Chagai 2:1-23

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Chagai 1 2

2:1 BA SHEVIY'I BE ESRIM VE ECHAD LA CHODESH HAYAH DEVAR YHVH BE YAD CHAGAI HA NAVI LE'MOR

בַּשְּׁבִיעִי בְּעֶשְׂרִים וְאֶחָד לַחֹדֶשׁ הָיָה דְּבַר יְהוָה בְּיַד חַגַּי הַנָּבִיא לֵאמֹר

KJ (King James translation): In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month, came the word of the LORD by the prophet Haggai, saying,

BN (BibleNet translation): In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of YHVH came by the hand of Chagai the Prophet, saying...

Just under a month later... though the way this is written is not at all how we would write it today... see Chagai 1:15 where the same form is used.

BE SHEVIY'I: The seventh month by the Babylonian calendar, or by the pre-exile Yehudan? The first month in today's Judaism, the month of Rosh ha Shanah, the new year, is Tishrey, which is the seventh month of the pre-exile calendar. So it matters! Because if it is the Babylonian, then this is the key month for responding to the accusations in the previous chapter, for making Selichah and Mechilah during the first nine days, but then the full Kapparah on the tenth, which is Yom Kippur. The fifteenth would then be Sukot, the harvest festival, ending on the 22nd, the day after Chagai's announcement.

Updated note, some time later: I undertook my work on Chagai first, then Zechar-Yah. In Zechariah 1:7 we are told that "On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month of Shvat..." and we know, because it is still the case today, that the month of Shvat falls in January-February, though it is no longer the eleventh but now the fifth month, because the new year has moved to Tishrey from Nisan. So we can now state with complete confidence that Chagai's seventh month was indeed Tishrey.

2:2 AMAR NA EL ZERU-BAVEL BEN SHALTIY-EL PACHAT YEHUDAH VE EL YEHOSHU'A BEN YEHO-TSADAK HA KOHEN HA GADOL VE EL SHE'ERIT HA AM LE'MOR

אֱמָר נָא אֶל זְרֻבָּבֶל בֶּן שַׁלְתִּיאֵל פַּחַת יְהוּדָה וְאֶל יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן יְהוֹצָדָק הַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל וְאֶל שְׁאֵרִית הָעָם לֵאמֹר

KJ: Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying,

BN: Please speak to Zeru-Bavel ben Shaltiy-El, governor of Yehudah, and to Yehoshu'a ben Yeho-Tsadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying...

AMAR NA: The one and only occasion in the entire Tanach, probably the entire history of the Cosmos, when the deity says "please" to a human being!

SHALTIY-EL: See my note to Chagai 1:12.

2:3 MI VACHEM HA NISH'AR ASHER RA'AH ET HA BAYIT HA ZEH BICHVODO HA RI'SHON U MAH ATEM RO'IM OTO ATAH HA LO CHAMOHU KE AYIN BE EYNEYCHEM

מִי בָכֶם הַנִּשְׁאָר אֲשֶׁר רָאָה אֶת הַבַּיִת הַזֶּה בִּכְבוֹדוֹ הָרִאשׁוֹן וּמָה אַתֶּם רֹאִים אֹתוֹ עַתָּה הֲלוֹא כָמֹהוּ כְּאַיִן בְּעֵינֵיכֶם

KJ: 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?

BN: "Who is there left among you who saw this house in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes as nothing?..

Chagai 1:14 and 15 had them starting on the work on the 24th day of the sixth month, which was less than a month before this; we have not been told how far they had progressed before the edict of suspension, but apparently not very far, and not very much further now - and with very limited resources too. This then is not so much a criticism by the Prophet, but a spurring to renewed action - and if this is the seventh month as per the Babylonian calendar, then we can assume that they started on the 24th of Elul, worked for just a week, paused for Rosh ha Shanah, may have worked the intermediate days before Yom Kippur, but not on the Shabbat, and maybe three more before Sukot, and here is Chagai doing the end of Sukot sermon, stirring them up to get back on the job now that the Yamim Nora'im are ending.

2:4 VE ATAH CHAZAK ZERU-BAVEL NE'UM YHVH VA CHAZAK YEHOSHU'A BEN YEHO-TSADAK HA KOHEN HA GADOL VA CHAZAK KOL AM HA ARETS NE'UM YHVH VA ASU KI ANI IT'CHEM NE'UM YHVH TSEVA'OT

וְעַתָּה חֲזַק זְרֻבָּבֶל נְאֻם יְהוָה וַחֲזַק יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן יְהוֹצָדָק הַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל וַחֲזַק כָּל עַם הָאָרֶץ נְאֻם יְהוָה וַעֲשׂוּ כִּי אֲנִי אִתְּכֶם נְאֻם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת

KJ: Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the LORD; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the LORD, and work: for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts:

BN: "But now be strong, Zeru-Bavel", says YHVH, "and be strong, Yehoshu'a ben Yeho-Tsadak, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land," says YHVH, "and undertake the work (for I am with you)," says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens ...

CHAZAK: A much-used word in Ezra as well; see my notes there, especially 6:22.

The syntax of the next verse suggests that the last part of this verse is in parenthesis.

2:5 ET HA DAVAR ASHER KARATI IT'CHEM BE TSE'T'CHEM MI MITSRAYIM VE RUCHI OMEDET BETOCH'CHEM AL TIYRA'U

אֶת הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר כָּרַתִּי אִתְּכֶם בְּצֵאתְכֶם מִמִּצְרַיִם וְרוּחִי עֹמֶדֶת בְּתוֹכְכֶם אַל תִּירָאוּ

KJ: According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not.

BN: ... "in the agreement that I carved in my covenant with you when you came out of Egypt, and my spirit dwelt among you. Have no fear."

samech break - in Yehudit these are known as a setumah where there is a Samech (ס), and a petuchah where there is a Pey (פ). In the Torah they represent the breaks in the reading of the Law, based on sedarim and perashot (weekly readings are perashot, the breakdown into sections of those weekly readings are sedarim) and it is of course mightily convenient that the same letter of the alphabet serves for both. However, the books that are not in the Torah are not read on a weekly basis, so the breaks are purely sections, paragraphs, chapters.

2:6 KI CHOH AMAR YHVH TSEVA'OT OD ACHAT ME'AT HI VA ANI MAR'ISH ET HA SHAMAYIM VE ET HA ARETS VE ET HA YAM VE ET HE CHARAVAH

כִּי כֹה אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת עוֹד אַחַת מְעַט הִיא וַאֲנִי מַרְעִישׁ אֶת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת הָאָרֶץ וְאֶת הַיָּם וְאֶת הֶחָרָבָה

KJ: For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;

BN: For thus says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens: "It only happens every once in a while, but I will shake the heavens, and the Earth, and the sea, and the destroyed land...

