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Haggai 2:17 Bible in Basic English (BBE)

17 And I sent burning and wasting and a rain of ice-drops on all the works of your hands; but still you were not turned to me, says the Lord.

Cross Reference

Deuteronomy 28:22 BBE

The Lord will send wasting disease, and burning pain, and flaming heat against you, keeping back the rain till your land is waste and dead; so will it be till your destruction is complete.

1 Kings 8:37 BBE

If there is no food in the land, or if there is disease, or if the fruits of the earth are damaged through heat or water, locust or worm; if their towns are shut in by their attackers; whatever trouble, whatever disease there may be:

Haggai 1:11 BBE

And by my order no rain came on the land or on the mountains or the grain or the wine or the oil or the produce of the earth or on men or cattle or on any work of man's hands.

Haggai 1:9 BBE

You were looking for much, and it came to little; and when you got it into your house, I took it away with a breath. Why? says the Lord of armies. Because of my house which is a waste, while every man takes care of the house which is his.

Jeremiah 5:3 BBE

O Lord, do not your eyes see good faith? you have given them punishment, but they were not troubled; you have sent destruction on them, but they did not take your teaching to heart: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they would not come back.

Jeremiah 6:16-17 BBE

This is what the Lord has said: Take your place looking out on the ways; make search for the old roads, saying, Where is the good way? and go in it that you may have rest for your souls. But they said, We will not go in it. And I put watchmen over you, saying, Give attention to the sound of the horn; but they said, We will not give attention.

Revelation 9:20-21 BBE

And the rest of the people, who were not put to death by these evils, were not turned from the works of their hands, but went on giving worship to evil spirits, and images of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood which have no power of seeing or hearing or walking: And they had no regret for putting men to death, or for their use of secret arts, or for the evil desires of the flesh, or for taking the property of others.

Revelation 2:21 BBE

And I gave her time for a change of heart, but she has no mind to give up her unclean ways.

Zechariah 7:9-13 BBE

This is what the Lord of armies has said: Let your judging be upright and done in good faith, let every man have mercy and pity for his brother: Do not be hard on the widow, or the child without a father, on the man from a strange country, or on the poor; let there be no evil thought in your heart against your brother. But they would not give attention, turning their backs and stopping their ears from hearing; And they made their hearts like the hardest stone, so that they might not give ear to the law and the words which the Lord of armies had said by the earlier prophets: and there came great wrath from the Lord of armies. And it came about that as they would not give ear to his voice, so I would not give ear to their voice, says the Lord of armies:

Zechariah 1:2-4 BBE

The Lord has been very angry with your fathers: And you are to say to them, These are the words of the Lord of armies: Come back to me, says the Lord of armies, and I will come back to you. Be not like your fathers, to whom the voice of the earlier prophets came, saying, Be turned now from your evil ways and from your evil doings: but they did not give ear to me or take note, says the Lord.

Amos 4:8-11 BBE

So two or three towns went wandering to one town looking for water, and did not get enough: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. I have sent destruction on your fields by burning and disease: the increase of your gardens and your vine-gardens, your fig-trees and your olive-trees, has been food for worms: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. I have sent disease among you, as it was in Egypt: I have put your young men to the sword, and have taken away your horses; I have made the evil smell from your tents come up to your noses: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. And I have sent destruction among you, as when God sent destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick pulled out of the fire: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.

Amos 4:6 BBE

But in all your towns I have kept food from your teeth, and in all your places there has been need of bread: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.

Hosea 7:9-10 BBE

Men from other lands have made waste his strength, and he is not conscious of it; grey hairs have come on him here and there, and he has no knowledge of it. And the pride of Israel gives an answer to his face; but for all this, they have not gone back to the Lord their God, or made search for him.

Jeremiah 8:4-7 BBE

Further, you are to say to them, This is what the Lord has said: Will those who are falling not be lifted up again? will he who has gone away not come back? Why do these people of Jerusalem go back, for ever turning away? they will not give up their deceit, they will not come back. I took note and gave ear, but no one said what is right: no man had regret for his evil-doing, saying, What have I done? everyone goes off on his way like a horse rushing to the fight. Truly, the stork in the heavens is conscious of her fixed times; the dove and the swallow and the crane keep to the times of their coming; but my people have no knowledge of the law of the Lord.

