AN
EXPOSITION,
W I T H P R A C T I C A L O B S E R V A T I O N
S,
OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
H
A G G A I
THE
captivity in
Babylon
gave a very remarkable turn to the affairs of the Jewish church both in
history and prophecy. It is made a signal epocha in our Saviour's genealogy,
Matt. i. 17. Nine of the twelve minor prophets, whose oracles we have been
hitherto consulting, lived and preached before that captivity, and most of
them had an eye to it in their prophecies, foretelling it as the just
punishment of
Jerusalem
's wickedness. But the last three (in whom the Spirit of prophecy took its
period, until it revived in Christ's forerunner) lived and preached after the
return out of captivity, not immediately upon it, but some time after. Haggai
and Zechariah appeared much about the same time, eighteen years after the
return, when the building of the temple was both retarded by its enemies and
neglected by its friends. Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet and
Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Jerusalem, in
the name of the God of Israel, even unto them (so we read Ezra v. 1), to
reprove them for their remissness, and to encourage them to revive that good
work when it had stood still for some time, and to go on with it vigorously,
notwithstanding the opposition they met with in it. Haggai began two months
before Zechariah, who was raised up to second him, that out of the mouth of
two witnesses the word might be established. But Zechariah continued longer at
the work; for all Haggai's prophecies that are recorded were delivered within
four months, in the second year of Darius, between the beginning of the sixth
month and the end of the ninth. But we have Zechariah's prophecies dated above
two years after, Zech. vii. 1. Some have the honour to lead, others to last,
in the work of God. The Jews ascribe to these two prophets the honour of being
members of the great synagogue (as they call it), which was formed after the
return out of captivity; we think it more certain, and it was their honour,
and a much greater honour, that they prophesied of Christ. Haggai spoke of him
as the glory of the latter house, and Zechariah as the man, the
branch. In them the light of that morning star shone more brightly than in
the foregoing prophecies, as they lived nearer the time of the rising of the
Sun of righteousness, and now began to see his day approaching. The LXX. makes
Haggai and Zechariah to be the penmen of Ps. cxxxviii. and of Ps. cxlvi.,
cxlvii., and cxlviii.
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