OD ACHAT ME'AT HI: A very odd piece of phrasing. Literally "once more, few it is".

MAR'ISH: see also HIR'ASHTI in the next verse. The root is RA'ASH, which means "noise", but is regularly used for causing things to shake and tremble (Judges 5:4, Isaiah 13:13 et al).

CHARAVAH: At least the fourth different use of that same root CHARAV - see chapter 1; though I did note at 1:11 that the root means "destruction".

HA ARETS: The KJ treats it as if the text said ADAMAH, which is "earth" as in mud and soil, where this is upper case Earth, as in planet.

2:7 VE HIR'ASHTI ET KOL HA GOYIM U VA'U CHEMDAT KOL HA GOYIM U MIL'ETI ET HA BAYIT HA ZEH KAVOD AMAR YHVH TSEVA'OT

וְהִרְעַשְׁתִּי אֶת כָּל הַגּוֹיִם וּבָאוּ חֶמְדַּת כָּל הַגּוֹיִם וּמִלֵּאתִי אֶת הַבַּיִת הַזֶּה כָּבוֹד אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת

KJ: And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts.

BN: "and I will shake all the nations; and the desires of all the nations shall come to pass. And I will fill this house with glory," says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens.

U MIL'ETI: "And I have filled" in the past tense, though the KJ translation seems to make more sense. Why does this not use the Vav Consecutive?

2:8 LI HA KESEPH VE LI HA ZAHAV NE'UM YHVH TSEVA'OT

לִי הַכֶּסֶף וְלִי הַזָּהָב נְאֻם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת

KJ: The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the LORD of hosts.

BN: "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine," says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens.


Yes, a very materialistic deity is YHVH Tseva'ot, always demanding the booty, always wanting what's on the moneylenders' tables, always claiming to be purely spiritual. Though admittedly he only wants it for the glorification of the Temple, as per the next verse.

And of course, given that all Creation stems from the gods, Creation being simply the manifestation of the elements, and the gods likewise...

2:9 GADOL YIHEYEH KEVOD HA BAYIT HA ACHARON MIN HA RI'SHON AMAR YHVH TSEVA'OT U VA MAKOM HA ZEH ETEN SHALOM NE'UM YHVH TSEVA'OT

גָּדוֹל יִהְיֶה כְּבוֹד הַבַּיִת הַזֶּה הָאַחֲרוֹן מִן הָרִאשׁוֹן אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת וּבַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה אֶתֵּן שָׁלוֹם נְאֻם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת

KJ: The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.

BN: "The glory of this restored house will be greater than its predecessor," says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens; "and in this place I will establish peace," says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens.

ACHARON...RISHON: I have to criticise my own translation. AHARON means "last", or "latter", in contrast with RISHON, which means "first" or "former". The implication of the Chagai (definitely implication, not mere inference) is that the restored Temple will now last forever, because YHVH will ensure it. But I know what happened 550 years later, that the Roman soldiers under General Titus looted it for everything of value, and then burned it to the ground. So I do not want to translate it as "last", though it may yet turn out to be so.

pey break

2:10 BE ESRIM VE ARBA'AH LATSHIY'I BISHNAT SHETAYIM LE DARYAVESH HAYAH DEVAR YHVH EL CHAGAI HA NAVI LE'MOR

בְּעֶשְׂרִים וְאַרְבָּעָה לַתְּשִׁיעִי בִּשְׁנַת שְׁתַּיִם לְדָרְיָוֶשׁ הָיָה דְּבַר יְהוָה אֶל חַגַּי הַנָּבִיא לֵאמֹר

KJ: In the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying,

BN: On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Dar-Yavesh, the word of YHVH came to Chagai the prophet, saying...

BE ESRIM...: I commented on the odd syntax of his last date; this time he leaves out the word CHODESH = month. KJ adds it in italics; I have not bothered with the italics.

LATSHIY'I: Two months to the day since his last pronouncement. We shall see if the Yehudim responded positively or not.

Only two chapters to this book, but actually multiple occasions when he addressed the people. This the third. But we also need to cross-check the Zechar-Yah dates, because he was speaking to the people, in much the same manner, at exactly the same time, and I have a suspicion that some of the dates match. If they do, I will note them in the Zechar-Yah, when I get there.

EL CHAGAI: Previously the DEVAR YHVH came BE YAD CHAGAI, which led me to believe that it was a written pronouncement, but which also told us that it came from him; this is definitely coming to him.

And perhaps this is how Prophetcy happens. You begin by putting out some thoughts and ideas that you have come to (you have come to, that way around) in the independence of your mind, and see how people react. Some people love them, some hate them, most, usually, ignore them with indifference. But yours have a definite impact, and things start to happen in the world because of them. Now you are not just a thinker, but an esteemed wise man, a genius, a visionary, and clearly the gods are using you as their messenger. Which you reject, because you are still a humble soul. But your second public statement is even more impactful, and they are inviting you on celebrity stages and showering you with honours, and your ego is buying in. So, for your third statement, these are the words of the deity, which have come to you (that way around now). And if they go on accepting you, you become Mosheh or Mohammed. And if suddenly the impact of your words turns negative for them, they stone you out of town like Yirme-Yah (Jeremiah), or they nail you to a wooden cross.

2:11 KOH AMAR YHVH TSEVA'OT SHE'AL NA ET HA KOHANIM TORAH LEMOR

כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת שְׁאַל נָא אֶת הַכֹּהֲנִים תּוֹרָה לֵאמֹר

KJ: Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying,

BN: Thus says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens: "Please ask the Kohanim for a Toraic response, as follows:

SHE'AL NA: Such politeness, again! Yet the clause is actually rather clipped and ungrammatical: "Ask please the Kohanim Torah" would be a literal translation. See also my note to Chagai 1:12.

This is taking place several decades before Ezra returned to Yeru-Shala'im and, inter alia, organised the writing down of the Torah, and probably some parts of the Tanach, in the starting-point of the form in which we now have them. The Yeru-Shala'im to which Chagai and Zeru-Bavel have returned was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, the Temple destroyed, the city razed. Which leaves open the question: what Torah are the Kohanim going to use to provide these answers? Did they know it by memory, the way the ancient bards knew the epic poems? Did they manage to take parchment copies into exile with them? Have they found the copies that were secreted away for safe-keeping during the siege (we have never been told that there were such, but there were bound to have been; though if they had discovered them, or recovered them, surely that would have been told)? Did they write down what they remembered while they were in Babylon, and bring them back with them - but in those days the writing down of the law was still superstitiously prohibite. Or was it? Or maybe there are no copies anywhere, just incomplete memories, just the memory of customs and traditions, and this will be the spur for Ezra to make the Torah later on. We cannot know.

But we can know that Chagai's method on this occasion is about to be very different from his two previous calls.


