Audio Download

The Book of Haggai – Hag 1:1-15 

[Aired April 26, 2025]

In its opening verses, it is clear that the Book of Haggai pronounces rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. Outwardly, this study conducted in April 2025 is very timely since the professed Jews in Israel are currently determined to rebuild the first temple on the Mount following the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 587/586 BCE by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and, more recently, the Romans in 70 AD the destruction of the Temple Haggai initiated through Zerubbabel. The Jews today worship against a Roman-constructed wall, not part of the Temple wall Haggai conceptualised. Of course, the spiritual student of Christ immediately corresponds to all physical accounts spiritually.

1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural []; and afterward that which is spiritual [In the new, heavenly Jerusalem above, within the minds of his Elect on Earth, today].
1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1Co 15:48  As is the earthy [Remaining in Babylon within], such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly [Speaking of those given spiritual eyes and ears for Christ’s spirit in us to discern his spirit]. 
1Co 15:49  And as we have [formerly…] borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly

That image of the heavenly was originally the corruptible image of God in our first fleshly mother, Eve, “which is the natural.” Since the cross, the New Jerusalem has been painfully spiritually built in the Lord’s Elect.

Gen 1:26  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 
Gen 1:27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 

In keeping with us all speaking and implicitly believing the same thing as Christ, here is the following excerpt from our web page regarding God creating man in His image as a process: https://server1.xploreseo.com/iswasandwillbe/was-the-first-man-adam-made-in-gods-image/

All Hebrew scholars know that…

Gen 1:27 And creating is the Elohim humanity in His image. In the image of the Elohim He creates it. Male and female He creates them.

​’Creating’ is written in the Hebrew ‘qal ‘stem (the most basic and foundational form of a verb), which accounts for over 2/3 (66.7%) of the Hebrew verbs in the Old Testament. Here is a cut and paste from e-sword concerning the qal verb stem in the Old Testament Hebrew:

H8851
Qal
Qal is the most frequently used verb pattern. It expresses the “simple” or “causal” action of the root in the active voice.

Examples:

He sat,  he ate,  he went,  he said,  he rose,  he bought

This form accounts for 66.7% of the verbs parsed.

The qal stem in the active voice is the English equivalent of the present progressive. It is an ongoing process, as the Lord Himself tells us:

Mat 24:35  Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

​The fact that God was only beginning to make man in His image at the end of the sixth day is very clear in these New Testament statements:

2Ti 1:9  Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Tit 1:2  In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; 

Consequently, by Zerubbabel’s decree, Haggai initiated the process of rebuilding the Temple, that the spiritual man sees every detail spiritually, powerfully portraying the spiritual beginning of the process of recreating the New Temple in the Lord’s Elect on the sixth day, Elul, of the Hebrew calendar. For the Elect, even though he realizes that he, too, is a man of perdition, that process is symbolically completed on the Seventh Day of the Sabbath and the world on the Eighth Day, the Resurrection to Judgment.

Rev 17:8  The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

Rev 17:11  And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.

We will notice in the opening verse of Haggai that it was the sixth month on the first day of the month that Haggai received word from the Lord according to the Hebrew calendar. Covertly, the devout Jews in exile in Babylon privately kept their Lord’s times and seasons and applied them to the Chaldean calendar. 

Dan 2:20  Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: 
Dan 2:21  And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:
Dan 2:22  He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. 
Dan 2:23  I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the King’s matter. 

Daniel represents today’s Elect, who are given wisdom, knowledge, understanding and might to know the King’s matters. As such, Haggai’s account represents rebuilding the spiritual Temple within the Lord’s Elect as they move into the Seventh Day rest, at least for them, in marriage to the Lamb.

The physical observance of times and seasons is in scripture to guide us to the reality in Christ, the pattern of the heavenly, and not as most Orthodox Christians in lockstep with the synagogue of Satan ritually observe year-by-year.

Gal 4:9  But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
Gal 4:10  Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
Gal 4:11  I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain. 

The vision of the new Temple was initiated on the sixth month of Elul, and its wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of Elul in a mere fifty-two days.

Neh 6:15  So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days.
Neh 6:16  And it came to pass, that when all our enemies heard thereof, and all the heathen that were about us saw these things, they were much cast down in their own eyes: for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God.

How glorious are those numbers, days, months and times for the New Temple to understand! 

Six is the number of fleshy, corruptible mankind created on the sixth day and emblematic of the recreation, albeit a physical recreation, of the Old Temple, initiated in the sixth month of Elul. Ironically, Elul means “nothingness”, equating to the destruction of the flesh.

