Haggai 1:2

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.

Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts - Yahweh, Lord of the powers of heaven and earth, and therefore requiring implicit obedience.

This people say - This sluggish and selfish people. He does not say, My people, since they had neglected the service of God.

The time - The proper time for building the temple. Two out of the 70 predicted years of captivity (dating from the destruction of the temple, 588 BC, ) were yet unexpired: this they make their plea for delay (Henderson). The 70 years of captivity were completed long ago, in the first year of Cyrus, 536 BC (Jeremiah 25:11; ), dating from 606 BC, Jehoiakim's captivity (). The 70 years to the completion of the temple were completed this very year, the second of Darius (Vatablus). Ingenious in excuses, they pretended that the interruption in the work, caused by their enemies, proved it was not yet the proper time; whereas their real motive was selfish dislike of the trouble, the expense, and the danger arising from enemies. 'God,' say they, 'hath interposed many difficulties to punish our rash haste' (Calvin). Smerdis' interdict was no longer in force, now that Darius Hystaspes, the rightful king, was on the throne; therefore they had no real excuse for not beginning at once to build. Auberlen denies that by "Artaxerxes," in Ezra 4:7, is meant Smerdis. Whether Smerdis or Artaxerxes Longimanus be meant, the interdict referred only to the rebuilding of the city, which the Persian kings feared might, if rebuilt, cause them trouble to subdue; not to the rebuilding of the temple. But the Jews were easily turned aside from the work. Spiritually, like the Jews, men do not say they will never be religious, but, It is not time yet. So the great work of life is left undone.