2:12 HEN YIS'A ISH BESAR KODESH BICHNAPH BIGDO VE NAG'A BICHNAPHO EL HA LECHEM VE EL HA NAZID VE EL HA YAYIN VE EL SHEMEN VE EL KOL MA'ACHAL HA YIKDASH VA YA'ANU HA KOHANIM VA YOMRU LO

הֵן יִשָּׂא אִישׁ בְּשַׂר קֹדֶשׁ בִּכְנַף בִּגְדוֹ וְנָגַע בִּכְנָפוֹ אֶל הַלֶּחֶם וְאֶל הַנָּזִיד וְאֶל הַיַּיִן וְאֶל שֶׁמֶן וְאֶל כָּל מַאֲכָל הֲיִקְדָּשׁ וַיַּעֲנוּ הַכֹּהֲנִים וַיֹּאמְרוּ לֹא

KJ: If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No.

BN: "If a man has a morsel of sacrificed meat in the pleat of his bernous, and that bernous comes in contact with unconsecrated bread, or stew, or wine, or oil, or any food, does that render it holy?" And the Kohanim answered and said, "No".

A most abstrusely esoteric question! And very much in the manner of Talmudic questions from the post Third Temple epoch until today, so it is fascinating to come upon the format quite this early in history (which is to say: pre-Greek influence; because scholars tend to regard that kind of intellectual approach as being a consequence of Hellenism).

2:13 VA YO'MER CHAGAI IM YIG'A TEM'E NEPHESH BE CHOL ELEH HA YITMA' VA YA'ANU HA KOHANIM VA YOMRU YITMA

וַיֹּאמֶר חַגַּי אִם יִגַּע טְמֵא נֶפֶשׁ בְּכָל אֵלֶּה הֲיִטְמָא וַיַּעֲנוּ הַכֹּהֲנִים וַיֹּאמְרוּ יִטְמָא

KJ: Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.

BN: To which Chagai said: "If a man who has been rendered unclean through contact with a dead body should touch any of these things, does that render them unclean?" And the Kohanim answered and said, "Unclean".

So the same principal does not work both ways, which is surely an anomaly, an error, even perhaps a hypocricy - this, presumably, Chagai's intention in choosing these questions.

Nor are they the sorts of questions that your regular laymen-turned-Prophet is likely to be sufficiently knowledgeable in the abstruse esoterics of law to be able to ask. So we have also just learned a significant new piece of biographical information about our protagonist.

2:14 VA YA'AN CHAGAI VA YO'MER KEN HA AM HA ZEH VE CHEN HA GOY HA ZEH LEPHANAI NE'UM YHVH VE CHEN KOL MA'ASEH YEDEYHEM VA ASHER YAKRIYVU SHAM TAM'E HU

וַיַּעַן חַגַּי וַיֹּאמֶר כֵּן הָעָם הַזֶּה וְכֵן הַגּוֹי הַזֶּה לְפָנַי נְאֻם יְהוָה וְכֵן כָּל מַעֲשֵׂה יְדֵיהֶם וַאֲשֶׁר יַקְרִיבוּ שָׁם טָמֵא הוּא

KJ: Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the LORD; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean.

BN: To which Chagai answered, saying, "So too this people, and so too this nation before me," says YHVH; "and so too all the work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean...

SHAM: Where is "there"? Work has stopped on the Temple, but perhaps they have set up some sort of temporary altar on the construction site, so that they can at least perform the ceremonies and rituals, even if they can't complete the surrounding building.

2:15 VE ATAH SIYMU NA LEVAVCHEM MIN HA YOM HA ZEH VA MA'LAH MI TEREM SUM EVEN EL EVEN BE HEYCHAL YHVH

וְעַתָּה שִׂימוּ נָא לְבַבְכֶם מִן הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה וָמָעְלָה מִטֶּרֶם שׂוּם אֶבֶן אֶל אֶבֶן בְּהֵיכַל יְהוָה

KJ: And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the LORD:

BN: "So now, I implore you, think back from today into the days gone by, before a single stone was laid upon another stone in the Temple of YHVH...

2:16 MI HEYOTAM BA EL AREMAT ESRIM VE HAYETAH ASARAH BA EL HA YEKEV LACHSOPH CHAMISHIM PURAH VE HAYETAH ESRIM

מִהְיוֹתָם בָּא אֶל עֲרֵמַת עֶשְׂרִים וְהָיְתָה עֲשָׂרָה בָּא אֶל הַיֶּקֶב לַחְשֹׂף חֲמִשִּׁים פּוּרָה וְהָיְתָה עֶשְׂרִים

KJ: Since those days were, when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the pressfat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty.

BN: "Throughout that time, when they came to a pile that should have measured twenty, there were only ten; when they came to the wine-press to draw out fifty vessels, there were only twenty...

Chagai is describing the extent of the ruins of the Temple in the first part of this, but the extent of the ruination of personal values and standards in the second part; so the rebuilding of the Temple is not simply a way of proving that the covenant is still held dear, but also a means by which the people can return to faith in practice. Go back to verse 6 of the first chapter, where the failure of the harvest and the economy is directly connected to the failure to build the Temple, properly or otherwise, and to verse 14 of that chapter, where the reward of honey (and the inference of milk) is attached to the doing of the job properly.

2:17 HIKEYTI ET'CHEM BA SHIDAPHON U VA YERAKON U VA BARAD ET KOL MA'ASEH YEDEYCHEM VE EYN ET'CHEM ELAI NE'UM YHVH

הִכֵּיתִי אֶתְכֶם בַּשִּׁדָּפוֹן וּבַיֵּרָקוֹן וּבַבָּרָד אֵת כָּל מַעֲשֵׂה יְדֵיכֶם וְאֵין אֶתְכֶם אֵלַי נְאֻם יְהוָה

KJ: I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the LORD.

BN: "I smote you with blasting winds and mildew, and with hail in all the work of your hands; but still you did not turn to me," says YHVH.

SHIDAPHON: Blasts of the east wind, out of the Nefud and the Hejaz, ripping off the husks of the grain. Cf Genesis 41:23 and 27, which describes the failure of a very different harvest, and Deuteronomy 28:22, which also has the YERAKON and is probably the verse most in Chagai's mind when he says "look back" (and worth looking at the verses that lead up to it, because it is one of the great curses ever cursed!). There are also 1 Kings 8:37 and 2 Kings 19:26, though it is less likely, given the context, that Chagai would have known those texts.

YERAKON: Green stuff! Like the Yerakrak in Leviticus 13:49 and 14:37.

