Preview of Haggai

Preview of Haggai

1. Haggai is 2 chapters. A total of 38 verses: 15 in Chapter 1 and 23 in Chapter 2.

a. 24 verses deal with the building of the second temple, [all of Chapter one].

b. In Chapter 2, the first 9 verses deal with the second temple. Haggai is encouraging those who are discouraged because they feel the temple they are building is nothing compared to Solomon’s temple.

c. The LORD speaks through Haggai to Zerubbabel (Seed or progeny of Babylon), the governor of Judah and Joshua the high priest and all the people. The Lord assures them that He is with them just as he was with them coming out of Egypt. He then launches into the prophecy that is the focus of this study.

2. Unger’s Bible Dictionary: “Haggai (Hebrew: festal) lived at the same time as Zechariah and, as an older man, laboured with the younger man to encourage the returned Babylonian exiles to finish rebuilding the temple. Work on this structure had been started in the second year of Cyrus, late in B.C. 536 but had been abandoned because of difficulties and opposition.

In the second year of the Persian monarch Darius (520 B.C.) Haggai preached his four prophetic messages. Excerpts of these sermons compose the canonical book. The first prophetic utterance (1:1-15) was preached in August-September 520 B.C., the second (2:1-9), September-October, 520 B.C., the third (2:10-19) November-December 520 B.C., and the fourth (2:20-23), November-December.

Outline    

Part 1. Plea to finish the temple, 1:1-15.

Part 2. Prophecies of the millennial temple, 2:1-9

Part 3. Promise of present blessing upon finishing the temple, 2:10-19.

Part 4. Prophecy of the future destruction of the Gentile world power, 2:20-23.