The Book of Haggai is named after the prophetHaggai whose prophecies are recorded in the book. The authorship of the book is uncertain. Some presume that Haggai wrote the book himself but he is repeatedly referred to in the third person which makes it unlikely that he wrote the text: it is more probable that the book was written by a disciple of Haggai who sought to preserve the content of Haggai's spoken prophecies.[5]
There is no biographical information given about the prophet in the Book of Haggai. Haggai's name is derived from the Hebrew verbal roothgg, which means "to make a pilgrimage". W. Sibley Towner suggests that Haggai's name might come "from his single-minded effort to bring about the reconstruction of that destination of ancient Judean pilgrims, the Temple in Jerusalem".[6]
TheBook of Haggai records events in 520 BC, some 18 years afterCyrus had conqueredBabylon and issued a decree in 538 BC, allowing the captive Judahites to return to Judea. Cyrus saw the restoration of the temple as necessary for the restoration of religious practices and a sense of peoplehood, after the long exile.[7] The precise date of the written text is uncertain but most likely dates to within a generation of Haggai himself.[7] A traditional consensus dates the completion of the text to c. 515 BC.[8] Other scholars consider the book to be completed around 417 BC, arguing that it did not refer toDarius the Great (Darius I), but toDarius II (424-405 BC).[9]
TheLeningrad Codex (AD. 1008) contains the complete Hebrew text of the Book of Haggai.
The whole Book of Haggai inLatin as a part ofCodex Gigas, made around 13th century.
Haggai's message is filled with an urgency for the people to proceed with the rebuilding of thesecond Jerusalem temple. Haggai attributes a recent drought to the people's refusal to rebuild the temple, which he sees as key toJerusalem’s glory. The book ends with the prediction of the downfall of kingdoms, with oneZerubbabel, governor ofJudah, as the Lord's chosen leader.
The first chapter contains the first address (2–11) and its effects (12–15). The second chapter contains the second prophecy (1–9), delivered a month after the first; the third prophecy (10–19), delivered two months and three days after the second; and the fourth prophecy (20–23), delivered on the same day as the third.
These discourses are referred to inEzra 5:1 and 6:14. (Compare Haggai 2:7, 8 and 22)
Text from Haggai 2:9 on a synagogue inAlkmaar: "The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house."
Haggai reports that three weeks after his first prophecy the rebuilding of the Temple began on September 7 521 BC. "They came and began to work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of Darius the King." (Haggai 1:14–15) and the Book of Ezra indicates that it was finished on February 25 516 BC "The Temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius." (Ezra 6:15)
