Haggai 2:20-23

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Intro:

Well here we are at the very end of the book of Haggai. This has been a really surprising book for me. It has been really cool to see the people of Israel moving back into the promised land as God leads them in a new return from captivity and to see the stage being so precisely set for the coming of Christ as the One toward whom all of the OT symbolism and imagery had pointed. It has been so encouraging to see that here in this little prophet we can find so much direction and instruction for us today that the message of Haggai to “Build My House” remains the explicit command for us today, in fact we have seen that we are the true realization of the message of this prophet.
That we as God’s people are being built up together as living stones into the Temple of God not made with wood and stone, not made with hands, but built together with the redeemed people of God as they are joined to the cornerstone of this entire structure which is Christ and where we gather now as these people had done so long ago to pursue the right and proper worship of God just as He has directed us to do so that we together might bring Him glory.

build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD.

Haggai’s people committed themselves to carrying out this command and we still commit ourselves to this very same thing!
Now as we round out this book we have one final message from God, through the prophet, to the people, or more specifically to the leader of the people. And this is what we will take up and consider today, just what it was that God chose as his closing note for the message of Haggai, this brief and yet powerful message for Zerubbable the son of Shealtiel.

Pray & Read

As we jump into this message it is very important that you recall a historical element in the prophets that we have noted before as significant. In the pre-exilic prophets one of the themes that you will note in their messages is that as you get closer and closer to the time of the exile and as the kings in Judah, the sons of David grow increasingly more and more wicked we see a transition away from messages of hope concerning the Davidic line as the source of the salvific and messianic figure to the hope that God Himself would be the savior of His people. Early on in the Davidic line and especially throughout the Psalms and early prophets we see the messianic figure and the line of David woven together but as we move into the later prophets like Habakkuk and Zephaniah that changes.
Where as earlier prophets like Isaiah had made promises like:

11 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

2  And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,

the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and might,

the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

3  And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,

or decide disputes by what his ears hear,

4  but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,

and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

5  Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,

and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

Zephaniah said:

17  The LORD your God is in your midst,

a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;

he will quiet you by his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing.

But as we have already made mention in this book we now find ourselves in the interesting position that a great great great, however many greats it takes, grandson of David is now back in a position of authority in Judah. Zerubbable the Son of Shealtiel is now the ruling governor of the province of Judah.
It is this lineage of Zerubbabel that we need to latch a hold of as the primary interpretative paradigm for this passage. The first few times I read this book through I had actually missed the fact that Zerubbabel was from the line of David and boy does this passage not make any sense without that particular piece of information.
And so we see here that God rounds out this book with a message directly to this man, Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel the governor of Judah.

Timestamp

Now as we dive into the message itself we see that it, as all of the other messages of Haggai do, has a date stamp. In fact this message was delivered later on the very same day as the last message that began in verse 10.

the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month,

And here we simply have:

on the twenty-fourth day of the month,

The ninth is simply implied by the context.
Now that last message had been one of hope and blessing to the people, remember God had said:

But from this day on I will bless you.”

And here we will see that this is a message of hope and promise directly to this man who was leading the people.

Shaking:

We read first:

“Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, 22 and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders. And the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his brother.

Does that sound familiar? It should. We have see this same type of imagery just a few verses above. In 2:5 and following we read:

Fear not. 6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. 7 And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. 8

If you remember now when we worked through that passage we saw that this is really imagery meant to demonstrate that God is now going to act in such a way as to demonstrate His absolute power by wielding everything that exists in the whole world from the sky's above to the nations that populate the earth in the service of this temple building project. Now we saw that this was temporally demonstrated in the days of Haggai as even more people returned to the land with the wealth of the nations to support the building of the Temple. But we also said that the interpretive framework that we have used throughout these post exilic days holds fast, and that is that what takes place in theses days is not actually the full fulfilment of these promises but rather a type and shadow meant to point forward to the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ the Son of God who would bring with Him the Kingdom of God and usher in the true and better fulfilment of these long told promises.
And so this shaking in verses 5 and following is really prophesying of the days of the Church as God’s kingdom expands across the globe and as His Temple grows greater and greater as the spoils of this divine conquest of the gospel, the souls of men and women are drawn by the saving power of the gospel into this Kingdom and built up together into this true and better temple where God is rightly worshiped.
And so here, not to put the cart before the horse but we ought to understand that what we are looking at in these verses might have less to do with the immediate context of Haggai’s day and might in actuality be pointing forward to that great and glorious day when Christ came into the world and ushered in the Kingdom of God and after laying down His life for the sins of His people was raised again by the power of God and seated at His right hand on the throne in glory!

