The Book of Aggeus (Haggai)

Aggeus is the tenth of the twelve minor prophets and the first of the three who spoke after the Babylonian captivity, followed by Zacharias and Malachias. His book is one of the shortest in Scripture, two chapters and thirty-eight verses, yet every oracle in it carries an exact date, and all of them fall within four months of the year 520 B.C. The Douay-Rheims follows the Vulgate and keeps the Latin forms of the names: the prophet Haggai is Aggeus, Zerubbabel is Zorobabel, and Joshua the high priest is Jesus the son of Josedec. Its message is simple: put the house of God first, and the poor house you are building will see a glory greater than Solomon's, because the Messiah will enter it.

Who wrote the Book of Haggai?

The Church received the book as the work of the prophet whose name it bears. Bishop Challoner's argument at the head of the book in the Douay-Rheims says: "Aggeus was one of those that returned from the captivity of Babylon, in the first year of the reign of king Cyrus. He was sent by the Lord, in the second year of the reign of king Darius, the son of Hystaspes, to exhort Zorobabel the prince of Juda, and Jesus the high priest, to the building of the temple."

The internal witness is strong. Each of the four oracles opens with its own date and names Aggeus as the one through whom "the word of the Lord came" (Aggeus 1:1), and the Catholic Encyclopedia (1907, "Aggeus," by Francis Gigot) observes that "each utterance bears the distinct mark of having been written soon after it was delivered." The historical books confirm the man and his work: "Now Aggeus the prophet, and Zacharias the son of Addo, prophesied to the Jews that were in Judea and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel" (1 Esdras 5:1), and the elders "built and prospered according to the prophecy of Aggeus the prophet" (1 Esdras 6:14).

Of his life we know little. His name is often taken to mean "festive," perhaps because he was born on a feast day. Jewish tradition adds that he was born in Chaldea and buried at Jerusalem among the priests, stories the Catholic Encyclopedia judges to have little historical basis. The Greek and Latin Psalters name him with Zacharias in the titles of Psalm 111 (112), "Alleluia, of the returning of Aggeus and Zacharias," and Psalm 145 (146), "Alleluia, of Aggeus and Zacharias."

Challoner notes that the first title "is in the Greek and Latin, but not in the Hebrew," and takes it to mean the psalm was fit to be sung at the return from captivity; the Catholic Encyclopedia says Aggeus has been credited with the authorship of those psalms, "but wrongly." The Roman Martyrology keeps his memory on 4 July together with the prophet Osee.

The Pontifical Biblical Commission issued no decree on this book. Modern scholars generally accept the date of 520 B.C. and the substance of the oracles as the prophet's own; many think the dated framework in the third person was set down by a disciple or editor writing close to the events.

When was the Book of Haggai written?

Aggeus spoke in the second year of Darius I, son of Hystaspes, that is 520 B.C. The book itself gives the calendar: the first day of the sixth month (1:1), the twenty-first day of the seventh month (2:2, the day given in the Latin Vulgate), and the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, when he spoke twice (2:11 and 2:21). They were written down at the time or soon after.

The background is told in the First Book of Esdras (Ezra). Cyrus allowed the Jews to return in 538–536 B.C.; they set up the altar and laid the foundations of the Second Temple amid shouts of joy, while the old men "that had seen the former temple" wept aloud (1 Esdras 3:12). Then the Samaritans obstructed the work at the Persian court, and for some sixteen years nothing more was done. Into that discouragement Aggeus came with the word of the Lord. Work resumed within three weeks, and the Temple was finished "the third day of the month of Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of king Darius" (1 Esdras 6:15), about 515 B.C.

What is the Book of Haggai about? A summary

The book is four dated sermons and a short account of the people's answer. Its style, the Catholic Encyclopedia remarks, is "rugged and unadorned, extremely direct," as befits a preacher pressing a plain duty. In the Vulgate and Douay it is divided into two chapters: chapter 1 has fourteen verses and chapter 2 twenty-four. Hebrew-based Bibles end chapter 1 a verse later, so Douay 2:8 is Haggai 2:7 in the KJV and NIV, and Douay 2:24 is their 2:23.

