The Book of Haggai – Hag 2:1-23 

[Study Aired May 3, 2025]

The book of Haggai concludes abruptly in chapter two, presenting the concept that the seal of God’s approval, His “signet” in Zerubbabel, is the instigation for rebuilding the physical Temple; the Elect of God see the end from the beginning in the hidden spiritual perspective.

Hag 2:23  In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel [sheh-al-tee-ale’ = I have asked God], saith the LORD, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the LORD of hosts. 

Isa 46:9  Remember the former things of old [In this case, the former Temples]: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, 
Isa 46:10  Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: 

In the first chapter of Haggai, we saw the Lord’s inspiration in the sixth month on the first day of the month for Haggai to conceptualise rebuilding the Temple wall in Jerusalem. The Lord urged the builders to complete the job in fifty-two days, emblematic of the short work He spiritually does in us, the equivalent of rebuilding His Temple within.

In chapter two, the Lord galvanised Haggai to further inspire Zerubbabel about the former glory of Solomon’s Temple and, paradoxically, how this new Temple will be far superior to Solomon’s. Only the Elect of God today can fully appreciate that concept since it is spiritually discerned in the seventh month, our sabbath rest day in Christ, the builder of His Bride. The seventh day/month typifies Christ’s work on His Temple, which was built without man’s hands, off-site (As was Solomon’s temple) to be presented to Him as finished work — left behind are the five foolish virgins in the quarry, marred irregular, imperfect, cracked, not suitable to be elected to be dragged to the Temple’s construction site.

Lev 23:23  And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 
Lev 23:24  Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
Lev 23:25  Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

The Feast of Trumpets in the Seventh Month was a glorious gathering of the Lord’s people, its hazily understood meaning celebrating the imminent coming of the Lord. Preceding it in the same month was a solemn assembly, the Day of Atonement, for serious self-introspection of one’s heart being in the Lord. It all culminated in the First Resurrection, the dedication of the Temple, and the Feast of Tabernacles, representing the one-thousand year reign with the rod of iron. 

Lev 25:9  Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. 
Lev 25:10  And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. 
Lev 25:11  A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. 
Lev 25:12  For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. 
Lev 25:13  In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.

The Lord’s Elect are prophets, given that name by their inspired understanding of Christ’s word. Hence, before continuing in the book of Haggai, we already know the resulting mind of the people building Zerubbabel’s Temple without the holy spirit, physically destined to yet another dissolution. It all foretells that flesh and blood cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven, just as Abishag’s supreme dedication of her beautiful, virginal mind and body to King David could never resurrect the dying Old Covenant. Harrowingly, to Jephthah’s daughter and Abishag, their perfect virginal sacrifice, as good as flesh can be, was insultingly rejected as unclean. The two girls, hopefully, we can, and will, delightedly comfort in the Resurrection to Judgment (Jdg 1:29-40, 1Ki 1:1-4 Hag 2:11-13,14).

Only by the mind of Christ, can one see that Zerubbabel’s temple physically was a particularly dismal image of Solomon’s Temple, causing Haggai in 2:9 to give His Elect today, the “peace” in understanding His words. He says: “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.” 

The following verses of Zechariah portray our former nature, as it was in Old Israel without the holy spirit, extending to Babylon and Orthodox Christianity today — it all being a sumptuous feast for us, ravished, looking behind and to our future.

Zec 7:4  Then came the word of the LORD of hosts unto me [Zechariah], saying, 
Zec 7:5  Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast [in spirit] unto me, even to me? 
Zec 7:6  And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves? 
Zec 7:7  Should ye not hear the words which the LORD hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain? 
Zec 7:8  And the word of the LORD came unto Zechariah, saying, 
Zec 7:9  Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother: 
Zec 7:10  And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
Zec 7:11  But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. 
Zec 7:12  Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts. 
Zec 7:13  Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of hosts: 
Zec 7:14  But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate. 

Subsequently, after the introduction, we now have a good overview of the second and final chapter of this very short book of Haggai.

Significations:

The Coming Glory of the Temple

Hag 2:1  In the seventh month [Trumpets and Atonement], in the one and twentieth day [Witness to the building of the spiritual Temple within] of the month, came the word of the LORD by the prophet Haggai, saying, 
Hag 2:2  Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel [sheh-al-tee-ale’], governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, 
Hag 2:3  Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?

