Haggai 2:7

Let the Son of man, when he comes, find faith on the earth, and let the children of promise continue still looking for him, for now it is but a little while and he will come; hold out, faith and patience, yet awhile, for he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. " And, as he then said of his first appearance, so now of his second, Surely I come quickly.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes

And I will shake all nations,....

In the second he assures them that though their sin, in delaying to build the temple, had retarded the prosperous progress of all their other affairs, yet now that they had set about it in good earnest he would bless them, and give them success,

2Ch 5:14), so this second temple was filled with the "glory" of God (Joh 1:14) veiled in the flesh (as it were in the cloud) at Christ's first coming, when He entered it and performed miracles there (Mt 21:12-14); but that "glory" is to be revealed at His second coming, as this prophecy in its ulterior reference foretells (Mal 3:1).

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

THE second Temple was never intended to be as magnificent as the first. The first was to be the embodiment of the full glory of the dispensation of symbols and types—and was soon to pass away. This comparative feebleness had been proved by the idolatry and apostasy of the people, Israel. And when they returned to Jerusalem they were to have a structure that would be sufficient for the purposes of their worship, but they were not again to be indulged with the splendors of the former house which God had erected by the hand of Solomon. Had it been God's Providence that a Temple equally magnificent as the first should be erected, it might have been very readily accomplished. Cyrus appears to have been obedient to the Divine Will and to have been a great friend of the Jews, but he expressly, by edict, diminished the length of the walls and gave express command that the walls should never be erected as high as before. We have also evidence that a lile decree was made by Darius, an equally great friend of the Jews, who could, with the lifting of his finger, have outdone the glory of Solomon's Temple! But in God's Providence it was not arranged that it should be so and, though Herod, not a Jew, and only a Jew by religious pretense to suit his own particular purpose, lavished a good deal of treasure upon the second Temple for the pleasure of the nation he ruled, and to gain some favor from them, yet he rather profaned than adorned the Temple, since he did not follow the prescribed architecture by which it ought to have been built, and he had not the Divine Approval upon his labors. No Prophet ever commanded, and no Prophet ever sanctioned the labors of such a horrible wretch as that Herod! The reason seems to me to be this—in the second Temple, during the time it should stand, the dispensation of Christ was softly melted into the light of spiritual Truth.

And the Desire of all nations shall come - The present Hebrew text is as follows: ובאו חמדת כל הגוים. This is a difficult place if understood of a person: but חמדת chemdath, desire, cannot well agree with באו bau, they shall come. It is true that some learned men suppose that חמדות chemdoth, desirable things, may have been the original reading: but this is supported by no MS., nor is באו found in the singular number in any. It is generally understood of the desirable or valuable things which the different nations should bring into the temple; and it is certain that many rich presents were brought into this temple. All are puzzled with it. But the principal difficulty lies in the verb ובאו ubau, they shall come. If we found ובאה חמדת ubaa chemdath in the singular, then it would read as in our text, And the Desire of all nations shall come: but no such reading appears in any MS.; nor is it fairly acknowledged, except by the Vulgate, which reads, Et veniet desideratus cunctis gentibus, “And that which is desired,” or the desired Person, “shall come to all nations.” In Hag 2:7 God says he will shake or stir up all nations; that these nations shall bring their desirable things; that the house shall be filled with God’s glory; that the silver and gold, which these nations are represented as bringing by way of gifts, are the Lord’s; and that the glory of this latter house shall exceed the former. Bp. Chandler labors to vindicate the present translation; but he makes rash assertions, and is abandoned by the Hebrew text. The בא ba, to come, is often used in the sense of bring, and that חמדת chemdath, desire, may be considered as the plural for חמדות, having the point holem instead of the ו vau, and thus mean desirable things, will not be denied by those who are acquainted with the genius and construction of the Hebrew language. Bp. […]

And the desire of all nations shall come - The words can only mean this, the central longing of all nations He whom they longed for, either through the knowledge of Him spread by the Jews in their dispersion, or mutely by the aching craving of the human heart, longing for the restoration from its decay. “The earnest expectation of the creature” did not begin with the Coming of Christ, nor was it limited to those, who actually came to Him Rom 8:19-22. “The whole creation,” Paul saith, “groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” It was enslaved, and the better self longed to be free; every motion of grace in the multitudinous heart of man was a longing for its Deliverer; every weariness of what it was, every fleeting vision of what was better, every sigh from out of its manifold ills, were notes of the one varied cry, “Come and help us.” Man’s heart, formed in the image of God, could not but ache to be reformed by and for Him, though “an unknown God,” who should reform it. This longing increased as the time drew near, when Christ should come. The Roman biographer attests the existence of this expectation, not among the Jews only, but in the East ; this was quickened doubtless among the pagan by the Jewish Sibylline book, in that, amid the expectations of one sent from heaven, who should found a kingdom of righteousness, which the writer drew from the Hebrew prophets, he inserted denunciations of temporal vengeance upon the Romans, which Easterns would share. Still, although written 170 years before our Lord came , it had not apparently much effect until the time, when, from the prophecies of Daniel it was clear, that He must shortly come . […]