First oracle: build the house of the Lord (chapter 1)

The people said: "The time is not yet come for building the house of the Lord." The prophet answers with a question: "Is it time for you to dwell in ceiled houses, and this house lie desolate?" (Aggeus 1:2–4). He shows them their own lives: "You have sowed much, and brought in little" (1:6). The drought was no accident: "because my house is desolate, and you make haste every man to his own house" (1:9). The command is plain: "Go up to the mountain, bring timber, and build the house: and it shall be acceptable to me, and I shall be glorified" (1:8).

Zorobabel the governor, Jesus the high priest and "all the remnant of the people hearkened to the voice of the Lord" (1:12). Aggeus, "the messenger of the Lord," gives them one sentence in return, "I am with you, saith the Lord" (1:13), and on the twenty-fourth day of the month they began the work (1:14 to 2:1).

Second oracle: the glory of the latter house (2:2–10)

A month later the new building looked poor beside the memory of Solomon's: "Who is left among you, that saw this house in its first glory? ... is it not in comparison to that as nothing in your eyes?" (2:4). The Lord answers with the triple charge "take courage" to prince, priest and people (2:5), recalls the covenant of the Exodus, and makes the great promise: "Yet one little while, and I will move the heaven and the earth... And I will move all nations: and the desired of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory" (2:7–8). "Great shall be the glory of this last house more than of the first... and in this place I will give peace" (2:10).

Third oracle: holiness is not caught, uncleanness is (2:11–20)

Aggeus puts two questions of the Law to the priests. Does holy flesh carried in a garment make bread or wine holy by touch? No. Does a man unclean "by occasion of a soul," that is, by touching the dead, make them unclean? Yes. "So is this people... and all that they have offered there, shall be defiled" (2:13–15). Challoner explains that the people's souls "remained unclean by neglecting the temple of God; and therefore were not sanctified by the flesh they offered in sacrifice." Yet from the day the foundation is laid the curse is lifted: "from this day I will bless you" (2:20).

Fourth oracle: Zorobabel the signet (2:21–24)

On the same day the Lord speaks to Zorobabel alone. He will shake heaven and earth and "overthrow the throne of kingdoms" (2:23), but of Zorobabel he says: "I will take thee, O Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, my servant... and will make thee as a signet, for I have chosen thee" (2:24). The book ends on that promise to the house of David.

What does the Book of Haggai teach us? Themes and the Catholic reading

God first. The whole first chapter is a commentary on the words of Our Lord, "Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33). The Jews were busy with everything except the one thing, and Aggeus tells them that their neglect is the cause of their poverty, not the excuse for it.

Worship that is pleasing to God. The questions to the priests teach that outward offerings do not sanctify a heart that refuses God what it owes Him. Malachias presses the same lesson on the priests some decades later, when he foretells the "clean oblation" offered among the Gentiles (Malachias 1).

Christ, the Desired of all nations. The book looks to Christ through three passages the Catholic Encyclopedia calls "truly Messianic": 2:7–8, 2:10 and 2:21–24. Challoner gives the traditional sense: the second Temple "should be more glorious than the former, because the Messiah should honour it with his presence: signifying withal how much the church of the New Testament should excel that of the Old Testament."

The Desired of all nations recalls the dying Jacob's prophecy that the one to be sent "shall be the expectation of nations" (Genesis 49:10), and the promise is taken up by Malachias: "the Lord, whom you seek, and the angel of the testament, whom you desire, shall come to his temple" (Malachias 3:1). The second Temple had no Ark and no cloud of glory such as filled Solomon's (3 Kings 8); its glory was that the Son of God was carried into it, taught in it and called it His Father's house. The Church reads that verse of Malachias at Mass on Candlemas, the Presentation in the Temple.