Verse 3 makes the Lord’s Elect shiver with excitement since,

Luk 8:10  And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. 

All of Haggai chapter two caused Zerubbabel to deeply consider the pitiful number of labourers, the quality of materials, and the formidable task ahead of rebuilding the Temple, let alone Jerusalem, compared to Solomon’s Temple. So, too, is the material the Lord has at His hands with His rag-tag dung of the world people to recreate them the New Adam in Him; a “nothing” people; worms like Jacob.

Job 17:13  If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.
Job 17:14  I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. 
Job 17:15  And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it? 

Isa 41:11  Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish.
Isa 41:12  Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought. 
Isa 41:13  For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. 
Isa 41:14  Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men [The remnant Elect] of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. 
Isa 41:15  Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff [In the one thousand Years and Resurrection to Judgment]. 

Continuing in Haggai, we clearly see that all references in the flesh represent the Lord’s Elect in spirit today, with every noun identifying us.

Hag 2:4  Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the LORD; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech [Yo-dawk], the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the LORD, and work: for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts: 
Hag 2:5  According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not. 

Even though the holy spirit had yet to come, the prophets and other elect of the time assuredly did have enough to understand dimly. Comparable to Christ, we, too, see dimly, though vastly brighter than our ancestral contemporaries. In the downpayment, Christ already sees us as having the full complement of his spirit since we know him.

1Co 13:12  For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 

1Jn 4:4  Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. 
1Jn 4:5  They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.
1Jn 4:6  We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

Hag 2:6  For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; 
Hag 2:7  And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts. 
Hag 2:8  The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the LORD of hosts. 
Hag 2:9  The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts. 

Because our Lord has given us to know his silver, his word of truth, we are filled with his glory, bringing forth his gold increase. Consequently, we see prophetically within the massive spiritual change of our ‘former house’, outstandingly greater in the “latter house”, the New Man in Christ.

1Co 15:44  It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 
1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 

Blessings for a Defiled People

A tremendous continuity of scripture is scattered throughout the Bible, hiding our Lord’s word. In Moses’ time, the divisions of Israel and its army were ordered in authority, emblematic of the Father, Christ, His Bride, and their children (the world). In each month from the first to the twelfth, the order of captains and leaders of tribes was officiated and documented in 1 Chronicles 27. The number 9 always represents the process of judgment, and 20 (2+10+4) is witness to Israel, beginning with the Elect, and signified by Benjamin.

1Ch 27:1  Now the children of Israel after their number, to wit, the chief fathers and captains of thousands and hundreds, and their officers that served the king in any matter of the courses, which came in and went out month by month throughout all the months of the year, of every course were twenty and four thousand. 

1Ch 27:12  The ninth captain for the ninth month was Abiezer the Anetothite, of the Benjamites: and in his course were twenty and four thousand. 

Hag 2:10  In the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, in the second year [witness] of Darius, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying, 
Hag 2:11  Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, 
Hag 2:12  If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No. 
Hag 2:13  Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean. 

There is NO WAY the non-spiritual person can fathom those last four verses without knowing their symbolisms.

Haggai is driven by the holy spirit to ask the priests of Israel concerning the ‘fleshly’ Law, insinuating why they have been perplexed since Sinai about why they cannot keep their Lord’s commands, resulting in endless chastisements.

The concept is that if part of a thing is holy, the entire component is holy, whether it is flesh or, after the cross, spiritually conceived.

Rom 11:14  If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. 
Rom 11:15  For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? 
Rom 11:16  For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also [becomes] holy: and if the root [Christ and his Christs] be holy, so are [become] the branches [the world].

If Christ’s word leavens us, the entire Body becomes holy, just as the wild yeast of Satan’s word makes us unclean.

The ‘holy flesh in the skirt of our garment’ signifies our spiritual virginity, not receiving unholy seed in the signified form of ‘pottage, wine, oil and meat.’ Our skirt or clothing is either spiritually righteous or unclean, depending upon whether Christ or a false Jesus ravishes us. Accordingly, if we lie with a doctrine other than Christ’s, we have committed adultery. It all subtly points to the New Covenant wife’s aversion to returning to the weak and beggarly elements of the Old Covenant, which her ‘father’s wife’ valiantly tried to keep but miserably failed, branding her a harlot, even ‘the mother of harlots’ as seen in Revelation 17:5.

