Abide: Haggai and Zechariah

Joseph Stuart: One of the most interesting days in my life took place a few years ago when I co-conducted a tour of the Jordan River temple in Utah for non-Latter Day Saints specialists in American religion. As we walked from room to room, my co-tour guide, my second mission president, did his best to anticipate questions that my scholarly friends may have had. And he did a great job. The most interesting part of the tour, and where more questions came up, though, was well after we had left the temple’s doorways. My friend Bob, at one point asked me, “What does the temple do for Latter-day Saints?” And I talked to him about eternal kinship networks, the binding of families, the salvation for the dead. He said, “No, what does the temple do for individuals like you?” And that question took me back, as you can tell, I'm still reflecting on it several years later. I think, if I were to describe what the temple does in the lives of every-day Latter-day Saints today, I would sum it up in one word, and that is flourishing. The flourishing of relationships, of personal peace and reflection, of revelatory capacity, and of my own faith in Jesus Christ the Savior. As we discussed Haggai and Zechariah today, let's keep that question in mind. What does the gospel do for Latter-day Saints? Why are we so anxious to build temples and invite all we can to participate in their sacred rituals and spiritual splendor? We'll discuss that and more on today's episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.

My name is Joseph Stuart. I'm a Public Communication Specialist at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for religious scholarship at Brigham Young University. Kristian Heal is a research fellow at the Institute. And each week we discussed the week’s block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Come Follow Me curriculum. We’re not here to present a lesson but rather to hit on a few key themes from the scripture block, so as to help fulfill the Maxwell Institute’s mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints and their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas.

Today, we are once again joined by Rachel Madsen, one of our research assistants for the Abide podcast. Rachel is an English teaching major here at BYU, and after graduating, she plans to teach in secondary schools and eventually obtain a graduate degree in educational leadership to work in school administration. Welcome back, Rachel.

Rachel Madsen: Thank you very much.

Stuart: Kristian, we're looking at Haggai and Zechariah today, and we're going to be splitting up the historical context. What should we know about had I before we begin our discussion of the book?

Kristian Heal: So the book of Haggai takes place in the second year of the reign of the Persian King Darius I, which is 520 BCE. This is some 18 years after Israel has been given permission by King Cyrus to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. The book is made up of four sections, each recording the word of the Lord given to the prophet Haggai. Each section is dated precisely, and each occurs in the same year. In Latter-day Saint terms, then, we can say that within these two chapters of Haggai, there are the equivalent of four sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, each of which has something to do with the rebuilding of the temple, set within a basic narrative framework. Each of these sections has structural and thematic similarities, and each is a tight literary unit. The message of these four sections is that the people cannot prosper while the temple remains unbuilt in their midst. The messages are delivered to the governor, the high priest and to the people suggesting that this is a political, religious, and social problem. Everyone is responsible in their various capacities for this failure to focus on the temple, and everyone will be blessed when the temple returns as the religious focal point of Israel in their land. The promises are both immediate, but they also point to a more glorious future, an eschatological future in which Israel's full glory returns. This future seems to be just on the horizon, to be ushered in by the rebuilding of the temple. As Haggai chapter 2:6 and 7 says, “And thus saith the Lord of House in just a little while longer, I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land, I will shake all the nations and the precious things of all the nations shall come here, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.” These promises represent a new age of prophecy and prophetic speculation in Israel, one that is concerned with the return to a glorious age, one in which the glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former –that's in Haggai 2:9. The second temple is perhaps defined by this sense of yearning for a lost glory, or for a future greater glory, this Second Temple period. This yearning paved the way for the coming of Jesus Christ, but also made it more difficult to recognize this moment when it happened. Surely, Christians would say the glory of this second temple was greater than that of the former, because God himself came down and taught in it.

Stuart: I really like you framing it that way preparing a temple not for the Savior to return to but to come to, for the first time while embodied. So Kristian, what stuck out to you as you read Haggai this time around.

Heal: One of the things that struck me in this reading is the prophet’s concern that the covenant people were living beneath their privileges. Or in Haggai 1:5-6, the Lord declared through the prophet, “Now, Thus said the LORD of hosts, consider how you have been faring. You have sowed much and brought in little, you eat without being satisfied, you drink without getting your fill, you clothe yourself, but no one gets warm, and he who earns anything, earns it for a leaky purse.” Something is missing in the lives of the people. Yes, they've returned to the land of Israel, but they cannot flourish there without reordering their priorities. Until they did, they were living without the full benefit of the grace and blessings of God. This reminds me of President Uchtdorf and his talk given to priesthood holders in the 2011 General Conference. He said, “We live beneath our privileges. When we allow the world the anchors to keep us away from the abundant joy that comes from faithful and dedicated priesthood service, especially within the walls of our own homes. We live beneath our privileges when we fail to take, to partake of the feast of happiness, joy, and peace that God grants so bountifully to faithful priesthood servants.”

Stuart: I like how you tied together the Old Testament and modern prophets there. What overlap, if any, do you see between Haggai and President Uchtdorf?

Heal: It seems that both of these prophets are encouraging us to live in God's abundance. God is generous and good in both of their prophetic visions he gives, as he instructs us to give, he gives good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running over. I love this notion presented in Luke 6:38 –good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over. The celestial economy works differently for those who are on the covenant path. You have been expecting much and getting little, the Lord said through Haggai. Why? Because the temple has been neglected, because, he says, of my house which lies in ruins. While you all hurry to your own houses. What is it that has been neglected in our own life that makes it so that I am living beneath my privileges? This is the question I find myself asking in response to this instruction. Is there a message from me? What do I hurry towards instead of attending to those higher and holier things? These seem to be some of the questions that Haggai is asking us or compelling us to answer today.

