20160209 Tuesday, February 9 2016
Haggai 01: Why Didn't The Exiles Want To Go Home?

by Wayne Blank
See also 1 Year Holy Bible Reading Plan

"Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them ... Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?"

The English-language rendering of Haggai is from the Hebrew name, pronounced kawg-gaw-hee, that means festive. Haggai was one of three prophets (Zechariah and Malachi were the other two - the reason that the three books are found together in present-day ordering of the Bible) whose ministries were focused on the time of Judah's national return from their seventy-years exile in Babylon (see Israel In History and Prophecy: The Return Of Judah) - what should have been a festive time.

After the division of Israel into Israel and Judah (see Israel In History and Prophecy: Israel and Judah), the Kingdom of Israel had completely fallen to the Assyrian Empire by 721 BC; those northern "lost ten tribes" never returned (see Israel In History and Prophecy: The Lost Ten Tribes).

The Assyrians were later conquered by the Babylonian Empire (the territorial extent of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires were practically the same, centered in what is today Iraq; see The Empires Of Bible History And Prophecy). It was the Babylonian Empire that conquered the kingdom of Judah by 586 BC.

The Babylonian Empire was later conquered by the Persian Empire (Persia is known today as Iran). It was during the Persian Empire, under their kings Cyrus (see The Prophecies Of Cyrus of Persia) and Darius (see The Decree Of Darius) that the people of Judah were permitted to return home from Babylon.

After seven decades, it was the children and grandchildren of the original exiles of Judah who were given to return to their ancestral home - that they had never before inhabited.

It was also a home that they did not by then want to return to because they were happy and prosperous in Babylon - exactly as the LORD told them to be, but only for their prescribed seventy years there (see What Did Jeremiah's Letter To Babylon Say?). By the appointed time of the end of their exile, they had forgotten or forsaken the reason that they were treated well there was, not only to enable their people of Judah to return to their own national home, but to conserve the Messianic line of the LORD from which Jesus Christ would be born (see the Fact Finder question below).

"29:4 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon;

29:5 Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; 29:6 Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished. 29:7 And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace." (Jeremiah 29:4-7 KJV)

The LORD's prophecies through Haggai began with instructions to rebuild Jerusalem - with a rebuke to not forsake their prophetic responsibility in favor of their temporary homes in Babylon.

"1:1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month [see also The New Moon Calendar], 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, 1:2 Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD'S house should be built.

1:3 Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying, 1:4 Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?" (Haggai 1:1-4 KJV)

The restoration of the city of Jerusalem and the Temple progressed under Ezra and Nehemiah (see Ezra: The Return Of The Levites To Jerusalem and Nehemiah: The Return Of The Governor), although with numerous delays due opposition by the foreign inhabitants of the land, as well as by the people of Judah looking too much to their own interests. Through Haggai, the LORD commanded the people of Judah to "Consider your ways" and get on with it, for "1:4 Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?"

"1:5 Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.

1:6 Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.

1:7 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.

1:8 Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD. 1:9 Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house." (Haggai 1:5-9 KJV)

So the people began to finish the work, in order to restore their purpose for being there to begin with - to set the stage for the coming of the Messiah to Zion (see Israel In History and Prophecy: Zion).

"1:12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the LORD.

1:13 Then spake Haggai the LORD'S messenger in the LORD'S message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the LORD. 1:14 And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, 1:15 In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king." (Haggai 1:12-15 KJV)

Fact Finder: How did the royal line of Jesus Christ continue through the Babylonian exile and the return to Jerusalem?
See How The Messianic Line Survived In Babylon