Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory?
The contrast between the two houses
A despondency, such as the Israelites must needs have felt, is very apt to come over those who have begun to engage in a good work, after the first flash of their zeal has faded away. When we are labouring for ourselves, indeed, our carnal heart urges us forward; but when we are doing anything for the good of our brethren, or in the service of God, our carnal heart lies like a heavy drag upon the will. This is especially the case at first. It is long before we grow humble enough to labour diligently, although the fruits of our labour are not to be seen even by our own eyes. For example, when our hearts have been moved to undertake any work for the strengthening or spreading of Christ’s Church on earth, and when we have been thus led to look round and consider what she is, must not our hearts faint within us as we think how she is nothing in comparison with her first glory, in the time of the Holy Apostles? How do we see the Church of Christ now? Is she not almost as nothing in comparison of her primitive glory? The same question may be asked with regard to man in his natural state. At first made in the image of God, and unsullied by sin, how do we see him now? When we compare these two pictures together in thought, fallen man, in his best and most flourishing estate, may seem to us as nothing by the side of his first glory. Let us cast our eyes on our own selves. They who watch the growth of the young must often have seen a time in their history which was like the teeming and blossoming of spring. And they will also have seen how the blossoms have fallen off, without leaving any fruit, even if they have not been wholly blighted. The prophet says, “And now be strong.” How were they to find strength? Not in the thought which had just been so forcibly put before them, that their work was as nothing in comparison with the first temple. Such a thought will never strengthen a man, will never make him work. Nor will it strengthen us, and make us work, to call to mind how far the Church of Christ has fallen back from the zeal and holiness of the primitive ages, or how far human nature has fallen from what it was in the Garden of Eden. Where are we to look for strength? Not to ourselves. Not to friends. The prophet gives this assurance from God, “For I am with you.” This same assurance is granted to all who earnestly desire to build up the house of the Lord, either in the world around them or in their own hearts If they will work, they shall be strong; for the Lord of hosts is with them. We have God’s covenanted word that He will be with us. God does not give His Spirit like a gleam of sunshine bursting for a moment through the clouds. His Spirit remaineth with those to whom it is given. He has remained with the Church from the day when the Father and the Son sent Him down from heaven; and He will remain with it unto the end of the world. The first lessen we are to draw from this assurance is, that we are to be strong and work. Many foolishly think that if the Spirit is with them, irresistible impulse will stir them to work without and against their will. It is through the power of the Spirit they who work continually in His strength do truly become strong. The second lesson is drawn from the words, “Fear ye not.” They who work and are strong in the strength of God’s Spirit abiding with them may boldly say, “The Lord is my Helper: I will not fear what man can do unto me.” They may even say, “I will not fear myself, what I can do to myself, having this Helper against myself.” Even the fear of God, if we felt that His Spirit remains with us, would by degrees lose all that is painful and oppressive and repelling in fear, and would be transfigured, by a constant living communion with Him, into reverent, dutiful love. (Julius C. Hare, M. A.)
Glory of the new temple
Just as in the second year of the return from Babylon, when the foundation for the temple, which was about to be rebuilt, was laid in the reign of Cyrus, many old men, who had seen the temple of Solomon, burst out into loud weeping when they saw the new foundation; a similar feeling of mourning and despair appears to have taken possession of the people and their rulers immediately after the work had been resumed under Darius, and doubts arose whether the new building was really well-pleasing to the Lord, and ought to be carried on. The occasion for this despondency is not to be sought in the fact that objections were made to the continuance of the building, and that the opinion prevailed in consequence that the works ought to be stopped till the arrival of the king’s authority. This view not only has no support whatever in our prophecy, but is also at variance with the account in the Book of Ezra, according to which the governor and his companions, who had made inquiries concerning the command to build, did not stop the building while they sent word of the affair to the king (Ezra 5:5). Moreover, the conjecture that the people had been seized with a feeling of sadness, when the work had so far advanced that they were able to institute a comparison between the new temple and the earlier one, does not suffice to explain the rapid alteration which took place in the feelings of the people. The building could not have been so far advanced in three weeks and a half as that the contrast between the new temple and the former one could be clearly seen, if it had not been noticed from the very first; a fact, however, to which Ezra 3:12 distinctly refers. But although it had been seen from the very beginning that the new building would not come up to the glory of the former temple, the people could not from the very outset give up the hope of erecting a building which, if not quite equal to the former one in glory, would at all events come somewhat near to it. Under these circumstances their confidence in the work might begin to vanish as soon as the first enthusiasm flagged, and a time arrived which was more favourable for the quiet contemplation of the general condition of affairs. This explanation is suggested by the time at which the second word of God was delivered to the congregation through the prophet. It was the feast of tabernacles, the great festival of rejoicing. The return of this festal celebration, especially after a harvest which had turned out very miserably and showed no sign of the blessing of God, could not fail to call up vividly before the mind the difference between the former times, when Israel was able to assemble in the courts of the Lord’s house, and so to rejoice in the blessings of His grace in the midst of abundant sacrificial meals, and the present time, when the altar of burnt sacrifice might indeed be restored again and the building of the temple resumed, but in which there was no prospect of erecting a building that would in any degree answer to the glory of the former temple; and when the prophecies of an Isaiah or an Ezekiel were remembered, according to which the new temple was to surpass the former one in glory, it would be almost sure to produce gloomy thoughts, and supply food for doubt whether the time had really come for rebuilding the temple, when after all it would be only a miserable hut. In this gloomy state of mind consolation was very necessary, if the hardly awakened zeal for the building of the house of God was not to cool down and vanish entirely away. To bring this consolation to those who were in despair was the object of the second word of God, which Haggai was to publish to the congregation. (C. F. Keil, D. D.)