Slaying Each Other

Now we also see in this description of this shaking an interesting point to realize about the judgement of God against wicked men. This passage, perhaps even more so that the one that preceded it points toward this shaking as also a means of judgement on wicked men as it speaks of their overthrow and destruction and we see here that this takes place at the hands of each other.

And the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his brother.

The language there in the middle where it says “riders shall go down” is actually reminiscent of the Song of Moses after the Exodus where we read:

4  “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea,

and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea.

5  The floods covered them;

they went down into the depths like a stone.

The death of judgement; and here in this passage that death is carried out by their fellow wicked brothers.
It doesn't take much imagination to see how this works out in the world. We can see it happening all around us in the progressive movements of our country and world as those pushing the wickedness of the progressive agenda can scarcely keep up with each other and you constantly find that those who were at one point on the leading edge of the celebration of debauchery and wickedness find themselves left behind and anathematized by their fellow progressive brothers and sisters. Wicked men may join forces for a time but in the end they always wind up at odds with and slaughtering each other.
And so we see that the promise is that God in this process of wielding the nations is going to also bring their judgement and recompense upon them. Now as the leader of a small group of people surrounded by nations larger and more powerful that you and knowing that you yourself are just a ruling governor of a province installed by the ruler of one of those vast and mighty nations, this might have been a comforting for Zerubbabel to hear.
In other words, in the immediate context God is telling Zerubbabel that there is no need to fret and worry about the size and perceived power of their enemies. The God who is wielding all things for the building of His temple will also judge them for their wickedness.

The Promise to Zerubbable

Next we read:

On that day, declares the LORD of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the LORD, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the LORD of hosts.”

Now this is where this passage gets interesting.
God makes a promise here to Zerubbable and there are some very interesting connections to be found here.
One interesting issue that arises is something that we see in the next prophet. In Zachariah we read of the crowning of Joshua the High Priest. Zachariah 3 gives us this vision of Joshua standing before the Angle of the Lord and being accused by Satan and having his filthy garments removed and this promise of a chosen servant known as “the Branch.” Then in Chapter 6 we read this account:

9 And the word of the LORD came to me: 10 “Take from the exiles Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah, who have arrived from Babylon, and go the same day to the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah. 11 Take from them silver and gold, and make a crown, and set it on the head of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. 12 And say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD. 13 It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.” ’ 14 And the crown shall be in the temple of the LORD as a reminder to Helem, Tobijah, Jedaiah, and Hen the son of Zephaniah.

And so we see this very kingly imagery with a crown and a throne and this messianic language mingled with the person who was the high priest and has thus far been addressed along with Zerubbabel and you might think that this man then is the primary figure and yet now we also see similar language used of Zerubbabel himself.
We see Zerubbable first declared to be God’s servant.

I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, the son of Shealtiel,

Now we might be prone to read over that quickly because we are used to servant language used of those in service to God but we ought to slow down for a moment. Remember the Prophet Isaiah, Isaiah was one of the last prophets to lean heavily into the Davidic messianic language as the hope for the people and the primary messianic figure in Isaiah is called simply, “God’s servant.”
Isaiah 42:1 ESV
Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.
And most notable the servant that is introduced in Isaiah 52 and carrying on through 53.

13  Behold, my servant shall act wisely;

he shall be high and lifted up,

and shall be exalted.

14  As many were astonished at you—

his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,

and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—

15  so shall he sprinkle many nations.

Kings shall shut their mouths because of him,

for that which has not been told them they see,

and that which they have not heard they understand.

And so when we see a member of the household of David in a position of authority in the newly restored from exile Israel and we hear him being referred to as the Lord’s servant we ought to pause and consider that, especially for this immediate audience, this terminology was likely to bring out a lot of connections that we might miss. Could this man be the one, is this man the servant of Isaiah who seems to play such a vital role in the redeeming of God’s people?