2:18 SIYMU NA LEVAVCHEM MIN HA YOM HA ZEH VA MA'LAH MI YOM ESRIM VE ARBA'AH LA TISHIY'I LE MIN HA YOM ASHER YUSAD HEYCHAL YHVH SIYMU LEVAVCHEM

שִׂימוּ נָא לְבַבְכֶם מִן הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה וָמָעְלָה מִיּוֹם עֶשְׂרִים וְאַרְבָּעָה לַתְּשִׁיעִי לְמִן הַיּוֹם אֲשֶׁר יֻסַּד הֵיכַל יְהוָה שִׂימוּ לְבַבְכֶם

KJ: Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the LORD'S temple was laid, consider it.

BN: "Think back from today into the days gone by, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, to the day on which the foundation of YHVH's temple was laid. Think back on it...

SIYMU NA: The same phrase that he used in verse 15.

MI YOM ESRIM VE ARBA'AH: The answer to the question in verse 10.

ASHER YUSAD : Does this indicate that his sermon was not in fact on that date (see verse 10)? The text says that the word "came to him" on that date; so maybe he delivered it some time afterwards. And when was the day of the laying of the foundation stone? The word LI here tells us to think back from the 24th of Tishrey "to"... but the foundation-stone would have been laid at the start of the first phase of the building, before the edict suspending it, before his own first speech, and he may even be thinking of that more famous foundation-stone, the one that the builders originally rejected but which ended up as the cornerstone  of the entire building - an allusion which should not have troubled the Yehudim, because it was sung regularly as part of Hallel (Psalm 118:22). Either way, he is asking them to go right back to basics and consider what they have, or mostly have not, done since. Speeches at the laying of foundation-stones are usually full of high aspiration and sophisticated intent; so he is asking them to make comparisons. The allusions in these latter verses take us back to the ways in which the followers of Mosheh likewise disappointed YHVH - and look what happened to them!

And, as always with Chagai, the Bloom's Taxonomist of the Biblical world, he throws it back on them, making them think for themselves, hinting but never saying. An educator, not a teacher.

2:19 HA OD HA ZER'A BAMGURAH VE AD HA GEPHEN VE HA TE'ENAH VE HA RIMON VE ETS HA ZAYIT LO NAS'A MIN HA YOM HA ZEH AVARECH

הַעוֹד הַזֶּרַע בַּמְּגוּרָה וְעַד הַגֶּפֶן וְהַתְּאֵנָה וְהָרִמּוֹן וְעֵץ הַזַּיִת לֹא נָשָׂא מִן הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה אֲבָרֵךְ

KJ: Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day will I bless you.

BN: "Is the seed yet in the barn? Only when the vine, and the fig-tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive-tree have brought forth, only on that day will I bless you."

The seed, the vine, the fig-tree and the pomegranate: all four highly symbolic fruits, ripe with deeper meanings. The seed, any seed, is the core of life itself, created by the male half of the divine fertility couple. The vine produces the holiest of all drinks, the wine of Kiddush, but the process of husbandry is one of constantly clipping the vine so that it runs to fruit, the source of the custom of circumcision, and a second image of male fertility. At the wedding, before it was reduced to a mere glass, the groom stamped on a ripe pomegranate (they still have this custom in contemporary Greece and Lebanon), splattering the seeds on everybody, with the superstition that it would bestow fertility - so a third image of male fertility. And olive-oil, used to anoint the about-to-declared Mashiyach.

samech break

2:20 VAYEHI DEVAR YHVH SHENIT EL CHAGAI BE ESRIM VE ARBA'AH LA CHODESH LE'MOR

וַיְהִי דְבַר יְהוָה שֵׁנִית אֶל חַגַּי בְּעֶשְׂרִים וְאַרְבָּעָה לַחֹדֶשׁ לֵאמֹר

KJ: And again the word of the LORD came unto Haggai in the four and twentieth day of the month, saying,

BN: And the word of YHVH came to Chagai for a second time on the twenty-fourth day of the month, saying,

Twice on the same day? Or the 24th of a different month? This time the word CHODESH is used.

2:21 EMOR EL ZERU-BAVEL PACHAT YEHUDAH LE'MOR ANI MAR'ISH ET HA SHAMAYIM VE ET HA ARETS

אֱמֹר אֶל זְרֻבָּבֶל פַּחַת יְהוּדָה לֵאמֹר אֲנִי מַרְעִישׁ אֶת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת הָאָרֶץ

KJ: Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth;

BN: "Speak to Zeru-Bavel, the governor of Yehudah, saying, 'I will shake the heavens and the earth...

EMOR: Grammar of this, and the choice of verb, needs some thought.

MAR'ISH: Didn't he say the same thing earlier?

2:22 VE HAPHACHTI KIS'E MAMLACHUT VE HISHMADETI CHOZEK MAMLACHUT HA GOYIM VE HAPHACHTI MERKAVAH VE ROCHVEYHA VE YARDU SUSIM VE ROCHVEYHEM ISH BE CHEREV ACHIV

וְהָפַכְתִּי כִּסֵּא מַמְלָכוֹת וְהִשְׁמַדְתִּי חֹזֶק מַמְלְכוֹת הַגּוֹיִם וְהָפַכְתִּי מֶרְכָּבָה וְרֹכְבֶיהָ וְיָרְדוּ סוּסִים וְרֹכְבֵיהֶם אִישׁ בְּחֶרֶב אָחִיו

KJ: And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.

BN: "'And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms; and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother...

This surely has to be a deliberate allusion to Mosheh's Song at the Reed Sea (Exodus 15)? It would make sense, after the CHOREV references in chapter 1, and then the curses in verse 17, above. Verse 2 provides the reason for making the allusion, verse 4 gives us the horses and riders, verse 10 echoes the maelstrom promised twice in this chapter... but every verse contains something that would fit Chagai's purpose when he told them to go back to Torah for their answers.

CHEREV: yet a fifth different usage of the root CHARAV.

2:23 BA YOM HA HU NE'UM YHVH TSEVA'OT EKACHACHA ZERU-BAVEL BEN SHE'ALTIY-EL AVDI NE'UM YHVH VE SAMTIYCHA KA CHOTAM KI VECHA VACHARTI NE'UM YHVH TSEVA'OT

בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא נְאֻם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת אֶקָּחֲךָ זְרֻבָּבֶל בֶּן שְׁאַלְתִּיאֵל עַבְדִּי נְאֻם־יְהוָה וְשַׂמְתִּיךָ כַּחוֹתָם כִּי־בְךָ בָחַרְתִּי נְאֻם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת

KJ: In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the LORD, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the LORD of hosts.

BN: "'On that day,' says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, 'I will take you, Zeru-Bavel, my servant, the son of She'altiy-El,' says YHVH, 'and I will give you a sign; for I have chosen you,' says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens."

SHE'ALTIY-EL: Reverting to the original spelling in Chagai 1:1.

