Haggai 2:1-5

The Circumstances out of which the Prophecy arose

1. In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month It has been pointed out that this was the seventh and last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:33-36; Leviticus 23:39-43); and it has been suggested that the depressing contrast between the former Temple and the present would be heightened and brought home to the people by the rites and services of the festive season. "The return of this festal celebration, especially after a harvest which had turned out very miserably, and showed no signs of the blessing of God, could not fail to call up vividly before the mind the difference between the former times, when Israel was able to assemble in the courts of the Lord's house, and so to rejoice in the blessings of His Grace in the midst of abundant sacrificial meals, and the present time, when the altar of burnt sacrifice might indeed be restored again, and the building of the temple be resumed, but in which there was no prospect of erecting a building that would in any degree answer to the glory of the former temple." Keil's Minor Prophets, Clark's Theol. Libr. See also Pusey ad loc.