When he got Home that Night
Later that day Haggai seems to have further thoughts. Once he had got local affairs (ie the Temple and the people) sorted he can see the consequences going out like ripples on a pond when the stone hits the centre. Once other people see that they will know that he was right. Notice the shift of emphasis as Haggai’s vision broadens our vision even further. From the economic and the domestic we have now moved to the political, national and international.
Try not to get carried away by the simplistic notion that if we get our faith right, everything else will fall into place, giving us the right go out and put the rest of the world to rights, defeating any who resist or believe differently. Notice that it is not Judah’s armies which are going to have huge success in the field, but Yahweh’s. As with the covenant, not what we do but what God does.
Who then is to be defeated? In Haggai’s book it was probably Darius, the Persians, and any others who thought themselves big enough to take him on, and for all we know maybe all the Gentiles. But no matter. Better to think of our bêtes-noires than his.
It is unlikely that Judah ever saw herself as replacing Persia. They had seen the end of two great empires — Egypt and Babylon. Persia may well go the same way, but even with Yahweh’s help they did not see themseves as a replacement. They now had a different vision. The thrill and the hope came not from being somebody else but from being themselves, with a conviction that if they stuck to their principles and did what was right nothing that others, Persians, Greeks, Gentiles or anybody else said or did could destroy them.
Then comes the crunch as Haggai points them to the source of their strength. The king is a servant — a servant of Yahweh (v 23). He is not given a signet ring (a sign of royal authority); he is only like a signet ring. His authority depends not on what he can do but on how others respond and acknowledge him. Yahweh has chosen him — not vice versa. His ‘authority’ derives not from anything he has claimed, not even from anything he has been given by the people, but solely on what he is and does.