VACHARTI: Chosen for what? Is this perhaps the anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone for the Second Temple; or Zeru-Bavel's reappointment as governor? The text feels unfinished, as though we are being prepared for some specific events that will be described in the next chapter; but there is no next chapter. The inference that Jewish scholars have always drawn, and probably correctly, is that, once the Temple is properly built and Yehudah established as an independent kingdom, the next phase will be the re-establishment of the Davidic dynasty, the Messianic priest-king who serves, papally so-to-speak, as the representative of the deity on Earth: the Mashiyach, not the Moshi'a. This, however, is not explicitly stated, and that Zeru-Bavel will be the one anointed to that role.

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Chagai 1:1-15

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1:1 BISHNAT SHETAYIM LE DAR-YAVESH HA MELECH BA CHODESH HA SHISHI BE YOM ECHAD LA CHODESH HAYAH DEVAR YHVH BE YAD CHAGAI HA NAVI EL ZERU-BAVEL BEN SHE'ALTIY-EL PACHAT YEHUDAH VE EL YEHOSHU'A BEN YEHO-TSADAK HA KOHEN HA GADOL LE'MOR

בִּשְׁנַת שְׁתַּיִם לְדָרְיָוֶשׁ הַמֶּלֶךְ בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַשִּׁשִּׁי בְּיוֹם אֶחָד לַחֹדֶשׁ הָיָה דְבַר יְהוָה בְּיַד חַגַּי הַנָּבִיא אֶל זְרֻבָּבֶל בֶּן שְׁאַלְתִּיאֵל פַּחַת יְהוּדָה וְאֶל יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן יְהוֹצָדָק הַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל לֵאמֹר

KJ (King James translation): 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,

BN (BibleNet translation): In the second year of King Dar-Yavesh, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of YHVH came to Zeru-Bavel ben She'altiy-El, the governor of Yehudah, and to Yehoshu'a ben Yeho-Tsadak the high priest, in the hand of Chagai the Prophet, saying:

BISHNAT SHETAYIM: The 2nd year of King Darius, which would have been 520 BCE. The Achaemenid Dynasty came to power with the defeat of Bavel (Babylon) in 559 BCE, and its first ruler, Koresh (Cyrus), was the one who appointed Zeru-Bavel to lead the Yehudim home and begin the rebuilding of Yeru-Shala'im. The list of Achaemenid rulers, with their dates, is:

559-530 - Cyrus the Great (Koresh)
529-522 - Cambyses
522-521 - Smerdis (Bardiya)
521-486 - Darius I, the Great (Dar-Yavesh)
485-465 - Xerxes I
464-424 - Artaxerxes I, Longimanus (Artachshast)
424 - Xerxes II (son)
424 - Sogdianus (brother)

It was under Artaxerxes I that Ezra and Nechem-Yah (Nehemiah) would return, and undertake the rebuilding of Yeru-Shala'im, the establishment of Yehudan independence, and the writing of the Tanach.

BE YAD: Usually prophecies are given BE PEH, which is to say "through the mouth of"; the inference is that this was written.

PACHAT: Several words are used, in the various books that tell of this period, which find themselves translated as "governor". Nechem-Yah is the Tirshat'a.

YEHOSHU'A: Ezra 10:18 (et al) names him Yeshu'a ben Yo-Tsadak, Ezra presumably using the Aramaic form of his name, though it is entirely possible that the Yeho part is a much later redaction of the text, reflecting the patriarchal transition of the Hasmonean epoch.

1:2 KOH AMAR YHVH TSEVAOT LE'MOR HA AM HA ZEH AMRU LO ET BO ET BEIT YHVH LEHIBANOT

כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת לֵאמֹר הָעָם הַזֶּה אָמְרוּ לֹא עֶת בֹּא עֶת בֵּית יְהוָה לְהִבָּנוֹת

KJ: 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.

BN: Thus has YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, spoken, saying, This is what the people say, that the time has not yet come for the rebuilding of the House of YHVH.

YHVH TSEVA'OT: "The Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens". Not the plain YHVH of Ezra, nor the Elohim of Nechem-Yah, this is Yesha-Yahu's (Isaiah's) deity, the head of the polytheon, the middle stage in the evolution of the Jewish deity that began with pure polytheism and would end, in Hasmonean times, with YHVH as Omnideity. The "hosts of the heavens" were the seven planets, the moon and Earth, and the twelve major constellations. YHVH sat at the head of this Cabinet, prima inter pares, but still the Prime Minister, not yet the President.

LO BO: The people would say that, wouldn't they? The common folk are conservative, status-quo keepers, keep your heads down and don't stir up controversy. Prophets exist to challenge that frightened complacency, and make things happen.

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1:3 VA YEHI DEVAR YHVH BE YAD CHAGAI HA NAVI LE'MOR

וַיְהִי דְּבַר יְהוָה בְּיַד חַגַּי הַנָּבִיא לֵאמֹר

KJ: Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying,

BN: Then the word of YHVH came in the hand of Chagai the Prophet, saying:

CHAGAI: A CHAG is a feast or a festival, an occasion for joy. Prophets take names because of their symbolic value, or because they have been elected to the Mastery of an already existing Guild. The Guilds came to an end with the exile of 586 BCE, so a new Prophet is free to choose his own name.

There are three other occasions of the name, or something like the name, in the Tanach. Genesis 46:16 and Numbers 26:15 both have a Chagi as one of the sons of Gad, while 1 Chronicles 6:15 has a Chagi-Yah in a complex genealogy of the tribe of Levi.

1:4 HA ET LACHEM ATEM LASHEVET BE VATEYCHEM SEPHUNIM VEHA BAYIT HA ZEH CHAREV

הַעֵת לָכֶם אַתֶּם לָשֶׁבֶת בְּבָתֵּיכֶם סְפוּנִים וְהַבַּיִת הַזֶּה חָרֵב

KJ: Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?

BN: Is this the time for you - you, your selfish selves - to dwell in your ceilinged houses, while this house lies in ruins?


CHAREV: Wasn't it some sort of CHAREV that marked the loss of Eden as well! As with all the Prophets, as with all great poets, we enter the realm of word-games as soon as we open their scroll. That was a CHEREV, but from the same root - the "flaming sword" of Genesis 3:24 - but Chagai's contemporaries would have recognised the word in a rather different way, coming back as they just had from Persia. The original flaming sword was a fire-wheel, known among the Arryans of India and Persia as a swastika, and it was to the Persian Medes what the Cross would be to Christians later on, the Star of David to the Jews: the key symbol of their faith. So the Temple lying in ruins is contrasted with the glorious triumph of the still-new Medean empire, and the sword which ravaged Yeru-Shala'im is now, once again, "the flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the Tree of Life".

