THE
PULPIT COMMENTARY, :F.DITED BY TlIJI
VERY REV. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D., l>IIAlll OJ' QLOUOEll'l'BB;
AND BY TBB
REV. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.!.
HAGG A I. e!xposf tion BY REV. vV. J. DEANE, M.A.,
ll1omflrtft1 Ilv REV. T. WHITELAW, D.D.
lt,omflfrs b~ Watious ~utf)ors. REV. B. D. BILLMAN, B.A. .REV. J.>. THOMAS, D.I>.
NEW EDITlO.Y.
FUNK & WA.GNA.LLS 00::.\IPA.NY LONDON AND NEW YORK 1906 THE BOOK OF HAGG.AI.
IN TROD U OT I O N.
§ I. Suan:cr OF THE BooK. FROM the time when Zephaniah prophesied of jndgment to come to the day ,vhen Haggai lifted up bis voice, some hundred years or more bad elapsed. In this interval God bad not left himseli without witness ; the prophets J eremiab, Ezekiel, and Daniel had carried on the torch of prophecy, and had not suffered the light of inspiration to be extinguished. Meanwhile startling events'bad happ'ened. That which earlier seers had foretold had come to pass; warnings unheeded had ripened bitter fruit. Israel had long ago been carried into captivity ; J ndah had snffer:ed a similar fate. For seventy years she had sat weeping by the waters of Babylon, learning a hard lesson and profiting thereby. Bnt the period of punishment came to an end at the aJ>pointed moment. God stirred up the spirit of C1 ms King of Elam, to allow and to urge the return of the Hebrews to their own land and the rebuilding of their temple. Not that Cyrus was a monotheist, who b111ieved in one ·supreme God. This idea, which has long obtained, is proved to be erroneous by the inscriptions which have been discovered, and which may be read in Professor Sayce's 'Fresh Light from the Monuments,' pp. 142, etc. From these it is clear that he was a worshipper of Bel- Merodach, the patron god of Babylon, and that, as it was his first care on the capture of that city to reinstate its deities in their shrines, so his edict respecting the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem was a result of his usual policy to adopt the gods of conquered countries, and to win their favour by supporting their worship. That God used him as his instrument for the restoration of the Hebrews proves nothing concerning his personal religion. Unworthy agents often perform most important service. Obey- ing the king's edict, many of the Jews, assisted by donations and bearing with them the rifled treasures of the temple, B.C. 536, prepared to return to their native land under the leadership of Zernbbabel, a prince of the house of D11vid, and Joshua the high priest. They were, indeed, but a small bn,1:,-, ii INTRODUCTION TO
amounting, according to the enumeration of Ezra (ii. 64, 65), to 42,360, exclusfre of menservants and maidservants reckoned at 7337. But they set to work with vigour on their arrival at Jerusalem, and in the second year of Cyrns, B.c. 534, erected the great altar in its old place, and established regular worship according to the Mosaic rituaL They then proceeded to lay the foundations of a new temple in the second year after their arrival. The prosecution of this undertaking met with unexpected obstacles. The mixed population which had been settled by the Assyrian conquerors in Central Palestine claimed, on the score of brotherhood, to take part in this sacred work. Such a claim could not be entertained. These Samaritans, as they are named, were not of the holy seed, did not worship Jehovah with pure worship, mixed idolatrous rites with their devotions to the true God. It would have been an abandonment of their unique position, treason to their Lord, for the Israelites to have admitted such syncretists to a participation in the erection of the temple. Zerubbabel, therefore, rightly declined their offered assistance. This rejection was bitterly resented. By representations made at court, they endeavoured to hinder the work, and were so successful in their opposition that the building. was stopped during the remainder of the life of Cyrus, and during the reign of his successors, Cambyses and Pseudo-Smerdis (Artaxerxes I.). Other causes combined to bring about the suspension of operations. •The zeal with which the labour was begun grew cold. The exiles had returned with high hope of happiness and prosperity; they had expected to enter into possession of a home prepared and ready for their reception; in their fervid imagination peace and plenty awaited them, and the blessings promised to obedience in their old Law were to be theirs with little labour or delay. A very differen:t state of thin:ge awaii!ed them. Cities ruined and desolate, aJand sterilized by want of cultivation, neighbours unfriendly or openly hostUe, scantiness of bread, danger, toil,-these were the objects which they ·had to contemplate. An_d though the spirit that animated their first enterprise, and the enthusiasm that accompanied a great national movement, excited them to commence the work with earnestness and ardour, their hearts were not sufficiently engaged in its prosecution to enable them to rise superior to inward distraction and outward opposition; and so they grew less interested in the completion of the undertaking, and they acquiesced with stolid complacency in its enforced cessation. They learned to look on the ruins of their holy house with a certain desponding equanimity, and turned to the furtherance of their own personal concerns, contentedly leaving the restoration of the temple to other times and stronger hands than theirs. But a happier con- dition of affairs arrived under the rule of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, who BUcceeded to the throne of Persia B.C. 521. The interdict which had stopped the building of the temple wu removed, the original decree of Cyrus was J.~:,wvered and re-enacted, and every assistance was given to the Jews to caITy out their original design. Nothing but the will was now wanting. It was the design of Haggai's prophecy to inspire this will, to shame the THE BOOK OF HAGGAI. iii