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?
Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? Many elders ("of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men"), present at the laying of the foundation of the second temple, who had seen the first temple (Ezra 3:12-13) in all its glory, "wept with a loud voice" at the contrast presented by the rough and unpromising appearance of the second temple in its beginnings. From the destruction of the first temple to the second year of Darius Hystaspes, the date of Haggai's prophecy, was a space of 70 years (Zechariah 1:12); and to the first year of Cyrus, or the end of the captivity, fifty-two years: so that the elders might easily remember the first temple. The Jews note five points of inferiority: The absence from the second temple of
(1) the sacred fire; (2) the Shekinah, or cloud of glory representing the presence of God in the sanctuary;
(3) the ark and cherubim;
(4) the Urim and Thummim;
(5) the spirit of prophecy.
The connection of it with Messiah more than counterbalanced all these, because He is the antitype to all five (Haggai 2:9).
And how do ye see it now? God's estimate of things is very different from man's, who chiefly, or only, "looks on the outward appearance" (Zechariah 8:6.: cf. 1 Samuel 16:7). However low their estimate of the present temple ("it"), from its outward inferiority, God holds it superior, though then it was but "the day of small things" (Zechariah 4:10; 1 Corinthians 1:27-28.)