Haggai 2:6

Yet once, it is a little while. — The construction is very difficult. The best rendering appears to be, Yet one season more (supplying êth before achath), it is but a little while, and, &c. The meaning of these clauses is then that given by Keil — viz., “that the period between the present and the predicted great change of the world will be but one period — i.e., one uniform epoch — and that this epoch will be a brief one.” The LXX. (followed in Hebrews 12:27) omits the words “it is a little while” altogether, and so is enabled to render “I will yet shake once” (i.e., one single time, and one only), a rendering which, if we retain those words, is apparently impossible. The fact is, the original passage here, as in other cases, must be treated without deference to its meaning when interwoven in New Testament argument. There is yet to be an interval of time, of limited duration, and then shall come a new era, when the glory of God’s presence shall be manifested more fully and extensively. Notwithstanding its intimate connection with the Jewish Temple (Haggai 2:7; Haggai 2:9), this new dispensation may well be regarded as that of the Messiah, for Malachi in like manner connects His self-manifestation with the Temple. (Comp. Malachi 3:1, and see our Introduction, § 2.) Without pretending to find a fulfilment of all details, we may regard the prophet’s anticipations as sufficiently realised when the Saviour’s Advent introduced a dispensation which surpassed in glory (see 2 Corinthians 3:7) that of Moses, and which extended its promises to the Gentiles. When Haggai speaks here and in Haggai 2:22 of commotions of nature ushering in this new revelation, he speaks according to the usage of the Hebrew poets, by whom Divine interposition is frequently depicted in colouring borrowed from the incidents of the Exodus period. (See Habakkuk 3; Psalms 18:7, Psalms 93, 97) If the words are to be pressed, their fulfilment at Christ’s coming must be searched for rather in the moral than the physical sphere, in changes effected in the human heart (comp. Luke 3:5) rather than on the face of nature.