The Book of Haggai contains sayings of the prophet woven into a narrative and set in a chronological framework. Haggai emerged in Jerusalem in 520 b.c., the second year of the Persian monarch Darius I, and served there for only four months. Economic difficulties stemming from poor harvests were troubling the community, and reconstruction of the temple had come to a halt. This setting provided the occasion of Haggai’s (and Zechariah’s) ministry.

The temple stood at the heart of Haggai’s message. The distress of the day, he taught, was the result of breaking off the re…