Haggai 1:1

In the second year of Darius the King,.... That is, of Persia; he is spoken of as if he was the only king in the world; and indeed he was the then greatest king in it; and therefore is emphatically called "the king".

In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and

HAGGAI CHAPTER 1 The time when Haggai prophesied, Haggai 1:1. Haggai reproveth the people's delay in building the temple, Haggai 1:2-6. He inciteth them to set about it, Haggai 1:7-11. He promiseth them, being forward of themselves, God's assistance, Haggai 1:12,13. The work is set forward, Haggai 1:14,15. Darius: of this name there were seven, Darius Medus, Hystaspes, Longimanus, Nothus, Ochus, Arsames, Codomanus; one before Cyrus, viz. that Darius which is distinguished from the other by Medus, the Mede; the next Darius was son of Hystaspes, and third king of Persia, (if we leave out Smerdis the cheat, who on Cambyses's death counterfeited the true Smerdis, slain by Cambyses's order, got into the throne, but was discovered and slain at seven months' end,) of whom the text speaketh; unless you can think Joshua high priest through one hundred and forty-four years, and some considerable number of Jews to have lived one hundred and ninety-six years, and the returned captives to have wanted a temple for one hundred and twelve years at least, which incredible things attend them who will have this Darius to be Nothus. The king; as being the greatest of that time, and by way of eminency above others. In the sixth month; Elul, answering to part of our August and September. The word of the Lord; the command or direction what they should do, and reproof for what they had omitted to do. Haggai: we read nothing of his parentage or country in the Scripture; he doted that thought him an angel. The prophet; inspired, sent, approved, and assisted of God in his office. Zerubbabel; whose name speaks either his birth in Babylon, or his interest and power there as some conjecture: probably his birth in Babylon might be ground of trusting him with the government of Judah, to which he had right. Son of Shealtiel; adoptive son to Shealtiel, being of the royal line, probably he was the chief branch thereof, uncle to him; but by nature, or by generation, son of Pedaiah; or else there were two Zerubbabels, sons of two brothers, Pedaiah and Shealtiel. Governor of Judah; appointed to this by the Persian king, under whose power the Jews were now fallen, and at whose pleasure governors were placed or displaced over the remnant returned out of Babylon, and once at last settled in the land of Judah. Joshua; a type of the great Deliverer; one Joshua leads them into Canaan, another restores the temple. Josedech; whose name did portend good to this people, and bespoke God's righteousness; his father Seraiah was high priest and slain by Nebuchadnezzar. The high priest, by lineal descent according to the law, chief of power in church matters, as Zerubbabel was chief in civil things: to these the prophet is sent to stir them up to the building of the temple.

Haggai 1:1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,Ver. 1. In the second year of Darius the king] Not of Darius the Mede, as Genebrard noteth, for he was predecessor to Cyrus, Daniel 5:31, and Haggai prophesied after Cyrus and Cambyses, Ezra 4:5; Ezra 5:1, neither of Darius Nothus, as Scaliger in his book, De Emend. Temporum (the doctrine whereof is almost wholly fictitious, saith one, and founded upon the confines of nothing); but of Darius son of Hystaspes, who succeeded Cambyses in the kingdom of Persia; being chosen king by the peers, upon the neighing of his horse first, as Herodotus testifieth. Whether this Darius was the husband of Queen Esther, as some affirm, or her son, as others (and was therefore so favourable to the Jews), I undertake not to determine; only take notice, that by heathen historians it is said, that the wife of this Darius was called Atossa, which sounds in part somewhat like Hadassah, that is, Esther, Esther 2:7. Hadassah was her own Hebrew name; and after she was made queen she was called Esther. He is called Darius the king, as if he were the only king on earth. His successor, Darius, in his proud embassy to Alexander, called himself the king of kings and cousin of the gods; and for Alexander, he called him his servant; but Alexander soon after became his lord: for the kingdom of Persia was lost by that Darius, as it had been restored by this to its former splendour, after the havoc made by Cambyses (παλινεπι Dαρειουσχεδονεσωθη); who among other vile acts of his (as "wickedness proceedeth from the wicked, according to the proverb of the ancients," 1 Samuel 24:18), forbade the building of the temple, Ezra 4:22. But he who sets up princes at his pleasure, and turns their hearts whithersoever he will, Proverbs 21:1 (as the ploughman doth the watercourse with his paddle, or the gardener with his hand), turned here the heart of this great king to his people the Jews; so that he made a new decree for the advancement of the building, Ezra 5:8. God also seasonably stirred up Haggai and Zechariah to quicken the people (who were soon after their return from Babylon grown cold again and careless), and so blessed their ministry, that the house, that is, the sanctuary, and the holy of holies, was finished in four years’ time, or thereabouts, Ezra 6:14. The outward court, and so the whole temple, in three years after that, as Josephus witnesseth. In the sixth month] In the 3484th year of the world, as Ussher computeth it, on the first of September, when the Jews were ingathering their harvest and fruits, and found a dearth toward.

