In these verses we have the third of the earnest addresses delivered by the devoted seer to these temple builders. In the first (Haggai 1:3-11) he reproved them for their neglect and stimulated them to the performance of their duty. In the second (Haggai 1:13), in few words, a single pregnant sentence, indeed, he assured them of God's presence with them now that they had repented of their negligence and were prepared to consecrate themselves to the important enterprise. In this third address (vers. 1-9) he expatiated upon the glory of the second temple. The people had again, become discouraged and depressed, despondent and downcast, and he sought to impel them to fresh endeavour by indicating the brightness and blessedness of the coming times. Consider -

I. THE CAUSES OF THEIR DESPONDENCY. This despondency very soon again took possession of them. They had been less than a month engaged in earnest endeavour to carry on the great work when they gave way once more. It was "on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month" that, stirred up by the word of God through the prophet, they devoted themselves afresh to the service of rearing the sanctuary for the Lord, and now on the twenty-first day of the seventh month their hands tired and their hearts grew faint. Why?

1. The failure of their harvests. This was brought conspicuously before them by the fact that "the Feast of Tabernacles" was now going on. This festival stood out amongst the Jews as "the feast," and is described by Jewish writers as "the holiest and greatest feast" of the nation. It served a double purpose, for whilst it commemorated the goodness of God as manifested to the fathers during their desert wanderings, it also commemorated his goodness in the harvest just gathered in, and was therefore not only called "the Feast of Tabernacles," but likewise "the Feast of Ingathering." In prosperous times, during its celebration, the holy city wore quite a holiday aspect. It became converted into a vast camp for all the people, and, with a view to make more vivid to them the tent life of their ancestors in the wilderness, they dwelt for the time being in booths, which they constructed of boughs of olive and palm, pine and myrtle; all the courses of the priests were employed in the religious exercises, bullocks were offered in sacrifice, the Law was read, the trumpets were sounded daily, and each who took part in the commemoration bore in the left hand a branch of citron, and in the right a palm branch entwined with willows and myrtle. When we remember how that on this occasion, in celebrating this feast, they would have, of necessity, to dispense with many of the usual accompaniments, and also that the blight had been upon their crops, and hence the ingathering had been only scanty (Haggai 1:6), we need not be surprised at the depression from which they were suffering.

2. There was, however, another cause of their despondency, viz. the unfavourable contrast presented as they compared the structure they were rearing with the first temple. (Ver. 3.) There were old men among these returned exiles who had seen the temple of Solomon, and who, when the foundations of this second temple were laid, conscious that the new structure would be very inferior in character to the former building, gave way to demonstrations of grief (Ezra 3:11-13). And it would seem that, as the work of reconstruction proceeded, these hoary-headed men continued to revert to the glories of the past, and instituted so many unfavourable comparisons between that age and the times as they were now, that the builders grew weary and faint hearted in their work.

II. THE CONSIDERATION URGED BY THE PROPHET SO AS TO STRENGTHEN THEIR HEARTS AND TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO RENEWED CONSECRATION. Haggai was aged, yet, unlike his contemporaries, instead of dwelling despondingly upon the past, he looked on hopefully to the future. With prophetic insight he saw the golden age as lying, not in the days of yore, but in the coming time. His thoughts were centred upon Divine blessings to be bestowed richly and bountifully upon the true and faithful, and he sought to animate the drooping faith and hope of the workers by directing their minds to these. He reminded them of:

1. The abiding presence with them of the Lord of hosts, in fulfilment of the covenant made with their fathers (ver. 5).

2. The national upheavings which should take place, and which should be overruled to their good (vers. 6, 7).

3. The halo of glory which should eventually rest upon the shrine they were rearing (vers. 7, 9).

4. The Divine proprietorship of all material resources (ver. 8).

5. The deep and durable tranquillity which should be experienced as the result of the development of the Divine purposes (ver. 9). The sense of despondency is experienced still by those engaged in holy service, and the way to get roused out of this is by anticipating the brighter days that are in store, when rectitude shall mark every character, and truth be on every tongue; when holy virtue shall adorn every life; when the heavenly fruits of "love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance," shall everywhere abound, and the Lord of hosts shall have a home and dwelling place in every heart. - S.D.H.

