Haggai 2:6-7

Haggai 2:6-7. Yet once Or, once more, ετι απαξ , as the LXX. render it, whom St. Paul follows, Hebrews 12:26. The phrase implies such an alteration, or change of things, as should be permanent, and should not give place to any other, as the apostle there expounds it. The expression, says Bishop Newcome, “has a clear sense, if understood of the evangelical age: for many political revolutions succeeded, as the conquest of Darius Codomanus, and the various fortunes of Alexander’s successors; but only one great and final religious revolution;” namely, a revolution, not introductory to, but consequent upon the coming of the Messiah; the change of the Mosaic economy for that of the gospel. A little while Though it was five hundred years from the time of the uttering of this prophecy to the coming of the Messiah, which was the event here intended, yet it might be called a short time, when compared with that which had elapsed from the creation to the giving of the law, or from the giving of the law to the return of the Jews from Babylon, and the erection of this second temple. And I will shake the heavens and the earth, &c. These and similar figurative expressions are often used in the prophetical Scriptures, to signify great commotions and changes in the world, whether political or religious. The political ones here intended began in the overthrow of the Persian monarchy by Alexander, within two centuries after this prediction, which event was followed by commotions, destructive wars and changes among his successors, till the Macedonian empire, which had overturned the Persian, with the several kingdoms into which it was divided, was itself subdued by the Roman. The expressions, the sea and the dry land, are added as a particular explication of what is meant by the general term earth, and signify only what is expressed without a figure in the next clause. I will shake all nations All nations were more or less involved in, and shaken by, the wars that overthrew the Persian kingdom, and still more in and by those that overturned the empire of the Greeks. Grotius explains this prophecy as being, in part, at least, accomplished by the extraordinary phenomena in the heavens, and on the earth, at the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ, and mission of the Holy Spirit. But certainly the other is the interpretation chiefly intended. And the Desire of all nations Christ, most desirable to all nations, and who was desired by all that knew their own misery, and his sufficiency to save them; who was to be the light of the Gentiles, as well as the glory of his people Israel: such a guide and director as the wise men among the heathen longed for; and whose combat was the expectation of the Jewish nation, and the completion of all the promises made to their fathers. And I will fill this house with glory A glory not consisting in the magnificence of its structure, its rich ornaments, or costly sacrifices, which would have been only a worldly glory; but a glory that was spiritual, heavenly, and divine.