(1-11) The First Utterance.—The neglect of God’s House denounced, and declared to be the cause of the prevalent dearth. (1) Darius the king.—Scil., Darius I., son of Hystaspes, who became king of Persia in B.C. 521. The fact that there were still men living who had seen the First Temple (Haggai 2:3), which fell in B.C. 586, sufficiently disproves the absurd theory that Darius Nothus is meant, who did not accede to the throne until B.C. 423-4. Prophecy is now dated by the years of a foreign ruler, for Zerubbabel, though a lineal descendant of David, was only a pechâh, or viceroy of Persian appointment, not a king in his own right. The sixth month.—That named Elul, corresponding nearly with our September. In the first day—i.e., on the festival of the new moon, a holy day which had always been marked not only by suspension of labour, but by special services in the Temple (Ezekiel 46:3; Isaiah 66:23). It was thus an appropriate occasion for Haggai to commence a series of exhortations so intimately connected with the Temple. Besides, it appears to have been an ancient custom that the people should resort to the prophets for religious instruction on new moons and Sabbaths. (See 2 Kings 4:23.) Came the word . . .—Literally, there was a word of the Lord by the hand of Haggai, &c. This expression, which occurs repeatedly in this book, indicates that Jehovah was the direct source of these announcements, and Haggai only their vehicle. The prophet.—See Habakkuk 1:1, Note. Son of Shealtiel.—Strictly speaking, Zerubbabel was the son of Pedaiah, who contracted a Levirate marriage with the widow of his brother Shealtiel. (See Notes on 1 Chronicles 3:17; Jeremiah 22:30; Luke 3:27.) Governor.—Satrap, or viceroy, a term applied in the Old Testament to the provincial prefects of the Assyrian and Babylonian and Persian empires. (See Note on 1 Kings 10:15.) Joshua, the high priest, is a prominent character in the prophecy of Zechariah. Haggai addresses Zerubbabel as the civil, Joshua as the ecclesiastical head of the restored exiles.

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET HAGGAI Chronological Notes relative to this book -Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3484. -Year of the Julian Period, 4194. -Year since the flood, 1828. -Year from the vocation of Abram, 1301. -Year since the first celebration of the Olympic games in Elis by the Idaei Dactyli, 934. -Year since the foundation of the monarchy of the Israelites by the Divine appointment of Saul to the regal dignity, 576. -Year from the foundation of the temple, 492. -Year from the division of Solomon's monarchy into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, 456. -Year since the re-establishment of the Olympic games at Elis by Lycurgus, Iphitus, and Cleosthenes, 365. -Year since the conquest of Coroebus at Olympia, usually called the first Olympiad, 257. -First year of the sixty-fifth Olympiad. -Year from the building of Rome, according to the Varronian or generally received computation, 234. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Cato and the Fasti Consulares, 233. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Polybius the historian, 232. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Fabius Pictor, 228. -Year of the era of Nabonassar, 228. -Year since the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, 202. -Year since the destruction of the kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 68. -Year since the destruction of the Chaldean empire by the Persians, 18. -Year before the birth of Christ, 516. -Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 520. -Cycle of the Sun, 22. -Cycle of the Moon, 14. -Second year of Darius I., king of Persia. -Twenty-eighth year of Amyntas, king of Macedon. -Seventh year of Demaratus, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Proclidae. -Eleventh year of Cleomenes, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Eurysthenidae. -Fifteenth year of Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of the Romans. -This was about twelve years before the abolition of the regal government of the Romans by the expulsion of the Tarquins. -Confucius, the celebrated Chinese philosopher, is supposed to have flourished about this time. CHAPTER I The prophet reproves the people, and particularly their ruler and high priest, for negligence and delay in rebuilding the temple; and tells them that their neglect was the cause of their having been visited with unfruitful seasons, and other marks of the Divine displeasure, 1-11. He encourages them to set about the work, and on their doing so, promises that God will be with them, 12-15. We know nothing of the parentage of Haggai. He was probably born in Babylon during the captivity, and appears to have been the first prophet sent to the Jews after their return to their own land. He was sent particularly to encourage the Jews to proceed with the building of the temple, which had been interrupted for about fourteen years.