The recovery of the Jews from the disasters attending the Babylonian Captivity was necessarily slow and painful. The handful of patriots who returned with Zerubbabel were poor, weak, and despised. They found Jerusalem and the temple heaps of ruins, covered with weeds and rubbish. The first two years witnessed the rebuilding of the altar, the re-establishment of the burnt sacrifices, and the laying of the foundation of the second temple amid the liveliest conflict of emotions. Just at this point a second oracle, full of Divine encouragement, came to Haggai. Weak hands were strengthened, timid hearts were cheered, religious faith and patriotic zeal were kindled into a glow of enthusiasm that never failed until the work was done. We note four considerations by which the prophet wrought this happy change in the temper of his people.

I. JEHOVAH'S ABIDING PRESENCE. Regarded from a merely human point of view there were many and cogent reasons either for an abandonment of the work, or for its postponement until a more auspicious time. The hostility of the neighbouring peoples showed itself in persistent plots to harass the returned exiles, in fomenting discords among them, and in discrediting them at the Persian court. In comparison with the number, wealth and influence of their adversaries, were not the Jews themselves weak and contemptible? Only a few years had passed since their return to a ruined city and a desolate land. In their poverty and distress would it not be audacious folly to undertake the rebuilding of a structure that had taxed the resources of the kingdom in its meridian glory and power? Had not this generation borne burdens enough without being crushed under another? Why not relinquish this enormous load to a better equipped posterity? Moreover, since they returned from Babylon, had not the Lord withheld the legitimate increase of the fields and vineyards? In these straitened circumstances did not the care of their families demand all their time and substance? It might be a pardonable, but was it not a rash enthusiasm in the prophet that had incited them to waste a month of labour on this hopeless task? Religious leaders are always unreasonable! These discouraged Jews could have invented a hundred excuses for abandoning the work. Self-justification is easy when one is eager to recede from an unwelcome task or duty. All human objections, however, are as chaff before an explicit Divine command. The voice of prophecy, re-awakened after long silence, had spoken the authoritative word. However sore the discipline to which their sins had subjected them, they were His people still, a "holy seed," a "very small remnant" indeed, but one over whose preservation He had watched with jealous care. With loving reiteration Jehovah exhorts them to forget their own weakness in joyful recognition of His omnipotence; to assure themselves that "the hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, is not as a sojourner in the land, nor as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night." As He covenanted with them when they came out of Egypt, so "His Spirit abideth among them." "Be strong and. work, saith the Lord of hosts; for I am with yea, and fear ye not." There is no better ground for victorious confidence than that. His presence is infinitely more desirable than unlimited worldly wealth and power. We, likewise, face the depressing problems of our own day, grappling with them as we can, only to be overwhelmed by the consciousness of our inability. Through repeated failures we learn that without Divine help we can do nothing. We are overmatched in the battle. "All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

II. JEHOVAH'S EXHAUSTIBLE RESOURCES. What if Jehovah's people are poor, insignificant, despised? He who is in the midst of them is the rightful owner of the world's treasures. The silver and the gold are His. He will "shake all the nations, and the costliest things of all the nations shall come" into His sanctuary. Now, see, when the people really trusted the Lord and went to work (Ezra 6:3-9), how wonderfully the prophet's word was fulfilled; how the expense of rearing the massive walls, and the cost of the wood-work were defrayed from the treasury of the Persian Empire; how the priceless vessels of silver and gold, that Nebuchadnezzar had carried to Babylon for his own glory, as he thought, but really for safe keeping during the exile, were all restored again; how the adversaries of the Jews, who had plotted against them, were compelled by the royal decree to furnish them day by day with young bullocks, rams and lambs for sacrifices, and with wheat, salt, wine, and oil as the priests had need. Not only this, but from the very day (Haggai 2:19, 20) when the rebuilding of the temple began, Jehovah would bless their land with affluence, instead of smiting it with blasting, with mildew, and with hail. God's work never stops for lack of means when men are willing to obey Him, and to launch out confidently on His promises. The silver and the gold are forthcoming, not by miracle, but through natural channels, as surprising sometimes as actual miracles. Is the time ripe for carrying the Gospel into the heathen world? See how the millions are poured every year into the Lord's treasury. If men will not give spontaneously, as did Darius, to the furtherance of God's purposes, He compels them to bring the best of their substance, as the Samaritans were forced to do. God scatters His resources neither extravagantly nor in conformity to the whims of men. The law of parsimony withholds Him from giving so freely as to make unnecessary the discipline of anxiety and struggle. Even when social and moral reformations are greatly needed He does not purchase transient success by lavish expenditures. Moral results are not permanently secured by material agencies. God could have supplied the early Church with means enough to have freed every slave in the Roman Empire. Instead, He projects into humanity two lofty ideals, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, confident that these ideals will ultimately and for ever accomplish what neither gold nor force can do. Nor does He waste His resources in perpetuating institutions that have survived their usefulness. Local churches, as well as individual saints, are but temporary factors. "Holy relics" He suffers with absolute indifference to moulder into common dust.