Transliteration: ‘Eluwl

– Phonetic: el-ool’

– Definition: Elul = nothingness 

1. 1. Sixth Jewish month corresponding to modern Aug. or Sep. 

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Exo 12:1  And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 
Exo 12:2  This month [Nisan] shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.

Exo 12:13  And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. 
Exo 12:14  And this day [Nisan – 14^th-15^th] shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast [The Passover] by an ordinance for ever. 

In connection with the Feast Days, how fitting that Haggai’s name means “festive.” Additionally, as the 10th Minor Prophet, a sub-spiritual connection can be made with him, as he represents the conclusion of the ten tribes of Israel, among which Benjamin and principally Joseph represent the Lord’s Elect.

Significations:

The Command to Rebuild the Temple

Hag 1:1  In the second year of Darius the King, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,
Hag 1:2  Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD’S house should be built. 
Hag 1:3  Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying, 
Hag 1:4  Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? 

Remarkably, Haggai’s envisioned rebuilding of the Temple’s wall was unexpectedly completed in fifty-two days, spiritually denoting the Lord’s Elect’s passion for having their husband, Christ, fortify their souls in him. The number 52 represents His chastising grace through faith, with a witness of two being Him and his Bride in their covenant relationship.

The Passover is the first of the Seven Feasts to the Lord of each year and denotes the beginning of God’s plan of salvation for mankind, first with His Elect.

The finishing of the Temple’s walls classically concluded and coincided with Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks.

Exo 12:1  And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 
Exo 12:2  This month [Nisan] shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. 
Exo 12:3  Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: 

Lev 23:15  And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete
Lev 23:16  Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD. 

“The first day of the month” is significant in scripture, occurring 12 times and denoting the foundations of a new beginning associated with the occasion.

Gen 8:5  And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. 

Exo 40:17  And it came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up. 

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. 

Num 29:1  And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work: it is a day of blowing the trumpets unto you. 

Deu 1:3  And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel, according unto all that the LORD had given him in commandment unto them;

In Ezekiel 26, 29, 31 and 32,  the Lord proclaimed prophecies against the two principal cities and nations within on “the first day of the month” – Tyre, Egypt, representing Old Jerusalem and, later, their collective by implication, including Sodom represented by Babylon, all covertly indicating our new beginning and progression to spiritual maturity.

Typically, as seen in Haggai 12:4, very few people are given the passion and heart to know Christ, with them exhibiting Laodicean-like slothful people not desiring to rebuild their Temple within, saying, “The time is not come.” Our Lord decides the times and seasons to change His chosen when He wills. He says in verse 4, “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?”

That verse describes us living in the riches of Babylon’s panelled walls and ceiling compared to the destruction of Old Jerusalem, where owls roost and jackals den. The very few chosen to rebuild the Temple today see their Judeo-Orthodox Christian ways lying waste; hearing ‘today’ their Lord’s voice, that it is time to rebuild spiritually.

Rev 3:17  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Rev 3:18  I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

Hag 1:5  Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. 
Hag 1:6  Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. 
Hag 1:7  Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.

No man (Other than Christ) ‘considered his ways’ more than Solomon, preempting Haggai and all the prophets to ponder and heartily agree that earthly riches and pleasures are ultimately worthless. No matter how magnificent a home we have, clothing, friends, profitable businesses, lovely wives, husbands and children, it all in time, and untimeliness disappears, adding nothing other than an experience of evil to reflect upon in the judgement day when we hear his voice.

Ecc 2:9  So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. 
Ecc 2:10  And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. 
Ecc 2:11  Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. 

Deu 8:5  Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.
Deu 8:6  Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him. 

Heb 10:24  And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: 
Heb 10:25  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. 
Heb 10:26  For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 
Heb 10:27  But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. 

From time to time, we all sin willfully, upon our request for forgness, being forgiven 70 times seven. It is not about throwing up your hands because of the futility of trying to overcome; it is about acknowledging your sins and asking for forgiveness, as well as Christ’s view of our spirit of intent and how sincere it is to overcome.

Luk 18:10  Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. [In our time and order, we represent both the Pharisee and the Publican, figuratively Leah and Rachel; Jacob and Essau; Judas and me/you; Babylon and the Elect—and on and on] 
Luk 18:11  The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
Luk 18:12  I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 
Luk 18:13  And the publican [You and me], standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. 
Luk 18:14  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. 

Rev 17:15  And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth [the same as the Publican, Pharisee and you and me], are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. 

Heb 4:12  For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 

Jer 3:13  Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD. 

In the meantime, before being given to understand that Christ builds our spiritual Temple within, not made with man’s hands, we, and by our sweaty strength, build a work made of wood, hay, straw and stubble, all representing “little”, utterly consumed by our Lord’s fiery breath blowing upon it for destruction.