Stuart: Rich questions for all of us to engage. Now, Rachel, you did the research for Zachariah today? What's going on in that book? And how does it relate to the book of Haggai?

Madsen: They were contemporaries written with almost identical historical context. And all of the dates in both books are given in the text. Almost 20 years had passed since Israel had permission to build a temple. But when Israel returned from exile, that wasn't their greatest priority. This is what the prophets were condemning. The Book of Zechariah opens with a rather Deuteronomic theme, proclaiming, “The Lord hath been sore displeased with your father's, be ye not as your fathers.” Zechariah has the Lord call on Israel to build the temple, promising that then Zion can prosper, “Therefore, Thus saith the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies, My house shall be built in it saith the LORD of hosts, my cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad, and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.” Zechariah goes on to have some revelations through the form of nine visions that are then interpreted by an angel. These visions tend to show both excitement and turmoil about the restoration of the monarchy. The visions are laid out in a chiasmus form. The first and last visions include four horsemen writing and declaring that the world is at peace, bringing the question that's ultimately unanswered, of whether now is the time for the Messiah. The second and seventh visions are reflections on the Babylonian exile. The third and sixth look forward to the new Jerusalem and the fourth and fifth talk about Joshua and Zerubbabel, the two men that Ezra knows as rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem per Haggai and Zechariah’s exhortation. And it actually seems that Haggai and Zechariah both had rather short lived hopes that Zerubbabel would be the Messiah. And the ninth vision, which is not in the Come, Follow Me reading this week, reflects back on the center of the chiasmus, showing a future messianic priest-king. Later chapters, debut common Christian images of the messianic king, like riding into New Jerusalem on a donkey, being a rejected Shepherd, and ultimately being pierced.

Stuart: So I love to focus on the Messiah, these messianic chapters foretelling the coming of the Lord. What's going on in Zechariah chapter 11 specifically?

Madsen: Yeah, Zechariah 11 is one of those messianic chapters. And it actually serves as the center of a chiasmus that is done through chapters 9-14. And they kind of outline the Lord's wrath and judgment of Israel's apostate leader, and then reveal elements of the future Messiah. Chapter 11, as the center, the pivot of the chiasmus, gives us one crucial insight that the Messiah will be betrayed. Now, if you pause this and read Zechariah 11, or already had experience, you might have given up. It's very, very difficult to get through. Zechariah is kind of notoriously one of the hardest books in the Old Testament, if not the hardest to read. And Zechariah 11 is the hardest chapter in Zechariah to read. So kudos to anyone that got any sort of conclusion from reading it. It's really convoluted and quite cryptic, and this comes from actually a lot of things. One, we have these rival shepherds after all of this talk, you know, 10 chapters have nothing about that at all. The themes before triumphant advent, the accession of the Lord, the deliverance of Jerusalem, the gathering of Israel, and suddenly we have rival shepherds. There's also no historical clues. We don't know if this vision is in the past, a revelation of the future, or even Zechariah in the present doing something. We don't know if it's allegory, vision, or prophetic sign act, we're not sure what Zechariah is role is in this if he is supposed to be the shepherd or if someone else is, it's really cryptic. And it is written in both poetry and prose. So we've got everything going on here. It's a literary mess, but also a masterpiece, a mess-terpiece, if you will. So while there is ambiguity in the shepherd narrative of chapter 11, it is clear that there is at least one good shepherd. That Shepherd is divinely instructed to protect the flock. He pledges to care for the weak and to remove three destructive shepherds on behalf of the Lord. And he has two staffs with positive virtue names: Delight and Union – or in King James Version, Beauty and Bands. It's unclear but it appears that these staffs might have been used by Zechariah as he actually acted out the portrayal of the shepherds as a prophetic sign act.

Stuart: So that last phrase, prophetic sign act, what does that mean?

Madsen: A prophetic sign act is fairly common to Old Testament prophecy. So for example, Isaiah walks naked as a prisoner of war for three years, Jeremiah smashes some pottery and puts iron shackles on his neck. Ezekiel does everything under the sun, from digging a hole through his house, tossing shaved hair into the wind, and joining two staffs together. And it seems like Zechariah’s breaking of the staffs is actually a parallel to Ezekiel’s joining of two staffs. In both stories, the men take two sticks, Zacharias are named Delight and Union and Ezekial’s are named for Judah and for Joseph. Whereas Ezekiel then joins the two sticks. Zechariah breaks the two staffs. And each story ends with a “Shepherd King'' being appointed over them. So there seems to be a clear parallel, at least there, what it means may be up for debate. But just more of the definition of prophetic sign act, to show why that might be what's happening in Zechariah, the kind of categories or the system of how a prophetic sign act is laid out in the Old Testament consists of the three E's: exhortation, execution, and explanation. So Zechariah is explicitly told by the Lord what actions to do. Exhortation: feed the flocks, cast coins, and take the instruments of a shepherd. Each time Zechariah does it – execution. And then it is explained divinely why that action matters – explanation.

Stuart: So I find that really helpful and interesting, but why is it particularly important to know if Zachariah is working with sign acts or not?

Madsen: Really the whole purpose and why this is something that would matter at all, is because we don't have historical markers in chapter 11. So it's really unclear at face value, whether this text is functioning in the past, present, or future as a vision. Even if we take it as a messianic text, it could function like those in Isaiah that, yes, prophesy a Messiah, but have a direct present application as well. Where messianic texts in Isaiah can be given as a present. Zechariah is an eschatological Messiah, which is to say it's for the end of days, it's clearly future. So sign acts imply future events, which allows early Christian writers like Matthew to use the words of Zechariah as they were intended when they describe Jesus as the Messiah.

Stuart: That's a great place for us to end today. Have a blessed week ya’ll!

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