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And I will shake all the nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill the house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts.
The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts. – Haggai 2:7,9.
After the prophesied captivity, God promised to return His people to their land and let them build a new temple. In Haggai’s prophecy God says that “the desire of the nations shall come.” This is a reference to the Messiah. He would be the light of the Gentiles. –
And the Gentiles shall come to Thy light, and the kings to the brightness of Thy rising. - Isaiah 60:3
I will give You for a light to the Gentiles, that You may be My salvation unto the end of the earth. – Isaiah 49:6
In verse 9 God says that the glory of the latter temple shall be greater than the previous temple, which was Solomon’s grand edifice.
The people did return to the land and the temple was rebuilt. When the foundation was laid for this temple, there was a celebration. While many shouted for joy, those who were old enough to remember the splendor of Solomon’s grand temple wept. –
But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice: and many shouted for joy. – Ezra 3:12
Those elders who remembered the first temple could see by comparison this new second temple was not going to be as magnificent as Solomon’s temple.
In Haggai’s prophecy, the Lord makes mention of this fact as well. –
Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? – Haggai 2:3
But as we have been shown, God promised them that the glory of this second temple would be much greater than Solomon’s temple.
God is obviously not referring to the building's physical grandeur, but a spiritual glory, and the peace He proclaims that accompanies it is a spiritual peace, not a physical deliverance from war or oppression. The glory of this second house is associated with the coming of the Messiah, “the desire of the nations.”
While the Israelites were still enduring their captivity in Babylon, the prophet Daniel, who like other prophets had received visions from the Lord of future events, was now visited by an angel who showed him the future concerning the Messiah and the second temple. This prophecy is called, “the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks.” This prophecy is also about the redemption from sin.
Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. – Daniel 9:24
God’s plan of redemption for the human race was foreshadowed in Eden when He made a sacrifice to cover His naked children, (Genesis 3:21) and cumulates with the arrival of the prophesied Messiah. Thus that vision is “sealed up,” finished or concluded when the Messiah makes “reconciliation for iniquity.”
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince (other translations read, 'an anointed one') shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, in troublous times. – verse 25.
We have already been shown that this prophecy was fulfilled. The Jews were permitted to return to Jerusalem and build the second temple We are given the time frame when Messiah would arrive after Jerusalem is restored; more about that later.
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself:… (other translations read ‘and will have nothing.’).
The Messiah would be killed and then: –
… and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. – (verse 26).
So far we have been shown that Jerusalem would be rebuilt, then the Messiah would come, be killed and the city will be destroyed once again.
The prophet Daniel has clearly been shown that the promised Messiah would come before the destruction of Jerusalem and the second temple. This prophecy was fulfilled in 70AD, forty years after Jesus also prophesied of its destruction because “they did not know the time of their visitation.” – (Luke 19:44).
Let’s go back and take another look at the time frame the angel gave Daniel for these events.
There were several commands issued by Persian kings to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. The principle one was issued by Cyrus in 457 BC. The prophet Isaiah foretold this event approximately one hundred and fifty years earlier (Isaiah 45:1,13), so the basic timing of the seventy week prophecy begins with Cyrus’ command to restore Jerusalem.
The seventy weeks are divided into three parts – seven weeks, sixty-two weeks and one week (verse 27).
The weeks are generally thought by most scholars to be “weeks of years.” This interpretation is based on the year day theory taken from the examples in Ezekiel 4:6 and Numbers 14:34. Each day of the weeks in the prophecy represents a year, therefore each week represents seven years. So the time span illustrated in the prophecy looks like this. –
7 weeks = 49 years
62 weeks = 434 years
1 week = 7 years
Seventy times seven equals 490, therefore the seventy week prophecy covers a time span of 490 years.
In the original Hebrew text the seven weeks, which is designated as the time the temple is rebuilt, is separated from the sixty-two weeks with “an anointed one” appearing after the construction of the temple.
The text continues to describe the rebuilding of Jerusalem within the sixty-two week time span. When we compare the actual time it took to build the temple and Jerusalem, we understand that the time frames contained within the prophecy are symbolic.
