Haggai 1:3

1:3 So the Lord spoke through the prophet Haggai as follows: ¹ 

Haggai 1:13

1:13 Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, spoke the Lord’s word to the people: ²  “I am with you!” says the Lord.

Haggai 2:13-14

2:13 Then Haggai asked, “If a person who is ritually unclean because of touching a dead body ³  comes in contact with one of these items, will it become unclean?” The priests answered, “It will be unclean.”

2:14 Then Haggai responded, “‘The people of this nation are unclean in my sight,’ ⁴  says the Lord. ‘And so is all their effort; everything they offer is also unclean. ⁵ 

Haggai 1:12

The Response of the People

1:12 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak, ⁶  along with the whole remnant of the people, ⁷  obeyed ⁸  the Lord their God. They responded favorably to the message of the prophet Haggai, who spoke just as the Lord their God had instructed him, ⁹  and the people began to respect the Lord. ¹⁰ 

Haggai 2:20

Zerubbabel the Chosen One

2:20 Then the Lord spoke again to Haggai ¹¹  on the twenty-fourth day of the month: ¹² 

Haggai 1:5

1:5 Here then is what the Lord who rules over all says: ‘Think carefully about what you are doing. ¹³ 

Haggai 1:8

1:8 Go up to the hill country and bring back timber to build ¹⁴  the temple. ¹⁵  Then I will be pleased and honored,’ ¹⁶  says the Lord.

Haggai 2:1

The Glory to Come

2:1 On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, ¹⁷  the Lord spoke again through the prophet Haggai: ¹⁸ 

Haggai 2:7

2:7 I will also shake up all the nations, and they ¹⁹  will offer their treasures; ²⁰  then I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the Lord who rules over all.

Haggai 2:15

2:15 Now therefore reflect carefully on the recent past, ²¹  before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple. ²² 

Haggai 2:12

2:12 If someone carries holy meat in a fold of his garment and that fold touches bread, a boiled dish, wine, olive oil, or any other food, will that item become holy?’” ²³  The priests answered, “It will not.”

¹ tn Heb “and the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, saying.” Cf. the similar expression in v. 1 and the note there.

² tn Heb “Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, said by the message of the Lord to the people.” The Hebrew is highly repetitive; in keeping with contemporary English style this has been simplified in the translation.

³ tn Heb “unclean of a person,” a euphemism for “unclean because of a dead person”; see Lev 21:11; Num 6:6. Cf. NAB “unclean from contact with a corpse.”

⁴ tn Heb “so this people, and so this nation before me.” In this context “people” and “nation” refer to the same set of individuals; the repetition is emphatic. Cf. CEV “this entire nation.”

⁵ sn The point here is that the Jews cannot be made holy by unholy fellowship with their pagan neighbors; instead, they and their worship will become corrupted by such associations.

⁵ tn Many English versions have “Joshua [the] son of Jehozadak, the high priest,” but this is subject to misunderstanding. See the note on the name “Jehozadak” at the end of v. 1.

⁶ tn Heb “all the remnant of the people.” The Hebrew phrase שְׁאֵרִית הָעָם (shÿ’erit ha’am) in this postexilic context is used as a technical term to refer to the returned remnant (see Ezra 9:14; Isa 10:20-22; 11:11, 16; Jer 23:3; 31:7; and many other passages). Cf. TEV “all the people who had returned from the exile in Babylonia.”

⁷ tn Heb “heard the voice of”; NAB “listened to the voice of.”

⁸ tn Heb “and according to the words of Haggai the prophet just as the Lord their God sent him.” Some English versions (e.g., NAB, NIV, NCV) take the last clause as causal: “because the Lord their God had sent him.”

⁹ tn Heb “and the people feared from before the Lord”; NASB “showed reverence for the Lord.”

⁶ tn Heb “and the word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai.” This Hebrew expression is like the one in 2:10 and is slightly different from the one in 1:1, 3; 2:1.

⁷ sn Again, the twenty-fourth day of the month was Kislev 24 or December 18, 520 b.c. See v. 10.

⁷ tn Heb “Set your heart upon your ways” (see 2:15, 18); traditionally “Consider your ways” (so KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB).

⁸ tn Heb “and build the house” (so NIV, NRSV), with “house” referring specifically to the temple here.

⁹ sn The temple was built primarily of stone, so the timber here refers to interior paneling (see v. 4) and perhaps to scaffolding (see Ezra 5:8; 6:4).

¹⁰ tn The Hebrew verb אֶכָּבְדָ (’ekkavda) appears to be a defectively written cohortative (“that I may be glorified”). The cohortatives (note that the preceding אֶרְצֶה, ’ertseh, “I will be pleased,” may also be taken as cohortative) indicate purpose/result (cf. NIV, NRSV “so that”; CEV “so”) following the imperatives of v. 8a (“go up,” “bring back,” “build”).

⁹ tn Heb “In the seventh [month], on the twenty-first day of the month.”

¹⁰ tc Heb “the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, saying.” The MT has בְּיַד (bÿyad, “by the hand of” = “through” [so NAB, NIV, NLT] as in 1:1, 3); the Murabba’at Dead Sea text reads אֶל (’el, “to”), perhaps because the following command is given to the prophet.

¹⁰ tn Heb “all the nations.”

¹¹ tn Though the subject here is singular (חֶמְדַּה, khemdah; “desire”), the preceding plural predicate mandates a collective subject, “desired (things)” or, better, an emendation to a plural form, חֲמֻדֹת (khamudot, “desirable [things],” hence “treasures”). Cf. ASV “the precious things”; NASB “the wealth”; NRSV “the treasure.” In the OT context this has no direct reference to the coming of the Messiah.

¹¹ tn Heb “and now set your heart from this day and upward.” The juxtaposition of מָעְלָה (ma’lah, “upward”) with the following מִטֶּרֶם (mitterem, “before”) demands a look to the past. Cf. ASV “consider from this day and backward.”

¹² sn Before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple is best taken as referring to the laying of the present temple’s foundation, sixteen years earlier (536 b.c.; see Ezra 3:8). Cf. NCV “before you started laying stones”; TEV “before you started to rebuild”; NLT “before you began to lay (started laying CEV) the foundation.”

¹² sn This is probably not an appeal to the Torah (i.e., the Pentateuch) as such but to a priestly ruling (known in postbiblical Judaism as a pÿsaq din). There is, however, a Mosaic law that provides the basis for the priestly ruling (Lev 6:27).