1. When the prophets observed the quickening of the currents of providence in any direction, whether of judgment or of salvation, the presentiment filled their minds that it was the beginning of the Day of the Lord. They had a finer sensibility than others to detect the currents of things. Their hearts were full of certain issues, and they were constantly looking for them, although the exact time of their coming was hid from them. And as one in the darkness thinks he hears the approach of an evil which he dreads, these prophets, when the sound of Jehovah's goings was more distinctly heard than usual, deemed that what they heard was the warning of His coming to shake terribly the earth. This was not a mere subjective feeling. For His final appearance was closely connected with these manifestations in great providences, as the outermost ring in the pool is but the widening of the innermost. To say that this frame of things shall never reach a goal is to put God out of it as effectually as to say that it never began. But it shall not end in a manner which cannot be guessed at. It shall end on the lines on which it is at present moving. And the ear that is wakened by Jehovah, and sharpened by His touch, may detect in the sounds of any signal providence the final issue of things, as surely as one can hear the full tempest in the first drops that fall sharp and measured upon the leaves in the sultry stillness of the air.
2. The monuments of Babylon have thrown much light upon the prophecies of Haggai, making it clear what were the events which seemed to him like the shaking of a nation. In 521 b.c. a pretender Nidintu Bel, who had assumed the name of Nebuchadnezzar, laid claim to the throne of Babylon, and about the same time revolts broke out in Persia, Susiana, Media. The appointment of Zerubbabel may therefore have been a sop to the Jews in Babylonia and in Palestine to prevent the disaffection spreading to them. If, however, this was the intention of Darius, it was at best only partially successful. The Palestinian section of the Jews, at any rate, looked for nothing less than full political freedom.
It is possible that Haggai anticipated from these revolts the downfall of the Persian Empire. Zechariah, writing some six months later, is less sanguine, though he too looks for the overthrow of the government.
3. These were the events which suggested to the two sanguine prophets in Jerusalem, and to all who shared their ideals, the immediate coming of the Kingdom of God. To the Jews it seemed that Persia was tottering, and that the Messianic era was nigh. It was therefore natural that Haggai and Zechariah should urge the speedy building of the Temple, in order that the great King might be fittingly received. After the shaking of the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land, after the shaking of all nations, the desirable things of all nations shall come, and the Lord of Hosts shall fill with His glory the house which the Jews had begun to rear unto Him.
The meaning of the words “the desirable things” is clearly indicated in the verse which follows. “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.” The Kingdom of God having been established and the Temple having become the religious centre of the earth, the Gentiles will send their choicest treasures for the adornment of the house which is destined to be a house of prayer for all nations. This tribute of the nations is the outward expression of their recognition of Jehovah, and accordingly the passage may rightly be regarded as having a Messianic reference, though it cannot be understood as a prophecy of the Messiah Himself. Construction and sense are both illustrated by Isa_60:5, to which this passage may very possibly be an allusion: “The abundance of the sea shall be turned unto thee, the wealth of the nations shall come unto thee.”
The beautiful translation in the A.V., “the Desire of all nations shall come,” was due to the Vulgate-veniet desideratus cunctis gentibus-and suggested the great and true idea that the nations are “feeling after him if haply they may find him.” This is not grammatically permissible, but the new and accurate rendering contains an equally magnificent promise. The prophets sometimes expressed deeper things than they knew, and the “desirable things” which all nations are to bring into the Kingdom of God are not to be limited to their material offerings, but include whatsoever things are true, and honourable, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report. The British nation has expressed its faith in God the Father by inscribing on the portal of its Royal Exchange the words, “The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof”; and the time will come when every nation of the earth will say to God the Son not only “Take my silver and my gold,” but-
Take my love; my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure-store.
Take myself, and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee.
Have we, indeed, desired the Desire of all nations? and will the Master whom we meant to seek, and the Messenger in whom we thought we delighted, confirm, when He comes to His temple,-or not find in its midst,-the tables heavy with gold for bread, and the seats that are bought with the price of the dove? Or is our own land also to be left by its angered Spirit;-left among those, where sunshine vainly sweet, and passionate folly of storm, waste themselves in the silent places of knowledge that has passed away, and of tongues that have ceased? This only we may discern assuredly: this, every true light of science, every mercifully granted power, every wisely-restricted thought, teach us more clearly day by day, that in the heavens above, and the earth beneath, there is one continual and omnipotent presence of help, and of peace, for all men who know that they Live, and remember that they Die.1 [Note: Ruskin, The Queen of the Air, § 100 (Works, xix. 387).]
