Maybe it is because I am a mathematician that I look for the significance of numbers, dates and days in the Bible. Key dates so often seem to repeat. “That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

In the short book of Haggai, even the prophet’s very name points us to search out the significance of the dates with which we are provided. The name Haggai derives from the Hebrew word ‘chag’. In its narrowest sense, a ‘chag’ is one of the three pilgrimage feasts – the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. Nowadays, the word ‘chag’ is commonly used to refer to any Jewish feast or religious festive occasion. The greeting ‘chag sameach’, or ‘happy feast day’, is a normal greeting on all the religious holidays. Thus, the name Haggai effectively means ‘Festive’ – and it directs us to look at the significance of the specific occasions when Haggai received each of his three prophetic messages.

Background

After approximately seventy years of exile in Babylon, many Jews had returned to Jerusalem as the result of a decree issued by King Cyrus in 538 BC. The people had started to rebuild the Temple, which had been totally destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC Initially the work on rebuilding the Temple had gone well, and in the second year of returning to Jerusalem the Jews completed the foundations and praised God for this (Ezra 3:11). However, by 520 BC, the work on rebuilding the Temple had effectively ceased for various reasons, which included physical opposition and worldly distractions.

The First Oracle

In Haggai chapter 1, God rebukes the children of Israel for concentrating on building their own houses rather than the House of the Lord. He explains that this is why they have experienced famine and drought. He calls them to repentance. Eventually we can read in verse 14 that “the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the House of the Lord of hosts, their God.”

Haggai’s first prophetic message (Haggai 1:1-11) was given on the first day of the sixth month, the first of Elul, which is just so amazingly appropriate.

For observant Jews, the first of Elul marks the beginning of forty days of ‘teshuvah’ or repentance. According to Jewish tradition and rabbinic teaching, these forty days are representative of a period of forty days when the children of Israel repented of their sins, after the shameful episode of the Golden Calf, whilst Moses was up on Mount Sinai for another extended period with God to receive a new set of stone tablets.

During the (nominal) thirty days of Elul, this time of repentance is also seen as a preparation for the ‘Yamim Nora’im’, the ten ‘Days of Awe’ that run from Rosh HaShanah on the first of Tishri to Yom Kippur on the tenth of Tishri. Each person is required to examine themselves, to repent of their sins, and to turn to God. The Hebrew word for repentance (teshuvah) is derived from the verb to turn back (shuv). People are also encouraged to turn to anyone to whom they have given offence and to seek their forgiveness.

The aim is that everyone should have fully repented, ‘cleaned up their act’, and got right with God by the time of Rosh HaShanah, or Yom Teruah (the Feast of Trumpets), so that their names might already be inscribed in the Book of Life when the Books are opened on that first day of Tishri.

Haggai chapter 1 suggests that this deadline was met by the remnant of the people who had returned to Jerusalem from Babylon. Verses 14 and 15 state that the Lord stirred up the spirit of all the people, and they came and worked on the House of the Lord on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month.

A Picture for Today

In these End Times, are we not also experiencing some very adverse conditions, just as the people experienced drought and shortages in Haggai’s time? Furthermore, just as the Jewish remnant had turned away from building the House of the Lord by 520 BC, have not many people in our modern world, both Jews and Gentiles (in countries that once called themselves Christian), now turned away from a true living faith in God to more worldly things, each effectively turning “to his own house” (Haggai 1:9)?

Do you not think that maybe history is repeating itself? Could the current woes of the world, like Covid 19 and extreme weather conditions, be God’s way of calling people to turn back to him – and to build today’s equivalent of the House of the Lord? Jesus demonstrated a passion for his Father’s House when He cleansed the Temple, after which His disciples recalled Psalm 69:9: “Zeal for your House consumes me” (John 2:17). We might consider to what extent people have a zeal for the Lord’s ‘House’ today.

Have not many people in our modern world now turned away from a true living faith in God to more worldly things, each effectively turning “to his own house”?

Today, of course, we know that God “does not dwell in temples made with hands” (Acts 17:24), but our own bodies are “living stones” which are “being built up into a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5). How well is the building up of that spiritual house progressing?

Remembering that Haggai’s first prophetic message was delivered on the first of Elul, we need to be aware that Elul has a special significance for the church.

It is said that Elul is a Hebrew acronym for 'Ani L’dodi V’dodi Li', or “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (Song of Songs 6:3). The month of Elul is seen as the time for a bride to prepare herself for her wedding, a time of sanctification and beautification. Thus the month of Elul is a time for the Church, the Bride of Christ, to get cleaned up and totally prepared for the expected arrival of the heavenly Bridegroom (Jesus) at the Feast of Trumpets on the first or second of Tishri.¹

It is only the wise virgins, those who are prepared, that will be admitted to the wedding, whilst the foolish virgins will find that the door has been shut (Matthew 25:10). It is only the faithful Church that will find an open door set before them (Revelation 3:8), and thus it is only the faithful Church that will be spared from the “hour of trial” (Revelation 3:10).

A Time of Return

The time of repentance (or ‘teshuvah’) that begins on the first of Elul leads to a season of return. The Sabbath that occurs in the week between the Feast of Trumpets and Yom Kippur is called ‘Shabbat Shuvah’, the Sabbath of Return.

I perceive God’s plan like this – the people return to God so that God can return to His people. As James wrote: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:8) In Haggai’s time, the people were expected to repent and return to God, honouring God by rebuilding the House of the Lord. God could then return to his people, appearing to the High Priest in the Holy of Holies at Yom Kippur, just as he did before.

I perceive God’s plan like this – the people return to God so that God can return to His people.

In these End Times, the plan has not changed. The people are called to return to God and to welcome the Son of God as their Messiah. Remember what Jesus said to the religious Jews: “Look! Your House is left to you desolate; for I say to you that you shall not see me again until you say [to me], ‘Welcome in the name of the Lord’.” (Matthew 23:38-39). The Hebrew ‘Baruch haba’ translates literally as ‘Blessed is he who comes’, but in modern Hebrew it is the standard expression for ‘Welcome’. When this happens, Jesus will return to Jerusalem at Yom Kippur, via the Mount of Olives, as foretold in Acts 1:11.

And it all begins with a call to repentance on the first day of the sixth month.

Endnotes

¹Officially the first of Tishri, but Jews are permitted to celebrate it on either the first or second of Tishri.  It was historically often celebrated a day late. The Jews only had an official pre-set calendar from the fourth century onwards. Before then, e.g. In New Testament times, the Sanhedrin required two witnesses to confirm that they had seen the new moon before they could declare that the Feast of Trumpets had begun. Some months had 29 days and some months had 30 days, so when the 29th of Elul arrived there was uncertainty as to whether the next day was the 30th of Elul or the 1st of Tishri. For this reason, the Feast of Trumpets was known as the feast when “no one knows the day or the hour”!