Haggai
Introduction
Person of the Prophet. - We have no further information concerning Haggai (Chaggai, i.e., the festal one, formed from châg, with the adjective termination ai: cf. Ewald, 164, c, and 273, e; lxx Ἀγγαῖος, Vulg. Aggaeus) than that obtained from the headings to his prophetic addresses (Hag 1:1; Hag 2:1, Hag 2:10, Hag 2:20), and confirmed by Ezr 5:1, - namely, that he commenced his prophesying in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, and by means of his prophecies caused the work of building the temple, which had been suspended in consequence of the machinations of the Cuthaeans (Samaritans), to be resumed, and in common with the prophet Zechariah, who commenced his labours two months later, ensured the continuance of that work. The extra-biblical accounts of the circumstances of his life have no evidence at all to support them. This is the case, for example, with the statement of Ps. Dorotheus and Ps. Epiphanius, that Haggai came from Babylon to Jerusalem when quite a young men, and that he survived the rebuilding of the temple, and was buried in honour near the burial-place of the priests, to say nothing of the strange opinion which was tolerably general in the times of Jerome and Cyril of Alexandria, and which arose from a misinterpretation of the word מלאך in Hag 1:13, viz., that Haggai was an angel who appeared in human shape. And Ewald's conjecture, that Haggai had seen the temple of Solomon, cannot be inferred from Hag 2:3. In that case he would have been about eighty years old when he commenced his labours as a prophet. 2. The Book of Haggai contains four words of God uttered by the prophet in the second year of the reign of Darius