Genesis 42:6 BBE

Now Joseph was ruler over all the land, and it was he who gave out the grain to all the people of the land; and Joseph's brothers came before him and went down on their faces to the earth.

Jeremiah 3:24 BBE

But the Baal has taken all the work of our fathers from our earliest days; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

Isaiah 62:8 BBE

The Lord has taken an oath by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Truly, I will no longer give your grain to be food for your haters; and men of strange countries will not take the wine for which your work has been done:

Isaiah 42:25 BBE

For this reason he let loose on him the heat of his wrath, and his strength was like a flame; and it put fire round about him, but he did not see it; he was burned, but did not take it to heart.

Isaiah 37:27 BBE

This is why their townsmen had no power, they were broken and put to shame; they were like the grass of the field, or a green plant; like the grass on the house-tops, which a cold wind makes waste.

Isaiah 28:2 BBE

See, the Lord has a strong and cruel one; like a rain of ice, a storm of destruction, like the overflowing of a strong river, he will violently overcome them.

Isaiah 9:13 BBE

But the heart of the people was not turned to him who sent punishment on them, and they made no prayer to the Lord of armies.

Psalms 78:46 BBE

He gave the increase of their fields to worms, the fruits of their industry to the locusts.

Job 36:13 BBE

Those who have no fear of God keep wrath stored up in their hearts; they give no cry for help when they are made prisoners.

2 Chronicles 28:22 BBE

And in the time of his trouble, this same King Ahaz did even more evil against the Lord.

2 Chronicles 6:28 BBE

If there is no food in the land, if there is disease, if the fruits of the earth are damaged by heat or water, locust or worm; if their towns are shut in by their attackers: whatever trouble or whatever disease there may be:

Exodus 9:18-29 BBE

Truly, tomorrow about this time I will send down an ice-storm, such as never was in Egypt from its earliest days till now. Then send quickly and get in your cattle and all you have from the fields; for if any man or beast in the field has not been put under cover, the ice-storm will come down on them with destruction. Then everyone among the servants of Pharaoh who had the fear of the Lord, made his servants and his cattle come quickly into the house: And he who gave no attention to the word of the Lord, kept his servants and his cattle in the field. And the Lord said to Moses, Now let your hand be stretched out to heaven so that there may be an ice-storm on all the land of Egypt, on man and on beast and on every plant of the field through all the land of Egypt. And Moses put out his rod to heaven: and the Lord sent thunder, and an ice-storm, and fire running down on the earth; the Lord sent an ice-storm on the land of Egypt. So there was an ice-storm with fire running through it, coming down with great force, such as never was in all the land of Egypt from the time when it became a nation. And through all the land of Egypt the ice-storm came down on everything which was in the fields, on man and on beast; and every green plant was crushed and every tree of the field broken. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no ice-storm. Then Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and said to them, I have done evil this time: the Lord is upright, and I and my people are sinners. Make prayer to the Lord; for there has been enough of these thunderings of God and this ice-storm; and I will let you go and will keep you no longer. And Moses said, When I am gone outside the town, my hands will be stretched out to the Lord; the thunders and the ice-storm will come to an end, so that you may see that the earth is the Lord's.

Genesis 42:27 BBE

Now at their night's resting-place one of them, opening his bag to give his ass some food, saw his money in the mouth of the bag.

Genesis 42:23 BBE

They were not conscious that the sense of their words was clear to Joseph, for he had been talking to them through one who had knowledge of their language.

Commentary on Haggai 2 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible


CHAPTER 2

Hag 2:1-9. Second Prophecy. The people, discouraged at the inferiority of this temple to Solomon's, are encouraged nevertheless to persevere, because God is with them, and this house by its connection with Messiah's kingdom shall have a glory far above that of gold and silver.

