The past and the future.
Two months had now elapsed since, stimulated by the prophet's glowing words, the temple builders had resumed their labours (comp. Haggai 2:1 with Haggai 2:10). These months were of great importance with reference to agricultural interests, being the usual season for sowing the seed and planting the vines. That at such a time they should manifest so much zest in the work of rebuilding the temple proved how thoroughly in earnest they were; sad this earnestness is the more evident as we remember that the previous harvests having failed, the people must at this time have been in very straitened circumstances. It is not surprising if, whilst engaged in these combined operations, renewed depression took possession of their hearts, and if in sadness they asked themselves what they would do if the next harvest should likewise fail. The address of Haggai recorded in these verses (10-19) was designed either to anticipate or to meet such gloomy apprehensions; and we have only to hear this design in mind, and the meaning of his words, otherwise somewhat ambiguous, becomes very clear.
I. THE CAUSE OF VAST ADVERSITY.
1. He traced this to their own moral defection. The method he adopted was peculiar—it was by means of parables that he sought to make vivid to them their last sinfulness, and which had caused their sorrow.
2. He intimated that because of this defection God had visited them in judgment. He had in chastisement smitten them with blasting and mildew and hail, rendering their labour so abortive that their sheaves had yielded but a scanty return (verses 15-17).
3. He recorded the fact that, despite these judgments, they had persisted in their neglect of duty. "Yet ye turned not unto me, saith the Lord" (verse 17). The prophet's strong faithful speech indicates that there had been amongst these returned captives much of indifference, coldness, and deadness in reference to the work of God, and it was only right that they should be reminded of this, and that by the painful memory of past failure they should be stimulated to more thorough and entire consecration in the future, and to which we may be sure the devoted seer gladly turned. The past is irrevocable and irretrievable. No tears, no regrets, can win it back to us.
"Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers of thy dark domain;
All things, yea, even man's life on earth,
Slide to thy dim dominions and are bound."
The future, however, is available, and hence, leaving the past, with all our shortcomings in relation to it, and rejoicing in God's mercy and in the strength he is so ready to impart, let us "go and sin no more."
II. THE ASSURANCE OF FUTURE PROSPERITY. (Verse 19.) Their action had now completely changed. They fully recognized God's claims; instead of seeking their own personal and selfish ends, they now consecrated themselves heart and soul to the work of God, striving in every way to advance his glory. The temple rose, and "they finished it according to the commandment," etc. (Ezra 6:14). And their attitude towards God and his work being thus changed, his attitude towards them became likewise changed. They must still for a while experience the effects of their past neglect in that time must elapse before rich fruitfulness should appear where formerly there had been dearth and barrenness, but they might rest assured of the returning favour of the Lord; yea, from that moment this joy should be theirs. "From this day will I bless you" (verse 19). So is it in our life, that whilst the cherubim with the flaming sword sternly guard the door of the past, so that there is no possibility of our return (Genesis 3:24), there is also the angel of the Lord opening up the path before us through the wilderness, and prepared to guide us, if we will, to the brighter Eden that lies beyond (Exodus 23:21, Exodus 23:22).—S.D.H.