The next mini-series is the second in a larger lesson series from four short books of the Bible. After looking at Obadiah, the next book is Haggai, just a couple books away from the end of the Old Testament. It’s the longest of this “short books” study, at a “whopping” 2 chapters, but despite it’s short length, there are some lessons for us to learn from it.
The book of Haggai describes four main messages given by God to a prophet named Haggai. All four of these messages occurred during a 4-month period, set during the second year of King Darius (a king of Persia, not of Israel or Judah). Apparently, this was not the same Darius who knew Daniel [Hahlen & Ham, p.277]. Instead, today’s lesson probably better aligns with the book of Ezra. If you’re interested in getting even more details of what was happening in and around Jerusalem at this time, you can also read the book of Zechariah, which also overlaps with portions of the Ezra / Haggai timeline.
Stepping back, the first chapter of Ezra tells us that King Cyrus of Persia proclaimed that God’s people – Yahweh’s people – could return from their state of exile to their previous capital city of Jerusalem, in order to build a temple. After Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem, killed lots of its people, and exiled many more, God’s plan was now turning from punishment to restoration. In fact, Cyrus even sent Jewish people back to their land with thousands of gold and silver implements that were originally taken by Nebuchadnezzar from the previous temple in Jerusalem.
Ezra 2 tells us that there were almost 50,000 people who went to Judea as a part of this group, including two men who were named Zerubbabel and Joshua (more on them, later). Ezra 3 says that they started work on the temple the next year, and laid its foundation, along with building an altar for God.
However, in Ezra 4, we learn that enemies of these returned exiles pushed back, and in the time of King Xerxes and King Artaxerxes, they even tried to get governmental support for blocking the re-construction of the city. Now, the people’s enemies might have conflated rebuilding of the temple (which would be for religious purposes) with rebuilding of the city wall (which would have been for security or even military purposes), but King Artaxerxes eventually issued a “stop work” order, which was brought to Jerusalem.
Ezra 4:24 tells us that work was stopped until the second year of Darius’s reign.
Then work on the house of God in Jerusalem was discontinued, and it was stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.
Ezra 4:24 NASB2020
https://bible.com/bible/2692/ezr.4.24.NASB2020
As a reminder, Cyrus was the king who sent the exiles back to Jerusalem, but Darius succeeded one of Cyrus’s successors. So, some time has passed.
With this context from the book of Ezra, let’s start looking at the book of Haggai in the next article, with the first of the four prophecies…
From Sunday School lesson prepared for August 10, 2025
References:
- Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
- Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation.
- The College Press NIV Commentary – Minor Prophets Volume 2 (Nahum-Malachi), by Mark Allen Hahlen and Clay Alan Ham. © 2006 College Press Publishing Co.
Those Who Sin Differently 