St Augustine reads the prophecy in this way in The City of God (XVIII, 35, 45 and 48). Heaven was moved "by the testimony of the angels and the stars, when Christ became incarnate"; the earth by His virgin birth; and the nations are moved to the faith, while the full coming of the Desired is "looked for at His last coming." The latter house, he says, is the Church built "with living stones, a house of God far more glorious than that temple" of Solomon. The Epistle to the Hebrews applies the oracle to the end of all things: "Yet once more, and I will move not only the earth, but heaven also," so that "those things may remain which are immoveable" (Hebrews 12:26–27).

Zorobabel, the signet of the Lord. Zorobabel is the son of Salathiel, grandson of king Jechonias, governor of Juda under the Persians and the heir of David. The Lord had said of Jechonias that were he "a ring on my right hand, I would pluck him thence" (Jeremias 22:24); to his grandson He says, "I will make thee as a signet." Zorobabel never wore a crown, so the promise looks further. Challoner's note says plainly: "This promise principally relates to Christ, who was of the race of Zorobabel," and both genealogies of Our Lord pass through him (Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27).

Beside him stands the high priest Jesus, the Greek form of Josue, to whom Zacharias heard the Lord say, "behold I will bring my servant the Orient" (Zacharias 3:8). Prince and priest building God's house together point to the one Christ, King and Priest.

Famous verses from the Book of Haggai

The lines most often quoted from chapter 1 are 1:4, "Is it time for you to dwell in ceiled houses, and this house lie desolate?", and 1:6, the wages put "into a bag with holes." From chapter 2:

Aggeus 2:5 – "Yet now take courage, O Zorobabel... and take courage, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord of hosts... for I am with you" (Aggeus 2).

Aggeus 2:8 (Haggai 2:7) – "And I will move all nations: and the desired of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory." The Vulgate reads et veniet desideratus cunctis gentibus. In the Septuagint, St Augustine notes, it is "those who are elected of the Lord out of all nations" who shall come, and modern Bibles often render the Hebrew "the treasures of all nations"; the Catholic Encyclopedia grants that the Hebrew "differs somewhat" while holding that the passage refers to Messianic times. The title returns in the Advent antiphon of 22 December, O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum, explained in our page on the O Antiphons, and as "Desire of nations" in O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

Aggeus 2:10 (Haggai 2:9) – "Great shall be the glory of this last house more than of the first... and in this place I will give peace."

Where is the Book of Haggai in the Bible?

Aggeus stands in the Old Testament among the twelve minor prophets, after Sophonias (Zephaniah) and before Zacharias (Zechariah) and Malachias (Malachi). It is a protocanonical book, received by Jews, Catholics and Protestants alike, so it is in every Bible; only the name differs. Catholic Bibles that follow the Vulgate, like the Douay-Rheims, call it Aggeus, from the Greek Aggaios and the Latin Aggaeus; Bibles that follow the Hebrew call it Haggai. The Council of Trent (Session IV, 1546), repeating the Council of Florence, lists it among "the twelve minor prophets," by the name Aggaeus. On the differences between the versions, see what Bible Catholics use and the Latin Vulgate of St Jerome, whose translator also wrote a commentary on Aggeus.

In the Roman Breviary the book is begun at Matins on the Thursday after the fifth Sunday of November, with Incipit Aggaeus Propheta, as the Church reads the last of the prophets before Advent, when she sings again of the Desired of the nations.

How to read the Book of Haggai

It takes a quarter of an hour. Read the First Book of Esdras, chapters 3 to 6, for the history, then Aggeus 1 and Aggeus 2 in one sitting, marking the four dates, and go on to Zacharias, who preached to the same builders in the same year. Keep the Latin open beside the English for 2:8, where the Vulgate's desideratus carries the whole Advent hope of the Church.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Book of Haggai about?

