From: Haggai 2:1-9
The temple’s glory in the future
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Commentary:
2:1-9. The dating given in v. 1 (which corresponds to 17 October 520) indicates
that this is a different prophetical discourse. Scarcely a month has passed since
the date in 1:15, and one gets the impression that the people have been working
extremely hard, but the results are somewhat disappointing – at lest for the older
people, who knew how splendid the temple of Solomon was (v. 3). This fits in
with what the book of Ezra has to say: “Many of the priests and Levites and
heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud
voice when they say the foundation of the house being laid” (Ezra 3:12). But they
should not have been surprised; it was one thing to build a temple in a period of
splendour like Solomon’s, when money was no object; it was quite another to do
so in a country still in a state of desolation. Hence the encouraging tone of
Haggai’s oracle: the Lord renews the promises he made at the time of the
exodus (vv. 4-5), when he turned a crowd of slaves into a nation; moreover, he
promises that the new temple will be richer than the first: Solomon’s temple had
its glory (v. 3), but the new temple will be filled with splendour (v. 7); it will be
more splendid than the first (v. 9); and it will be a source of prosperity (v. 9) and
all the nations will flock there (v. 7; cf. Is 60:7-11). The language of these verses
is similar to that of apocalyptic passages in other prophets (cf. e.g. Is 2:2, Amos
5:8, Zeph 1:4). The tone of what Haggai says here allows these verses to be
interpreted as a prophecy about Christ and the Church: “The coming of the Lord
into this world was like the building of a great temple, glorious beyond imagining;
this temple is more perfect and beautiful than that of old, as the worship of Christ
according to his Gospel is more perfect than the worship of God according to the
law, as the reality is more beautiful than its image […]. The glory of the new tem-
ple, the Church, is much greater than the glory of the old. Those who give of
themselves and work devoutly to build the new temple will receive Christ himself,
as their reward from the Saviour and as a gift from heaven; he is our peace, the
peace of all mankind, the one through whom we can go to the Father in the one
Spirit. He himself said: and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of
hosts” (St Cyril of Alexandria, Commentarius in Aggaeum, 14).
This messianic tone is even more clear in v. 7. In the words, “the treasures of all
nations shall come in”, the word translated as “treasures” has a wide range of
meaning: the Hebrew root to which the noun belongs means to desire, wish,
delight in, in Hebrew usage, the noun means “that which is desired”, riches,
treasures. The phrase was translated by the Latin Vulgate/Douai as “the Desired
of all nations shall come” (a 1956 Douai edition gives it in capital letters), implying
a direct reference to the Messiah; this led to the phrase entering the Advent
liturgy, and to “the Desired” becoming a name for Christ in catechesis: “Open
your heart to faith, beloved Virgin, your lips to give consent, your chaste body to
the Master. Look, the one who all desire to possess is standing at your gates” (St
Bernard, Homiliae super Missus est, 4, 8).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.