There are other word-games in this verse, less significant, but worth noting:

HA ET LACHEM ATEM: Chagai is playing, as in the previous verse, with the strange grammatical form that indicates an accusative or an object noun, which happens to sound the same as the word for an "appointed time", a "holy season", and happens to be the first part of the 2nd person pronoun. So we find three versions, OT, ET and ATEM, serving to provide strong emphasis as well as challenging the "people's words" from two verses before. Highly sophisticated writing (shame he wasn't addressing a women-only audience though; then he could have had OT, ET and AT - even better!).

LACHEM ATEM: enhances the emphasis still further: LACHEM means "to you", ATEM simply "you". The repetition and change of conjugation infer a large exclamation mark, but rather more explicit in its criticism!

1:5 VE ATAH KOH AMAR YHVH TSEVA'OT SIYMU LEVAVECHEM AL DARCHEYCHEM

וְעַתָּה כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת שִׂימוּ לְבַבְכֶם עַל דַּרְכֵיכֶם

KJ: Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.

BN: And now, therefore, thus says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens: Consider your ways.


LEVAVECHEM AL DARCHEYCHEM: Even if his fellow Yehudim have forgotten most of their liturgy, their history, even their language, the one thing that can be virtually certain to have stayed with them is the opening paragraph of the Shema, the central credo of the faith for many centuries. "And you shall love YHVH your god BE CHOL LEVAVECHA... with all your heart... and you shall teach your children at all times..." including "BE LECHTECHA BA DERECH... as you walk along the road." And a good Prophet, like a good educator, doesn't tell them what to think, but guides them to figuring it out for themselves, with the answer cryptically included, for those who are paying full attention.


1:6 ZERA'TEM HARBEH VE HAV'E ME'AT ACHOL VE EYN LE SAV'AH SHATU VE EYN LE SHACHRAH LAVOSH VE EYN LECHOM LO VE HA MISTAKER MISTAKER EL TSEROR NAKUV

זְרַעְתֶּם הַרְבֵּה וְהָבֵא מְעָט אָכוֹל וְאֵין לְשָׂבְעָה שָׁתוֹ וְאֵין לְשָׁכְרָה לָבוֹשׁ וְאֵין לְחֹם לוֹ וְהַמִּשְׂתַּכֵּר מִשְׂתַּכֵּר אֶל צְרוֹר נָקוּב

KJ: 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.

BN: You sow much, but you harvest very little. You eat, but you never appease your appetite. You drink, but your thirst is never satisfied. You clothe yourselves, but you are never warm. And he who earns wages puts those wages in a bag made out of holes.


Some commentators assume that there was a famine (verse 10 supports this), but there is no reason to assume this. What Chagai is saying applies just as much in a time of glut and surfeit; it's about human attitude and behaviour, not the state of Nature, about activity rather than passivity, about filtimes rather than pastimes.

pey break


1:7 KOH AMAR YHVH TSEVA'OT SIYMU LEVAVCHEM AL DARCHEYCHEM

כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת שִׂימוּ לְבַבְכֶם עַל דַּרְכֵיכֶם

KJ: Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.

BN: Thus says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, Consider your ways.

Repeating verse 5, save only the first two words. And without needing the cryptic answer second time around.

1:8 ALU HA HAR VA HAV'ETEM ETS U VENU HA BAYIT VE ERTSEH BO VE EKAVED AMAR YHVH

עֲלוּ הָהָר וַהֲבֵאתֶם עֵץ וּבְנוּ הַבָּיִת וְאֶרְצֶה בּוֹ וְאֶכָּבֵד אָמַר יְהוָה

KJ: 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.

BN: Go up to the mountain, and collect wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, says YHVH.

Definitely Yesha-Yahu's deity - me, me me, I am so important, I am wonderful. Surely Chagai should be telling them to rebuild the Temple for themselves, to reinstate the capital of their recovered homeland, to rebuild their lives... but no, this is all about servile glorification of YHVH, the same servitude as under the Babylonians really.

1:9 PANOH EL HARBEH VE HINEH LIM'AT VE HAVE'TEM HA BAYIT VE NAPHACHTI VO YA'AN MEH NE'UM YHVH TSEVA'OT YA'AN BEITI ASHER HU CHAREV VE ATEM RATSIM ISH LE VEITO

פָּנֹה אֶל הַרְבֵּה וְהִנֵּה לִמְעָט וַהֲבֵאתֶם הַבַּיִת וְנָפַחְתִּי בוֹ יַעַן מֶה נְאֻם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת יַעַן בֵּיתִי אֲשֶׁר הוּא חָרֵב וְאַתֶּם רָצִים אִישׁ לְבֵיתוֹ

KJ: 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.

BN: You wanted so much, but alas it came to so little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away with a puff. Why? says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens. Because my house lies in ruins, while you run every man to his own house.

CHAREV: see my previous note, but in addition there is an equally important second link, to CHOREV (Mount Horeb in English), the Mosaic mountain. Verse 11 certainly plays with that in its word-game.

ISH LE VEITO: There is a famous triplet of Rabbi Hillel, cited in Pirkei Avot, five hundred years after Chagai, but very much a parallel of Chagai's message: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" 


1:10 AL KEN ALEYCHEM KAL'U SHAMAYIM MI TAL VE HA ARETS KAL'AH YEVULAH

עַל כֵּן עֲלֵיכֶם כָּלְאוּ שָׁמַיִם מִטָּל וְהָאָרֶץ כָּלְאָה יְבוּלָהּ

KJ: Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.

BN: As a consequence of this, entirely your own fault, the heavens have withheld their dew, and the Earth withholds its fruit.


MI TAL: A minor error of science here, in the original! Dew comes up from the ground, mist goes down from the heavens. And it isn't just Chagai's lack of scientific knowledge, because there are two other occasions when the same occurs. And it is odd that it does, because mist in Yehudit is ARAPHEL (ערפל), and the root, ARAPH, means "to drop". But it is definitely TAL, which is "dew", here, and likewise in Deuteronomy 32:2 - the source of Portia's court-speech in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice", Act 4, Scene 1 - and Deuteronomy 33:28).


1:11 VA EKR'A CHOREV AL HA ARETS VE AL HE HARIM VE AL HA DAGAN VE AL HA TIYROSH VE AL HA YITS'HAR VE AL ASHER TOTSI'Y HA ADAMAH VE AL HA ADAM VE AL HA BEHEMAH VE AL KOL YEGIY'A KAPAYIM

וָאֶקְרָא חֹרֶב עַל הָאָרֶץ וְעַל הֶהָרִים וְעַל הַדָּגָן וְעַל הַתִּירוֹשׁ וְעַל הַיִּצְהָר וְעַל אֲשֶׁר תּוֹצִיא הָאֲדָמָה וְעַל הָאָדָם וְעַל הַבְּהֵמָה וְעַל כָּל יְגִיעַ כַּפָּיִם

KJ: 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.

BN: And I called for the destruction of the land, of the mountains, and of the grain, and of the new wine, and of the oil, and of everything that the ground brings forth, and of Humankind, and of the animals, and of every outcome of manual labour.