The actual construction of the temple where forgiveness of sins would be resumed through animal sacrifice (the life is in the blood and I have given it upon the altar to make atonement for your souls, Leviticus 17:11) would only take from six to seven years. The rebuilding of the city took longer, it was completed in approximately seventy years. Therefore the construction of the temple and the city were completed well under the time frame of the forty-nine years to build the temple and sixty-two weeks, (434 years) to restore the city.
What we are being shown here is a prophetic distinction between the seven weeks (49 years) that corresponds to the actual seven years it took to build the temple and the sixty-two weeks, a much longer time span allowed for the construction of the city. This longer period of time designates the amount of time required to “bring in everlasting righteousness” or the permanent removal of sin; something that animal sacrifice was never capable of doing. Remember, the entire prophecy is about this atonement.
We were shown that - after threescore and sixty-two weeks (amount of years based on the solar calendar) shall Messiah (an anointed one) shall be cut off but not for Himself… (verse 26).…and the people of the prince that is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined (verse26).
So what we see here is that after the seven weeks, (the forty-nine years representing the rebuilding of the second temple), and including the sixty-two weeks, (four hundred and eighty three years), the temple would again be destroyed which happened in 70 AD. And in the time period between the rebuilding of the temple and its destruction in 70 AD, the prophesied “anointed one” the Messiah would appear and be killed.
Using the solar calendar, when we add the four hundred and eighty-three years to the year four hundred and fifty seven BC, the year the decree was made by Cyrus to rebuild the temple, we arrive at 26 AD, the year Jesus began His public ministry. This is quite remarkable as He is considered to be the Messiah according to Christian theology.
Why would God use numbers that match the solar calendar to pin-point the Messiah’s arrival, when the Jews used the lunar calendar which would place the end of the four hundred and thirty-four years arriving well after Jesus had come and gone?
God, through His foreknowledge, knew that the Jews would reject Jesus, but He would be received by the Gentiles as prophesied in the Scriptures I have previously mentioned. Knowing that the Gentiles use the solar calendar, God gave a time frame to Daniel that the Gentiles would decode, to encourage them that their faith in Messiah Jesus had not been misplaced, and they would recognize “the brightness of His rising” - like the sun of the solar calendar!
So far we have seen that after the seven weeks, after the temple is rebuilt that enables a temporary forgiveness of sins, the Messiah would come bringing an everlasting righteousness. This shows us that the “peace” mentioned in Haggai’s prophecy is the spiritual peace a believer receives when he believes the “Gospel” that the Messiah died for our sins, rose from the dead and through Him we receive the gift of eternal life.
Many of the early Hebrew writings concerning the coming Messiah portray Him as a suffering servant. In one of those ancient manuscripts the Messiah declares to God the Father that He would be willing to suffer for the people for eternity if necessary. This early portrait of the Messiah matches the description of His coming and purpose as depicted in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy. –
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised and we esteemed Him not.
Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:3-5).
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief: when Thou shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days (a reference to the resurrection) and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand (Isaiah 53:10).
He shall see the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities (Isaiah 53:11).
Jesus fulfilled this prophecy and many others including one that informs us that the Messiah would come when the Jews had lost their ability to pronounce capital judgments. - The scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh come (Genesis 49:10).
Even during the Babylonian captivity the Jews were allowed to govern their own, but not under Roman jurisdiction. This is why the Jewish religious leadership had to bring Jesus before Pilate to get his permission to have the Messiah killed.
Jesus’ death put an end to the need for animal sacrifices, but the actual sacrifices were not removed until forty years later with the destruction of the second temple; God declaring through this event that animal sacrifices were no longer needed, only faith in the Messiah who sacrificed Himself once for all
The glory of the second temple was not in any physical grandeur. Its prophesied glory rested in the fact that this would be the temple upon which the feet of the Messiah would tread, bringing in an everlasting righteousness through faith in His name, and the promise of eternal life; a spiritual peace that is so superior to anything this world can provide.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. – John 3:16
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you: not as the world gives, give I to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27
Copyright 2019 by H. D. Shively
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