1. seventh month—of the Hebrew year; in the second year of Darius' reign (Hag 1:1); not quite a month after they had begun the work (Hag 1:15). This prophecy was very shortly before that of Zechariah.

3. Who is left … that saw … first glory—Many elders present at the laying of the foundation of the second temple who had seen the first temple (Ezr 3:12, 13) in all its glory, wept at the contrast presented by the rough and unpromising appearance of the former in its beginnings. From the destruction of the first temple to the second year of Darius Hystaspes, the date of Haggai's prophecy, was a space of seventy years (Zec 1:12); and to the first year of Cyrus, or the end of the captivity, fifty-two years; so that the elders might easily remember the first temple. The Jews note five points of inferiority: The absence from the second temple of (1) the sacred fire; (2) the Shekinah; (3) the ark and cherubim; (4) the Urim and Thummim; (5) the spirit of prophecy. The connection of it with Messiah more than counterbalanced all these; for He is the antitype to all the five (Hag 2:9).

how do ye see it now?—God's estimate of things is very different from man's (Zec 8:6; compare 1Sa 16:7). However low their estimate of the present temple ("it") from its outward inferiority, God holds it superior (Zec 4:10; 1Co 1:27, 28).

4. be strong … for I am with you—The greatest strength is to have Jehovah with us as our strength. Not in man's "might," but in that of God's Spirit (Zec 4:6).

5. According to the word that—literally, "(I am with you) the word (or thing) which I covenanted"; that is, I am with you as I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt (Ex 19:5, 6; 34:10, 11). The covenant promise of God to the elect people at Sinai is an additional motive for their persevering. The Hebrew for to "covenant" is literally "to cut," alluding to the sacrificial victims cut in ratification of a covenant.

so—or, "and."

my Spirit remaineth among you—to strengthen you for the work (Hag 1:14; Zec 4:6). The inspiration of Haggai and Zechariah at this time was a specimen of the presence of God's Spirit remaining still with His people, as He had been with Moses and Israel of old (Ezr 5:1; Isa 63:11).

6. Yet once, it is a little while—or, "(it is) yet a little while." The Hebrew for "once" expresses the indefinite article "a" [Maurer]. Or, "it is yet only a little while"; literally, "one little," that is, a single brief space till a series of movements is to begin; namely, the shakings of nations soon to begin which are to end in the advent of Messiah, "the desire of all nations" [Moore]. The shaking of nations implies judgments of wrath on the foes of God's people, to precede the reign of the Prince of peace (Isa 13:13). The kingdoms of the world are but the scaffolding for God's spiritual temple, to be thrown down when their purpose is accomplished. The transitoriness of all that is earthly should lead men to seek "peace" in Messiah's everlasting kingdom (Hag 2:9; Heb 12:27, 28) [Moore]. The Jews in Haggai's times hesitated about going forward with the work, through dread of the world power, Medo-Persia, influenced by the craft of Samaria. The prophet assures them this and all other world powers are to fall before Messiah, who is to be associated with this temple; therefore they need fear naught. So Heb 12:26, which quotes this passage; the apostle compares the heavier punishment which awaits the disobedient under the New Testament with that which met such under the Old Testament. At the establishment of the Sinaitic covenant, only the earth was shaken to introduce it, but now heaven and earth and all things are to be shaken, that is, along with prodigies in the world of nature, all kingdoms that stand in the way of Messiah's kingdom, "which cannot be shaken," are to be upturned (Da 2:35, 44; Mt 21:44). Heb 12:27, "Yet once more," favors English Version. Paul condenses together the two verses of Haggai (Hag 2:6, 7, and Hag 2:21, 22), implying that it was one and the same shaking, of which the former verses of Haggai denote the beginning, the latter the end. The shaking began introductory to the first advent; it will be finished at the second. Concerning the former, compare Mt 3:17; 27:51; 28:2; Ac 2:2; 4:31; concerning the latter, Mt 24:7; Re 16:20; 18:20; 20:11 [Bengel]. There is scarcely a prophecy of Messiah in the Old Testament which does not, to some extent at least, refer to His second coming [Sir Isaac Newton]. Ps 68:8 mentions the heavens dropping near the mountain (Sinai); but Haggai speaks of the whole created heavens: "Wait only a little while, though the promised event is not apparent yet; for soon will God change things for the better: do not stop short with these preludes and fix your eyes on the present state of the temple [Calvin]. God shook the heavens by the lightnings at Sinai; the earth, that it should give forth waters; the sea, that it should be divided asunder. In Christ's time God shook the heaven, when He spake from it; the earth, when it quaked; the sea, when He commanded the winds and waves [Grotius]. Cicero records at the time of Christ the silencing of the heathen oracles; and Dio, the fall of the idols in the Roman capitol.