Gen 3:19  In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Amo 6:13 Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?

The most profound struggle is Adam representing men, particularly husbands, who endlessly battle to achieve a unified connection with their wives as they build a house of wood, hay, straw and stubble, unsuitable for them and spiritually, their Lord; but, is a highly necessary experience of evil to drag us to Christ that He, and because of the process, ‘takes pleasure.’ That house is designed by Christ to be laid waste.

Hag 1:8  Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD.
Hag 1:9  Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.
Hag 1:10  Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth [we represent] is stayed from her fruit. 
Hag 1:11  And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands. 

Christ, our husband, is the heavenly labourer over us to hopefully produce some reciprocal enthusiastic response in us, whereby His dew upon our spiritual infertility is “stayed” from the womb of our earth, producing very little fruit; most likely naughty figs (Jer 23:2) — thus we pull down our house by our formerly devious machinations, the Temple where our husband resided. The pleasure he receives is not in the dull eyes of the whore we were, one with frosted locks and a womb of ice; rather, in the end, product, through the process of drought and toil in trials and chastisements of her becoming his spiritual Bride. That code of that process is hidden in Zerubbabel’s name, which means “sown in Babylon”. We are initially sown in Babylon before coming out of her where our now warm spring wombs of receiving our Husband’s spirit is further signified in Haggai 12 by the name Shealtiel (sheh-al-tee-ale’), meaning “I have asked God” and Joshua, “Jehovah is my salvation” thrice verifying our Lord’s guaranteed process of salvation of the Elect, followed by the world by the meanings of those names.

Job 38:28  Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?
Job 38:29  Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? 

Son 5:2  I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. 

Pro 14:1  Every wise woman [The Bride of Christ] buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. 

Those verses of Haggai immediately above continue depicting the hopelessness of us labouring in Babylon by the sweat of our brow, a veritable Queen of fellow harlots, revelling richly, saying that we will see no sorrow (Rev 18:7-8).

The People Obey the Lord

Hag 1:12  Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the LORD.
Hag 1:13  Then spake Haggai the LORD’S messenger [Referencing the Elect] in the LORD’S message unto the people [Referencing the world], saying, I am with you, saith the LORD.
Hag 1:14  And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel [sown in Babylon] the son of Shealtiel [I have asked God], governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua [Jehovah is my salvation] the son of Josedech [Jehovah is righteous], the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the LORD of hosts, their God,

The concluded deduction of those verses paints the picture of the Lord’s Elect, profoundly honouring their Father in fear and awe of His plan for them. His Son, Christ, has awakened his Bride’s ardour for him, for her, the wise woman to build her house, a Temple for his residence in her warm heart, eager to receive the drops of the night, his spirit. 

The following scriptures present the broad process of the Bride’s transition to becoming a spiritually full-bodied woman of beautiful proportions.

Son 8:8  We [Zionist Babylon] have a little sister [The Elect], and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day [Today] when she shall be spoken for? 
Son 8:9  If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver: and if she be a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar. 

Haggai’s representation depicts a physical Temple made from earthly elements; nonetheless, it remains a physical image with profound spiritual implications hidden from the keen prying eyes of Solomon’s 1,000 jealous wives, characterised as Babylonian Christianity. 

Son 8:10  I am a wall, and my breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favour. 

It took a mere symbolic hour of fifty-two days, a short work the Lord takes to rebuild the walls of his Temple in us, with gloriously elegant breasts like towers, and not like the deliberately lewd, Jezebel-like ‘towers’ of the pop icon Madonna, a stark reminder of Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots.

Rom 9:27  Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:
Rom 9:28  For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.
Rom 9:29  And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth [That which goes forth] had left us a seed [A remnant to rebuild the Temple], we [would have] had been as Sodoma burning; a reference to Sodom], and been made like unto Gomorrha. 

The Bride of Christ is Christ’s seed before her sisters, remaining luxuriating in Babylon. Today, world events vaguely signifying the Day of the Lord somewhat bother them since none of their 40,000-plus harlot sisters have their spirits stirred by Zerubbabel. Their attempts in Israel today to rebuild their temple are guaranteed to fail.

King Darius’s name means “Lord”. Meanwhile, the Lord’s Temple mostly has its wall built, and he is furnishing its many mansions within with his fair jewels today…

In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the King – Hag 1:15  

Act 2:1  And when the day of Pentecost [Meaning, to count fifty] was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 
Act 2:2  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 
Act 2:3  And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
Act 2:4  And they were all filled with the holy ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the spirit gave them utterance.