Deu 27:20  Cursed be he that lieth with his father’s wife; because he uncovereth his father’s skirt. And all the people shall say, Amen. 

In the resurrection to judgment, upon finding the way to escape their torturous chastisements, the world will gladly take hold of the Lord’s Elect, His wife, begging at her feet (Rev 3:9) to teach them the Lord’s spiritual Commandments. They will thus be made clean.

Zec 8:23  Thus saith the LORD of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.

In the meantime for Israel, she hazily sees that her skirts are up around her face (Jer 13:26), a veritable whore.

Hag 2:14  Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the LORD; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean. 
Hag 2:15  And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the Temple of the LORD: 
Hag 2:16  Since those days were, when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the pressfat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty. 
Hag 2:17  I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the LORD. 

Those verses signify that the Temple at Jerusalem was rebuilt on a shoestring by a remnant people, unlike the massive support of skilled workers and craftsmen on Solomon’s Temple. Yet, and again for us, it depicts our Lord’s work in His base and contemptible little flock, out of which comes a spark of the holy spirit, lighting a raging inferno; even as a flood coming forth from the little cloud on the horizon following Elijah’s prayer to break the drought (1Ki 18:41). It all symbolises small beginnings, but prophetically for the future building of the spiritual Temple within the Lord’s Elect with Christ as the foundation stone, where spiritual moths, rust and mildew don’t corrupt.

Rev 3:7  And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;
Rev 3:8  I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. 
Rev 3:9  Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. 
Rev 3:10  Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. 
Rev 3:11  Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. 
Rev 3:12  Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. 

Twice now in Haggai with the next verse, we are told to ‘consider from this day and upward.’ For the remnant rebuilding the Temple in Old Jerusalem couldn’t help but consider only physically the hope of being able to keep all the Feast Days and the Lord’s commands. Hidden in those considerations, only the Lord’s Elect observe most ecstatically that it is Christ building the New Temple within them beginning on the emblematic twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. They are the seed in the Lord’s barn, even the vine, fig tree, pomegranate and olive tree bringing forth all kinds of spiritual fruit to fill the Lord’s storehouse.

Hag 2:18  Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the LORD’S Temple was laid, consider it. 
Hag 2:19  Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day will I bless you. 

Eze 47:12  And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine. 

Gal 5:22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Gal 5:23  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 
Gal 5:24  And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 
Gal 5:25  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 

Rev 22:1  And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. 
Rev 22:2  In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

The following is the fourth time the word of the Lord came to Haggai on the twentieth day of the month,, signifiying the whole thing to be “considered”, yet for Haggai and Israel, only physically.

Zerubbabel Chosen as a Signet

I apologise for the seeming overemphasis on the following verses. It starkly differentiates that the Lord is performing His workmanship on rebuilding the Old Temple so that we can reflect upon His recreating the New Temple and the New Man in His Elect.

Hag 2:20  And again the word of the LORD came unto Haggai in the four and twentieth day of the month, saying, 
Hag 2:21  Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth; 
Hag 2:22  And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother. 
Hag 2:23  In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the LORD, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the LORD of hosts. 

“That Day” is any day since the cross to the beginning of the one-thousand Year rule, that a prospective Elect is given eyes that see and ears that hear the shaking of his heavens and earth within. It is the Lord overthrowing and destroying the strength of the kingdoms within us. He utterly destroys the chariots, meaning the vehicles, being the many harlot ideologies ruling us centralised on one Great Whore, the Mother of Harlots we formerly sat astride ruling the Beast of humanity treacherously deluding them with doctrinal lies. Consequently, it was we who slew our brother Abel with every deception against the word of God, and their blood figuratively cries out from the ground (Gen 4:8-10).

Heb 12:25  See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they [Old Israel and us in Babylon] escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven [to our heavens within]
Heb 12:26  Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. 
Heb 12:27  And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Heb 12:28  Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 
Heb 12:29  For our God is a consuming fire. 

The Elect of God know that the sum of His word commands; hence, other prophets have built upon Haggai’s foundational beginnings of the physical Temple directed by Zerubbabel, alongside the much later detailed construction of the spiritual Temple in the Lord’s Bride, the Body of Christ.