Signet Ring

We see the promise continue:
“I will take you.... and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the LORD of hosts.”
Now there are a few important points we need to realize about the signet ring promise.
The first is that the signet ring was a symbol of the kings authority. We haven't gotten to this story yet but you all are probably familiar with the story of Mordecai and the Persian King giving Mordecai his signet ring. This gave Mordecai the right to issue edicts in the kings name. The signet ring was a symbol of the extension of the kings power and so the first thing that we see here is that God is going to make this descendant of David a symbol of the extension of His rule and power in the world.
This is full of messianic significance. From the history of the Davidic line one could perhaps assume that God had reneged His promise to have a perpetual ruler for His people on the throne of David. David’s heirs had, for the most part, not acted in faithfulness and had played a large part in bringing the judgement of God down upon the people and even now Zerubbabel was just a governor appointed by the king of Persia, he didn't have a throne and certainly not the throne of David and yet here we see this idea that God is once again extending the exercise of His power and authority through the Davidic line.
The second point is how it was that a signet ring worked. A signet ring was embossed with a 3D representation of the symbol of the king and when that ring was pushed down into wax or some other type of sealing material it would leave the impression of that symbol behind. This is the very process where we get the concept of types in the new testament.
And so we see here, perhaps the idea that Zerubbabel is to be a sort of type of something or someone that is coming. Much like we saw Hezekiah in Micah 2 form a type of the coming messianic figure as he lead God’s people out in victory over their enemies so here we see that in receiving the extension of God’s authority again as a representative of the line of David and therefore a representative of the entirety of the Davidic covenant that Zerubbabel joins all of those faithful rulers as types of the One who was to come.
This is actually how we resolve some of the tension that these verses create.
The tension in this text is created by the fact that there is virtually no way to make any of the seeming grandeur of this fit the immediate life of this man Zerubbable. I told Jake yesterday that if we were inclined to liberalism and to doubting the scriptures that this would be an easy place to turn and say “see, here are words of scripture that never transpired.” Do we have reason to doubt God’s Word here?
Historically and even in the Biblical narrative we don't see much happen with Zerubbabel after the events of Haggai. We don’t see the leadership of the people passed onto his sons and if we didn't have the genealogies that we have in Matthew and 1st Chronicles we might think that this line had completely passed out of memory.
The line of David doesn't pop into prominence again biblically or historically until we read the very genealogy that Jake read for us this morning in Matthew.
However when we realize that the significance of what is happening here is that God is showing these people that the promises that had long been a part of their history and had formed part of the bedrock of their messianic hopes even as the family of David had drifted out of prominence in the prophets that immediately preceded the exile that these promises were still in force and to be a part of the expectation of the people.
This actually helps to resolve the tension that is also created by the imagery that we find associated with Joshua the High Priest in the next book. Its not a question in this day, Haggai’s day, of who is to rule, no these are symbolic actions and both men and their associated promises that are meant to drive us forward to the One who was to come.

On That Day

In fact we see one other key that drives us here. Note at the start of verse 23, “On that day.” Now this clearly connects this promise to the shaking imagery that comes before it but you will remember that this language also is heavily connected with the messianic promises throughout the prophets. “In that day” is nearly always associated with the day of the messiah and so we can thread all of these clues together and find these texts driving us forward to these conclusions, pointing us to the singular figure that rises to fulfill all of the hopes and promises of redemptive history, Jesus Christ. Zerubbabel and Joshua and their associated imagery and promises both point us forward to all that Christ would do and be.

Closing/Application

Now as we wrap up the book one thing that may stand out is that we haven't yet talked much about worship this morning. This has been a book that is saturated in worship. It has focused on the people’s need to rebuild the Temple so that they could be rightly worshiping God and not continuing on in their uncleanliness.

build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD.

Does this theme then not arise here in the last message?
I believe that it does!
We need to ask what would this message have done for Zerubbabel. I would not argue that Zerubbabel and Haggai could have understood the full significance of this prophecy in the light of all of redemptive history. No I think the immediate effect of this prophecy for Zerubbabel would have been similar to the prophecy we read about him in Zechariah 4:8-10a

8 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 9 “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. 10 For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.

As a member of the house and line of David through whom God was again extending His rule and authority here on earth the sum effect of these promises for Zerubbabel would have been to assure him that he would be able to complete the work of the Temple! God is extending to him the assurance that He will work through Zerubbabel to finish the work!
This is part of what it means to be God’s chosen servant!
In other words this isn't just a promise of kingly rule and authority it is a promise that this kingly figure will be the one who builds the Temple of the Lord.
Now as we think about that in application to our own day this becomes full of great significance. We have talked much about the task that is before us, the task of being built up together into the true Temple of God and worshiping Him rightly and we see here that this messianic figure, the One who we know is Jesus Christ the Son of God, has been vested with the power and authority to complete this task of building this Temple! The same comfort and encouragement that ought to have come to the people of God in Haggai’s day as they heard of this promise to Zerubabbel ought to fill us now as we realize that not only have we been given this great task but we have been given a great ruler of this task that has all of the power and authority necessary to complete it.
The work of church building, Temple building can be hard can be frustrating, can be discouraging, it was for these people and is for us, but it is not a task that we approach without adequate leadership to bring us through all of these hardships, no we have a great High Priest and King who sits on the throne of David and has been vested with all power and authority and under His governance this great task will be completed!
And so the message of this book stand before us as the great task that ought to be the primary task toward which we direct the energies of our lives, to be built up together as the great Living Temple of our Living Lord and to worship Him rightly together!
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