The simplest rendering is marked by the accents. “For who hath despised the day of small things? and (that is, seeing that there have rejoiced and seen the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel, these seven, the Eyes of the Lord, they are running to and fro in all the earth,” 1:e., since God hath with joy and good-pleasure beheld the progress of the work of Zerubbabel, who can despise the day of small things? The day of small things was not only that of the foundation of the temple, but of its continued building also. The old men indeed, “that had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes” Ezra 4:12. But while in progress too, Haggai asks, “Who is left among you that saw this house in its first glory? And how do ye see it now? is not in your eyes such as it, as nothing?” Haggai 2:3. But that temple was to see the day of great things, when “the later glory of this house shall be greater than the former, and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts” Haggai 2:9.
They are the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro - He uses almost the words of the prophet Hanani to Asa, “the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9 yet this assurance that God’s watchful providence is over the whole earth, betokens more than the restoration of the material temple, whose only hindrance could be the will of one man, Darius.
The day of small things - is especially God’s day, whose “strength is made perfect in weakness; who raised Joseph from the prison, David from the sheepfold, Daniel from slavery, and converted the world by the fishermen and the tentmaker, having Himself first become the Carpenter. “Wouldest thou be great? Become little.” “Whenever,” said Theresa, (Ribera, vita Ther. ap. Lap.), “I am to receive some singular grace, I first annihilate myself, sink into my own nothingness, so as to seem to myself to be nothing, be capable of nothing.”