Haggai
About this date: Dates are broad scholarly estimates of composition or final editing, not dates of the events narrated. Traditional attributions and scholarly assessments can differ.
Haggai addresses a returned community whose private priorities contrast with the neglected temple. Brief dated messages connect rebuilding with communal responsibility, divine presence, and hope amid limited resources.
Historical context
The book dates its messages to the second year of Darius, conventionally 520 BCE. The setting is the Persian-period restoration community rather than Solomon's original temple project.
Key points
- The call to consider one's ways addresses the community's allocation of resources.
- The assurance of divine presence responds to discouragement over the temple's appearance.
- The language about shaking the nations later receives a new application in Hebrews.
Scripture
- Haggai 1:1-15 — The first message joins neglected worship, economic frustration, and a call to rebuild.
- Haggai 2:1-9 — The second message speaks to discouragement and promises divine presence and future glory.
- Haggai 2:20-23 — Zerubbabel is addressed through signet imagery and the overturning of kingdoms.
- Hebrews 12:25-29 — Hebrews explicitly reuses the shaking language in its exhortation about receiving an unshakable kingdom.
Sources and further reading
- Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles: canonical books and Apocrypha
- Catholic Catechism §120: canon and book list
- Haggai: complete public-domain WEB text
- Orthodox Church in America: canon of Scripture
- Orthodox Church in America: Old Testament historical books
- USCCB Bible introductions: historical and literary notes