The Book of Haggai (Aggeus) is about the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile. In four dated sermons of 520 B.C., the prophet rebukes the returned Jews for building their own houses while God's house lay in ruins, encourages them when the new Temple looks poor, and promises that "the desired of all nations shall come" and fill it with glory. Catholic tradition reads this as a prophecy of Christ and of His Church.

Who wrote the Book of Haggai?

The prophet Aggeus (Haggai) wrote it, as the Church has always received. The book names him in every oracle and dates each one precisely, and the First Book of Esdras (Ezra) 5:1 and 6:14 records his preaching at the rebuilding of the Temple. Bishop Challoner says he returned from Babylon under Cyrus and was sent by God in the second year of Darius.

When was the Book of Haggai written?

In 520 B.C., the second year of the Persian king Darius I, son of Hystaspes. All four oracles fall between the first day of the sixth month and the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month of that year. The Temple they called for was completed in the sixth year of Darius, about 515 B.C.

What is the main message of the Book of Haggai?

Put God first. The people's failed harvests came "because my house is desolate, and you make haste every man to his own house" (Aggeus 1:9). When they obeyed, God promised His presence, His blessing, and a glory for the new Temple greater than Solomon's, which the Church sees fulfilled in Christ.

How many chapters are in the Book of Haggai?

Two. In the Douay-Rheims and the Vulgate, chapter 1 has 14 verses and chapter 2 has 24, for 38 verses in all. Bibles that follow the Hebrew divide them 15 and 23, so their verse numbers in chapter 2 run one lower: Douay 2:8 is Haggai 2:7 in the KJV.

Is the Book of Haggai in the Catholic Bible?

Yes. It is in every Catholic Bible, listed by the Council of Trent among the twelve minor prophets, and it is also in Protestant and Jewish Bibles. In the Douay-Rheims it is called the Prophecy of Aggeus, the Latin form of Haggai.

How does the Book of Haggai point to Jesus?

Aggeus foretells that "the desired of all nations shall come" and that the glory of the second Temple will exceed the first (2:8–10). Since the second Temple lacked the Ark and the visible glory of Solomon's, Catholic tradition sees its greater glory in the presence of the Messiah who entered it, and St Augustine in the Church, the house built of living stones. The promise to make Zorobabel "a signet" (2:24) also looks to Christ, who descends from him (Matthew 1:12).

Who was Haggai in the Book of Esther?

He is a different man with a similar name. The keeper of the king's women in Esther 2:3 and 2:8, called Hegai in modern Bibles and Egeus in the Douay-Rheims, is a Persian court eunuch who took charge of Esther (Esther 2). The prophet Aggeus preached in Jerusalem and has no part in that story.

In the Book of Haggai, what position did Joshua hold?

Joshua, called in the Douay-Rheims "Jesus the son of Josedec," was the high priest. Aggeus addresses him together with Zorobabel the governor in his first two oracles (1:1 and 2:3–5), and the First Book of Esdras calls him Josue.

Read the whole Prophecy of Aggeus verse by verse, Latin and English side by side, in the Iter Fidei Catholic Bible app.

Sources. The Prophecy of Aggeus, Douay-Rheims (Challoner revision) and Latin Vulgate, with Bishop Challoner's argument and notes; 1 Esdras 3–6; Genesis 49; 3 Kings 8; Jeremias 22; Zacharias 3; Malachias 1 and 3; Matthew 1; Luke 3; Hebrews 12; Psalms 111 and 145 (Vulgate titles); St Augustine, The City of God XVIII, 35, 45 and 48; St Jerome, Commentary on Aggeus; Council of Florence (1442); Council of Trent, Session IV (1546); Catholic Encyclopedia (1907), "Aggeus (Haggai)" (Francis Gigot); Martyrologium Romanum, 4 July; Breviarium Romanum, Matins of the Thursday after the fifth Sunday of November; Missale Romanum (1962), the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.