CHOREV: The third occasion in this chapter that he has used the word, each time with a slightly different meaning, but always the same allusions. Translating it as "drought" works fine for some of the named elements, but not all; and as we have seen, the point about using CHOREV is the CHEREV of Eden and the CHOREV of the giving of the Law: the intention throughout is "you could have had Paradise, you could have had YHVH making your lives wonderful from his palace on Mount Tsi'on, but you blew it". CHOREV literally means "destruction".

Are these last few verses YHVH speaking through Chagai, or Chagai himself? Who is calling for this drought? The next verse suggests it was the former. And if so, what happened to the No'achic covenant, the promise in the rainbow never to repeat the Flood?

samech break


1:12 VA YISHM'A ZERU-BAVEL BEN SHALTIY-EL VIYHOSHU'A BEN YEHO-TSADAK HA KOHEN HA GADOL VE CHOL SHE'ERIT HA AM BE KOL YHVH ELOHEYHEM VE AL DIVREY CHAGAI HA NAVI KA ASHER SHELACHO YHVH ELOHEYHEM VA YIYR'U HA AM MIPNEY YHVH

וַיִּשְׁמַע זְרֻבָּבֶל בֶּן שַׁלְתִּיאֵל וִיהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן יְהוֹצָדָק הַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל וְכֹל שְׁאֵרִית הָעָם בְּקוֹל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיהֶם וְעַל דִּבְרֵי חַגַּי הַנָּבִיא כַּאֲשֶׁר שְׁלָחוֹ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיהֶם וַיִּירְאוּ הָעָם מִפְּנֵי יְהוָה

KJ: 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.

BN: And Zeru-Bavel ben Shaltiy-El, and Yehoshu'a ben Yeho-Tsadak, the High Priest, with all the remnant of the people, heard the voice of YHVH their god, and the words of Chagai the Prophet who YHVH their god had sent; and the people were in awe of YHVH.

SHALTIY-EL: Why is he SHALTIY-EL here, but SHE'ALTIY-EL previously? An error by the scribe, presumably. But which way? Verse 14 also has Shaltiy-El, as does Chagai 2:2, but 2:23 reverts to She'altiy-El; so probability theory on a basis of three-to-two allows us to presume (quite probably incorrectly!) that the one most used is the correct one, and the error is in verse 1 (and 2:23).

The difference between the two spellings is a second-letter Aleph (א), which may be a difference between the Yehudit and the Aramaic, though that Aleph-variation is usually final letter, and instead of the Yehudit Hey (ה). It may also be worth pointing out ("may" is another take on probability theory!) that, commencing 2:11, Chagai will use as a rhetorical method the Talmudic question-and-responsum, and that begins with YHVH telling him to "ask" the Kohanim a specific question; the verb in that sentence is SHE'AL (שאל), which just happens to be the first part of SHE'ALTIY-EL ("the one who enquires of El"?), snd could therefore be read as another complex word-game (but it's probably just coincidence, because his name has an El ending, not one associated with YHVH).

Chagai is thus claiming the credit (humbly, YHVH told him what to say) for getting Zeru-Bavel and the leadership to start the process that would resume the rebuilding of the Temple.


1:13 VA YOMER CHAGAI MAL'ACH YHVH BE MAL'ACHUT YHVH LA AM LE'MOR ANI IT'CHEM NE'UM YHVH

וַיֹּאמֶר חַגַּי מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה בְּמַלְאֲכוּת יְהוָה לָעָם לֵאמֹר אֲנִי אִתְּכֶם נְאֻם יְהוָה

KJ: Then spake Haggai the LORD'S messenger in the LORD'S message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the LORD.

BN: Then Chagai, YHVH's messenger, the bringer of YHVH's message, spoke to the people, saying, I am with you, says YHVH.


MAL'ACH: So many times in the Tanach we have come upon this word, and it is always translated as "angel", and each time I explain that it is not an "angel", but a "messenger", sometimes the light from the stars interpreted horoscopally, more often, as now, a human being.


1:14 VA YA'AR YHVH ET RU'ACH ZERU-BAVEL BEN SHALTIY-EL PACHAT YEHUDAH VE ET RU'ACH YEHOSHU'A BEN YEHO-TSADAK HA KOHEN HA GADOL VE ET RU'ACH KOL SHE'ERIT HA AM VA YAVO'U VA YA'ASU MELA'CHAH BE VEIT YHVH TSEVA'OT ELOHEYHEM

וַיָּעַר יְהוָה אֶת רוּחַ זְרֻבָּבֶל בֶּן שַׁלְתִּיאֵל פַּחַת יְהוּדָה וְאֶת רוּחַ יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן יְהוֹצָדָק הַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל וְאֶת רוּחַ כֹּל שְׁאֵרִית הָעָם וַיָּבֹאוּ וַיַּעֲשׂוּ מְלָאכָה בְּבֵית יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת אֱלֹהֵיהֶם

KJ: And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, 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,

BN: And YHVH stirred up the spirit of Zeru-Bavel ben Shaltiy-El, governor of Yehudah, and the spirit of Yehoshu'a ben Yeho-Tsadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came, and worked on the house of YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, their god.


VA YA'AR: still more word-games. YA'AR in Arabic means "to boil"; there is no occasion of its usage with this meaning in the Tanach, yet King James and most other translators have assumed it must be this, and they are probably correct. But Chagai plays word-games, and 1 Samuel 14:27, as well as the Song of Songs 5:1, both use YA'AR for a surfeit of precisely that honey that the people would have got, if they had chosen the path towards Chorev and Cherev, in a land that would also be glutted with milk (and wine, in the Canticles link). And then there is the more common meaning of YA'AR, a word that occurs far too many times in the Tanach to be worth listing. A YA'AR is... the place you go if you are responding to Chagai's instruction in verse 8: "Go up to the mountain and collect wood". YA'AR is woodland.

YA'ASU MELACHAH: This is not the normal way of saying that "they worked"; either PA'ALU, or more usually AVDU. But PA'ALU is the work of a paid employee, banal and profane; AVDU is the work of a slave or servant, undignified and inhuman; while YA'ASU MELACHAH renders the activity holy, because it is precisely the 39 Melachot from which one rests, on the Shabbat, while praying and reading the Law in the rebuilt House of YHVH.

pey break


1:15 BE YOM ESRIM VE ARBA'AH LA CHODESH BA SHISHI BISHNAT SHETAYIM LE DAR-YAVESH HA MELECH

בְּיוֹם עֶשְׂרִים וְאַרְבָּעָה לַחֹדֶשׁ בַּשִּׁשִּׁי בִּשְׁנַת שְׁתַּיִם לְדָרְיָוֶשׁ הַמֶּלֶךְ 

KJ: In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.

BN: On the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of King Daryavesh.