Ch. Haggai 1:1-11. The First Prophecy 1. Darius the king] Lit., Daryavesh. “Daryavesh is a more accurate transcript of the name of the Persian kings than Δαρεῖος (Darius). Darius calls himself in his descriptions Dβryavush, which means the ‘holder,’ or ‘supporter.’ ” Max. Mόller in Pusey’s Book of Daniel, p. 570. This was Darius the son of Hystaspes, who had deposed the impostor Smerdis and succeeded him on the throne of Persia, and who on his accession returned to the policy of Cyrus with reference to the Jews. the sixth month] i.e., of the Jewish year. While they had kings of their own the Jewish historians were wont, as we see throughout the Books of Kings and Chronicles, to date events by the years of their reigns. Now that their own monarchy was at an end, they use instead the year of the foreign Sovereign to whom they were tributary. The transition is observable in ver. 8 of 2 Kings 25 as compared with ver. 1. But the months are still those of their own calendar. The sixth month was called Elul after the return from Babylon. (Nehemiah 6:15; 1Ma 14:27.) by Haggai] Lit., by the hand of, i.e. by his means or instrumentality. And so in ver. 3. Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel] Both in the history of the return in Ezra (Ezra 3:2; Ezra 3:8, Ezra 5:2) and Nehemiah (Nehemiah 12:1) and in the genealogies of our Lord, Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27, Zerubbabel is called as he is in this book the son of Shealtiel or Salathiel. But in 1 Chronicles 3:19 he is said to be the son of Pedaiah. The probable explanation of the discrepancy is that Shealtiel, who was the elder brother and the head of the family, had no sons of his own, and that consequently his nephew Zerubbabel, who was the eldest son of the younger brother Pedaiah, became the heir of his uncle Shealtiel, and was commonly regarded and described as his son. He was the recognised head of the Jews in Babylon, “the Prince of Judah,” as he is called (Ezra 1:8), at the time when the decree of Cyrus was issued for their return. He bears a leading part in the history of the return, and of the events which followed immediately upon it. He was among the first to respond to the prophetic call of Haggai and Zechariah (Haggai 1:12). Many of their prophecies were addressed to him by name (Haggai 1:1; Haggai 2:2; Haggai 2:21; Zechariah 4:6); and his spirit was specially stirred up by God (Haggai 1:14) to promote the reformation of the people and the rebuilding of the temple. He has been described as “a man inferior to few of the great characters of Scripture, whether we consider the perilous undertaking to which he devoted himself, the importance, in the economy of the Divine government, of his work, his courageous faith, or the singular distinction of being the object of so many and such remarkable prophetic utterances.” Smith’s Bible Dict. Art. Zerubbabel.

In the second year of Darius - , i. e., Hystaspis. The very first word of prophecy after the captivity betokens that they were restored, not yet as before, yet so, as to be hereafter, more than before.

MESSAGE OF REBUKE FOR , 1-11.The Book of Haggai contains four separate prophetic utterances (Haggai 1:1-11; Haggai 2:1-23); to the first is added an historical section (Haggai 1:12-15), setting forth