7. shake—not convert; but cause that agitation which is to precede Messiah's coming as the healer of the nations' agitations. The previous shaking shall cause the yearning "desire" for the Prince of peace. Moore and others translate "the beauty," or "the desirable things (the precious gifts) of all nations shall come" (Isa 60:5, 11; 61:6). He brings these objections to applying "the desire of all nations" to Messiah: (1) The Hebrew means the quality, not the thing desired, namely, its desirableness or beauty, But the abstract is often put for the concrete. So "a man of desires," that is, one desired or desirable (Da 9:23; 10:11, Margin; Da 10:3, Margin). (2) Messiah was not desired by all nations, but "a root out of a dry ground," having "no beauty that we should desire Him" (Isa 53:2). But what is implied is not that the nations definitely desired Him, but that He was the only one to satisfy the yearning desires which all felt unconsciously for a Saviour, shown in their painful rites and bloody sacrifices. Moreover, while the Jews as a nation desired Him not (to which people Isa 53:2 refers), the Gentiles, who are plainly pointed out by "all nations," accepted Him; and so to them He was peculiarly desirable. (3) The verb, "shall come," is plural, which requires the noun to be understood in the plural, whereas if Messiah be intended, the noun is singular. But when two nouns stand together, of which one is governed by the other, the verb agrees sometimes in number with the latter, though it really has the former as its nominative, that is, the Hebrew "come" is made in number to agree with "nations," though really agreeing with "the desire." Besides, Messiah may be described as realizing in Himself at His coming "the desires (the noun expressing collectively the plural) of all nations"; whence the verb is plural. So in So 5:16, "He is altogether lovely," in the Hebrew the same word as here, "all desires," that is, altogether desirable, or the object of desires. (4) Hag 2:8, "The silver is mine," &c.; accords with the translation, "the choice things of all nations" shall be brought in. But Hag 2:8 harmonizes quite as well with English Version of Hag 2:7, as the note on eighth verse will show; see on Hag 2:8. (5) the Septuagint and Syriac versions agree with Moore's translation. But Vulgate confirms English Version. So also early Jewish Rabbis before Jerome's time. Plato [Alcibiades, 2] shows the yearning of the Gentiles after a spiritual deliverer: "It is therefore necessary," says Alcibiades on the subject of acceptable worship, "to wait until One teach us how we ought to behave towards the gods and men." Alcibiades replies, "When shall that time arrive, and who shall that Teacher be? For most glad would I be to see such a man." The "good tidings of great joy" were "to all people" (Lu 2:10). The Jews, and those in the adjoining nations instructed by them, looked for Shiloh to come unto whom the gathering of the people was to be, from Jacob's prophecy (Ge 49:10). The early patriarchs, Job (Job 19:25-27; 33:23-26) and Abraham (Joh 8:56), desired Him.

fill this house with glory—(Hag 2:9). As the first temple was filled with the cloud of glory, the symbol of God (1Ki 8:11; 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). The Jews before the destruction of Jerusalem all expected Messiah would appear in the second temple. Since that time they invent various forced and false interpretations of such plain Messianic prophecies.

