In the second year of Darius, near the end of the feast of booths, the prophet Haggai encouraged the Jews of the restoration to continue their work on the temple by assuring them that “the latter glory of this house will be greater than then former” (Hag. 2:9). To this end the Lord promised, “Once more in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all the nations; and they will come with the wealth of nations; and I will fill this house with glory” (2:6-7). David L. Peterson has captured the sense of the verse with the comment that “the nations are being shaken in order to jar loose their wealth.”1
Though the sense of the prophecy is clear, its fulfillment is not. The phrase “a little while” is somewhat ambiguous, but there is little doubt that it is a time reference. The phrase `od me`at is used elsewhere in the sense of “soon” (cf. Hos. 1:4). In Haggai 2:6, this phrase is interrupted by `achath (fem. of “one”), which may serve “to emphasize the imminence of the time specified.”2 Haggai expected the nations to be shaken in a very short time.
It is possible to take this as a promise of the gathering of the nations as the Lord’s people. The word translated as “wealth” means “precious things” (Heb., chemdath; cf. Hos. 13:15; Nah. 2:9), and refers to objects and vessels for use in the temple. These are often symbols of people (cf. 2 Ki. 25:8-17). The Lord would shake the nations so that many Gentiles would convert and become living stones in the people-temple of God. Such a promise is not unusual in postexilic prophecies, with their frequent emphasis on the international scope of Israel’s influence (cf. Zech. 8:18-23; 14:16).
The setting of Haggai’s prophecy reinforces this interpretation. The twenty-first day of the seventh month was the seventh day of the feast of tabernacles. During the seven days of that feast a total of 70 bulls, representing the 70 nations (Gen. 10), were sacrificed as ascension (burnt) offerings (Nu. 29:12-34), a series of sacrifices that came to an end on the seventh day of the feast. It was thus particularly apt for Haggai to prophesy of the gathering of the nations on this occasion. The cosmic imagery of verse 6, though surely to be taken symbolically, also supports the notion that the precious things are Gentiles. “Heavens and earth” are parallel to “earth and sea,” and both are immediately connected to the shaking of the nations. The three phrases are speaking of the same process in different ways.
At the same time, there are indications in these verses that the primary concern is with the return of Jews who remain scattered throughout the nations. Exodus imagery supports this interpretation. Though Haggai’s word for “shaking” (ra`ash) does not occur in Exodus, it is a good description of what happened in Egypt: Through the ten plagues, the Lord shook Egypt to its roots. Haggai was prophesying that in a similar way the nations would be shaken. Because of the Lord’s shaking, the children of Israel and the wealth of Egypt were jarred loose. Haggai’s promise that the Jews would plunder the nations of their precious things (Hag. 2:7-8) is a promise of another exodus (Ex. 12:35), as is the fact that the plunder of the nations will be used in the construction of God’s house (Hag. 2:7, 9).
Working on the hypothesis that the shaking of the nations was for the purpose of recovering scattered Jews, the fulfillment of Haggai’s prophecy is easier to pinpoint. The only exodus that occurred “a little while” after Haggai’s prophecy was Ezra’s return to Jerusalem (Ezra 7-8). Michael Fishbane has pointed out the references to the exodus in Ezra’s pilgrimage.3 Significantly, Ezra arrived in Jerusalem bearing “650 talents [nearly 25 tons] of silver, and silver utensils worth 100 talents [nearly 4 tons], and gold talents, and 20 gold bowls, worth 1000 darics [less than 20 pounds of gold], and two utensils of fine shiny bronze, precious (Heb. chamudoth) as gold” (Ezra 8:26-27). In addition, Ezra was given imperial authorization to collect donations of silver, wheat, wine, oil, and salt from all the treasurers of the Persian provinces beyond the river (7:21-22). If we accept the short chronology of Ezra-Nehemiah, Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in the fifth month of the seventh year of Darius (= Artaxerxes, Ezra 7:8), somewhat less than five years after Haggai prophesied.
In every particular, Ezra’s mission fulfills Haggai’s prophecy. In Ezra’s mission to Jerusalem, the Lord shook loose Jews who remained in exile as well as the wealth of Persia, claimed the gold and silver as His own, and brought the plunder to adorn His house.
Peter Leithart is President of Theopolis. This article was originally posted at Biblical Horizons.