III. JEHOVAH'S GRACIOUS PURPOSES. Haggai prophesied in a transition period. The older men who heard him had witnessed the wreck of the Jewish monarchy. The return of the captives to Jerusalem was the glimmering dawn after a dark and stormy night. The glory of the past was a memory; that of the future a dream. Transition periods are always charged with doubts and fears, with peril and pain. The sorest trials are alleviated by an assurance that they lead to higher and richer experiences. And yet men would often forego these if they could thereby escape the trial. They cling to long-cherished errors because they dread the effort and pain of adjusting themselves to new truths. Hoary abuses linger in the community, in the State, in the Church, because men shrink from the sharp but transient evils attending a crisis. modern science, philosophy, criticism, — the forces that are continually precipitating these crises — are not enemies but friends. God's purposes do not move backward. A new and better world always emerges from the chaos of the old. So long as God's hand directs the development every transition will be, not toward darkness and anarchy, but toward truth and order. Haggai encouraged his people with the assurance that their sufferings were not meaningless. Painful as their national discipline had been, it was but an unavoidable step in the evolution of a sublime purpose. Not only did he assure them that Jehovah, their covenant-keeping God, was still in the midst of His People; not only were His resources inexhaustible, and ready to be poured out in their behalf; but He had also a purpose of grace concerning them and the whole world, immeasurably exceeding the brightest memories of the past. Despicable as this new house might appear to those who had seen the splendours of Solomon's temple, the new would nevertheless outshine the old. Greater shall be the latter glory of this house than the former, saith the Lord of hosts." Observe that it is the "latter glory" (R.V.) and not the "latter house" (A.V.); for whatever be its material condition, Jehovah knows of but one abiding dwelling on His holy hill of Zion. That messianic day, moreover, will be characterised by universal peace. For "in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts." Peace, first of all, between man and God, that which every true heart yearns for supremely, but which is not found in the world. Peace also between man and man. Inter national rivalries, the ambition of conquerors, royal greed of power will no longer hurl nation against nation in bloody strife. Peace, finally, between man and the wild beasts of the field (Isaiah 11:6-9). The distrust between them will cease. As nature has shared in man's curse, so it will share in the benefits of man's redemption.

IV. JEHOVAH'S "LITTLE WHILE," Some of the despondent ones might have retorted, "Such glowing pictures were painted by the older prophets, but they are as far from realisation as ever." "No," says Haggai; "it is only one period more, a very brief one, and then Jehovah will work signs and wonders among the nations to arouse them from indifference, to turn them unto Himself, and thus prepare for the golden age." In a measure His utterance was fulfilled at once, but in its larger signification it still awaits complete fulfilment. The centuries after the Exile were really a brief preface to the messianic period which began with the coming of Christ into His temple, and which still continues. Men are impatient at the moderate pace of events in the kingdom of God. They wonder why He does not force men into swift obedience by stupendous displays of power. Because love and obedience are not wrought by force. Love conquers the kingdom of hatred only inch by inch. Viewing these things by and by from the side of eternity, men will see that earth's longest periods are only Jehovah's "little whiles." The world is ripening faster than we think. Who knows but that the full glory of the messianic time may be close at hand? Whether near or far, every man's supreme duty to God and to his fellow-man is so to live, by the Holy Spirit's help, as to make the world better, and thus to hasten the advent of that golden age.

(P. A. Nordell, D. D.)