The Sorrow of the old men
How was it that the people became negligent after they had begun their work? Even because it grieved the old men to see the glory of the second so far inferior to the first temple. For though the people animated themselves by the sound of trumpets, yet the old among them drowned the sound by their lamentations. As this temple was in no way equal to the ancient one, they thought that God was not as yet reconciled to them. Had they said, that so great an expense was not necessary, that God did not require much money to be laid out, their impiety should have been openly manifested; but when they especially wished that the splendour of the temple would be such as might surely prove that the restoration of the Church was come, such as had been promised by all the prophets, we doubtless perceive their pious feeling. We are thus reminded that we ought always to beware of the intrigues of Satan, when they appear under the cover of truth. When our minds are disposed to piety, Satan is ever to be feared, lest he should stealthily suggest to us what may turn us aside from our duty; for we see that some leave the Church because they require in it the highest perfection. They are indignant at vices which they deem in tolerable when they cannot be corrected; and thus, under the pretext of zeal, they separate themselves, and seek to form for themselves a new world, in which there is to be a perfect Church; and they lay hold on those passages in which the Holy Spirit recommends purity to the Church, as when Paul says, that it was purchased by Christ, that it might be without spot or wrinkle. In all this there is some appearance of piety. How so? Because they would have God to be reverenced so that they would have the whole world to be filled with the fear of His majesty; or they would have much wealth to be gathered, so that sumptuous offerings might be made. But Satan cunningly insinuates himself; and hence we ought to fear his intrigues, lest, under plausible pretences, he should dazzle our eyes. The best way of caution is to regard what God commands, and so to rely on His promises as to proceed steadily in our course, though the accomplishment of the promises does not immediately correspond with our desires; for God designedly keeps us in suspense in order to try our faith. Though then He may not as yet fulfil what He has promised, let it yet be our course to attempt nothing rashly, while we are obeying His command. It will then be our chief wisdom, by which we may escape all the crafts of Satan, simply to obey God’s word, and to exercise our hope so as patiently to wait the seasonable times when He will fulfil what He now promises. (John Calvin.)
Thoughts of the past
The glorious past is never disdained. There ought not to be any past in the sense of exhaustion or annihilation. The past should be the most vivid and graphic influence in the present. Because we have seen greatness we shall see glory, should be the tone of every man who undertakes to teach the mysteries of the Divine Kingdom, and lead the charprises of the elect and consecrated Church. The house, indeed, had gone down; in that sense it was nothing in comparison with the house in its first glory. There is a past that humbles the present, that makes the present insignificant and worthless; but the Lord never regards that past as the end of His own opportunity; it is rather the occasion of the beginning of new revelations of His omnipotence. The Lord never stops His kingdom in its darkest hour and says, thin is all. The Lord never interrupts a prayer at the point of confession; He listens until the prayer glows with thankfulness, until it becomes violent in sacred ambition, until it would seize the treasures of the kingdom, and appropriate them all with a grateful heart. It is thus that God leads us and educates us. He takes us at our best point, not at our worst. The Lord promised that the house should assume a glory to which the first glory was as nothing. Here is a principle in the Divine economy; it is a principle of development, of progress, of gradual and assured consummation. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)