BA SHISHI: Should that not be HA SHISHI? Or perhaps reverse the wording, and it could be BA SHISHI LA CHODESH.

24th: verse 1 was on the first of the same month; so it took just three weeks, including time to get word back to Persia, the search for the Koreshic edict to be undertaken, and instruction to be sent back to Yehudah. Quite impressive really!

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Introduction to Chagai

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Chapter 4, verses 5 and 6, of the Book of Ezra, recounting the early years of the return of the Yehudim from Babylonian exile under the leadership of Zeru-Bavel, tells us that the people of the land, which is to say the Shomronim who had either escaped the exile or been brought here as their place of captivity:

"...hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Koresh king of Paras, until the reign of Daryavesh king of Paras. And in the reign of Achashverosh, at the beginning of his reign, they wrote him an accusation against the inhabitants of Yehudah and Yerushlem."

The complaint was that they were rebuilding the walls of Yeru-Shala'im (Ezra often writes it as Yerushlem - יְר֣וּשְׁלֶ֔ם - which is Aramaic), restoring the city's suburbs, and more importantly erecting a Second Temple; the details of the letter form the next verses, but the key for our purposes lies in verse 22, where Koresh's successor and Daryavesh's predecessor Artachshasta, as he is called in Yehudit, Cambyses II (though Jewish tradition seems not to know this, probably because of the scribal error that names him as Achashverosh in verse 4) responds by issuing an edict:

"to cause these men to cease, and that this city should not be built, until a decree shall be made by me."

"And so," according to verse 24, "the work ceased on the house of Elah'a which is at Yerushlem; and it stayed ceased until the second year of the reign of Dar-Yavesh king of Paras."

Koresh is better known to us moderns as Cyrus the Great. Cambyses came to the throne of Persia at his death in 530, and was himself assassinated in 522, but he served as king of Babylon from 538, and may have issued his edict wearing that crown. Either way, the earliest date for the instruction to cease work would be 538 BCE. Between Cambyses and Daryavesh there was the very brief reign of Smerdis (Bardiya).

Daryavesh is the Yehudit rendering, Dârayaua'ush is the Medean, though he is generally known in English as Darius - somewhat unhelpfully as there were three kings named Darius, of which the later two were Darius III Codomannus, originally named Artashata but called Codomannus by the Greeks, who was the last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, reigning from 336-330 BCE, when he became one of the more famous victims of the conquests of Alexander of Macedon; and Darius II Nothus or Darius II Ochus, who succeeded Artaxerxes I at third-hand in 423 BCE, but that bloody tale is not relevant to our purposes so you can read it in your own time at the link to his name. There may also have been a fourth Darius, known as Darius the Mede; he is the king at the core of the Book of Daniel, and your call whether that is a work of pure fiction or an actual historical tale.

"Our" Darius is also known as Darius Hystaspis (Hystapses was his father's name, in the Greek accounts anyway; Vištāspa in the Persian), he came to the throne in 522 BCE, and reigned until 485. One of the "Greats", as you will discover at the link to his name.

In the following chapter of the Book of Ezra we learn that two men stood out as the crusaders for the resumption of the work, the Prophets Chagai and Zechar-Yah, both based in Yeru-Shala'im. It was their tireless effort which led Darius to search the archives, where the original edict of King Koresh was found, and to issue a new decree, not simply approving the resumption of the building, but sending senior officials to Yeru-Shala'im to ensure that it was carried out without impediment, and a death penalty for any who resumed the opposition. In verse 14 of chapter 6, Ezra specifically names both Chagai and Zechar-Yah:

"And the elders of the Yehuday'e built and prospered, through the prophesying of Chagai the prophet and Zechar-Yah ben Ido. And they built it, and finished it, according to the instruction of the god of Yisra-El, and according to the decree of Koresh, and Dar-Yavesh, and Artachshast, king of Paras."

Ezra 6:15 completes the tale, just four years later:

"And the house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king."

The house, meaning the Temple; the city walls and the remainder of the city will not be completed until Ezra's own time, many decades later.

What exactly Chagai did and said to achieve this transformation is recorded in the two short chapters that are his book.

*

In fact, the book covers a period of barely four months, and it can be dated very precisely to the year 520, because Chagai begins by stating that:

"In the second year of King Dar-Yavesh, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of YHVH came to Zeru-Bavel ben She'altiy-El, the governor of Yehudah, and to Yehoshu'a ben Yeho-Tsadak the high priest, in the hand of Chagai the prophet saying... "

Effectively - and indeed, very effectively: "Get up and build the Temple!". His first argument is that the crops will never yield a decent harvest until the rebuilding is achieved, because the harvest depends on the goodwill of the deity, and it is the deity's own palace that is in ruins. To add encouragement, but also because he appears to have been a man of deep cultural inclination, he paints a picture of a future Temple that will outshine even the glorious achievement of King Shelomoh (Solomon) in the First Temple - an aspiration which, sadly, was not fulfilled in the eventuality. Finally he acclaims Zeru-Bavel, currently the Persian-appointed governor, but soon to be the reinstated Mashiyach himself, the heir to the throne of David (the concept of Mashiyach should not be confused with that of Moshi'a).

Did Chagai both deliver the oracles and scribe the parchment, or was there a team of Guildsmen who worked on the text with him, and a scribe amongst them who wrote it down? The modern perception of the Prophets likes to imagine them inspired to make up their oracles as they went along, but the complex word-games and scriptural allusions of the text suggest something worked on like a poem over a period of time, drafted and redrafted until it said clearly and precisely what was wanted to be said, and then Chagai, as Master of the Guild, delivered it by hand, not by mouth, as that opening verse confirms - though highly likely the text was read out in the public square many times, by him, by other Guild-members, so that everyone could say they had heard it.

This view is largely supported in Jewish tradition, though it is to "the Men of the Great Assembly" that Bava Batra 15a attributes it, as it does the oracles of Zechar-Yah and Malachi. Rashi concurs with this view (his commentary on Chagai can be found here - make sure you click "show", not "hide", or you will get the text without the Rashi). I fear, however, that "Men of the Great Assembly" may be an anachronism, as this illustrious body did not come into being until Nechem-Yah's time at the earliest, and probably not before 410 BCE, a full century after Chagai and Zeru-Bavel.

The fact that it was delivered by hand also makes Chagai different from many of the other Prophets, who may indeed have "talked in tongues", or "communicated spontaneous visions" - Zechar-Yah on several occasions fits that description, and Zechar-Yah is not described as a Navi, which Chagai is repeatedly. This may well be the clue to explaining the differences between a Prophet and a Seer.

for some of the material on this page, I am grateful to Rav Tzvi Sinensky, whose Shi'ur (#07: Chagai: The Practical Prophet) can be found at  https://www.etzion.org.il/en/shiur-07-chagai-practical-prophet

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