Haggai calls the people back to the temple work
Exile & Return · Draft · BSB
Content revision: d4389f1983dd4b32 · No editorial review date recorded
Date: Darius · Second year, sixth month
Haggai challenges a community that attends to its own houses while the LORD’s house remains ruined. He connects their disappointing harvests with their neglected calling. Zerubbabel, Joshua and the people listen, and work resumes with the assurance of the LORD’s presence.
The message is dated within Darius’s second year, from the first to the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month. It addresses this community’s covenant situation; it is not a general formula promising wealth whenever people fund a religious building. Joshua the priest is Jeshua in Ezra.
Primary Scripture
1:1 In the second year of the reign of Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the LORD came through Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, stating
1:2 that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD.’”
1:3 Then the word of the LORD came through Haggai the prophet, saying:
1:4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?”
1:5 Now this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Consider carefully your ways.
1:6 You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but never get warm. You earn wages to put into a bag pierced through.”
1:7 This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Consider carefully your ways.
1:8 Go up into the hills, bring down lumber, and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified, says the LORD.
1:9 You expected much, but behold, it amounted to little. And what you brought home, I blew away. Why? declares the LORD of Hosts. Because My house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house.
1:10 Therefore, on account of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth has withheld its crops.
1:11 I have summoned a drought on the fields and on the mountains, on the grain, new wine, and oil, and on whatever the ground yields, on man and beast, and on all the labor of your hands.”
1:12 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, as well as all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God and the words of the prophet Haggai, because the LORD their God had sent him. So the people feared the LORD.
1:13 Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, delivered the message of the LORD to the people: “I am with you,” declares the LORD.
1:14 So the LORD stirred the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, as well as the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and began the work on the house of the LORD of Hosts, their God,
1:15 on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of King Darius.
Related Scripture
Ezra identifies Haggai and Zechariah as prophets who helped the rebuilding community.
Location evidence
Jerusalem is an identified city. The marker locates the city, not a precisely verified house, gate, platform or section of ancient wall.
Event map marker: Identified site; [longitude, latitude] = [35.234167, 31.776667]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Jerusalem: Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.234167, 31.776667]. Classification source: editorial.
OpenBible.info: Jerusalem (CC BY 4.0)
OpenBible.info: Jerusalem (CC BY 4.0)
For the class
What changes between the people’s explanation for delay and their renewed work?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: editorial (content/authored/exile-return.json)
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm