duhm, Theologie der Propheten (See also:

Bonn, 1875); A. B. See also:Davidson, The See also:Theology of-the Old Testament (1904); A. F. Kirkpatrick, The See also:Doctrine of the Prophets; G. A. Smith, The Book of the Twelve Prophets, vol. 2 (1903) ; Tony See also:Andree, Le Prophete Aggee; Ed. See also:Meyer, Entstehung See also:des Judentums (1896). (W. R.

S.; A. J.

End of Article: HAGGAI

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