8. The silver is mine—(Job 41:11; Ps 50:12). Ye are disappointed at the absence of these precious metals in the adorning of this temple, as compared with the first temple: If I pleased I could adorn this temple with them, but I will adorn it with a "glory" (Hag 2:7, 9) far more precious; namely, with the presence of My divine Son in His veiled glory first, and at His second coming with His revealed glory, accompanied with outward adornment of gold and silver, of which the golden covering within and without put on by Herod is the type. Then shall the nations bring offerings of those precious metals which ye now miss so much (Isa 2:3; 60:3, 6, 7; Eze 43:2, 4, 5; 44:4). The heavenly Jerusalem shall be similarly adorned, but shall need "no temple" (Re 21:10-22). Compare 1Co 3:12, where gold and silver represent the most precious things (Zec 2:5). The inward glory of New Testament redemption far exceeds the outward glory of the Old Testament dispensation. So, in the case of the individual poor believer, God, if He pleased, could bestow gold and silver, but He bestows far better treasures, the possession of which might be endangered by that of the former (Jas 2:5).

9. The glory of this latter house … greater than of the former—namely, through the presence of Messiah, in (whose) face is given the light of the knowledge of the glory of God (2Co 4:6; compare Heb 1:2), and who said of Himself, "in this place is one greater than the temple" (Mt 12:6), and who "sat daily teaching in it" (Mt 26:55). Though Zerubbabel's temple was taken down to the foundations when Herod rebuilt the temple, the latter was considered, in a religious point of view, as not a third temple, but virtually the second temple.

in this place … peace—namely, at Jerusalem, the metropolis of the kingdom of God, whose seat was the temple: where Messiah "made peace through the blood of His cross" (Col 1:20). Thus the "glory" consists in this "peace." This peace begins by the removal of the difficulty in the way of the just God accepting the guilty (Ps 85:8, 10; Isa 9:6, 7; 53:5; Zec 6:13; 2Co 5:18, 19); then it creates peace in the sinner's own heart (Isa 57:19; Ac 10:36; Ro 5:1; 14:17; Eph 2:13-17; Php 4:7); then peace in the whole earth (Mic 5:5; Lu 2:14). First peace between God and man, then between man and God, then between man and man (Isa 2:4; Ho 2:18; Zec 9:10). As "Shiloh" (Ge 49:10) means peace, this verse confirms the view that Hag 2:7, "the desire of all nations," refers to Shiloh or Messiah, foretold in Ge 49:10.

Hag 2:10-19. Third Prophecy. Sacrifices without obedience (in respect to God's command to build the temple) could not sanctify. Now that they are obedient, God will bless them, though no sign is seen of fertility as yet.

10. four and twentieth day … ninth month—three days more than two months from the second prophecy (Hag 2:1); in the month Chisleu, the lunar one about the time of our December. The Jews seem to have made considerable progress in the work in the interval (Hag 2:15-18).

11. Ask … the priests—Propose this question to them on the law. The priests were the authorized expounders of the law (Le 10:11; De 33:10; Eze 44:23; Mal 2:7).

12. "Holy flesh" (that is, the flesh of a sacrifice, Jer 11:15), indeed, makes holy the "skirt" in which it is carried; but that "skirt" cannot impart its sanctity to any thing beyond, as "bread," &c. (Le 6:27). This is cited to illustrate the principle, that a sacrifice, holy, as enveloping divine things (just as the "skirt" is "holy" which envelops "holy" flesh), cannot by its inherent or opus operatum efficacy make holy a person whose disobedience, as that of the Jew while neglecting God's house, made him unholy.

13. On the other hand, a legally "unclean" person imparts his uncleanness to any thing, whereas a legally holy thing cannot confer its sanctity on an "unclean" person (Nu 19:11, 13, 22). Legal sanctity is not so readily communicated as legal impurity. So the paths to sin are manifold: the paths to holiness one, and that one of difficult access [Grotius]. One drop of filth will defile a vase of water: many drops of water will not purity a vase of filth [Moore].

14. Then answered Haggai—rather, "Then Haggai answered (in rejoinder to the priests' answer) and said" [Maurer].

so is this people—heretofore not in such an obedient state of mind as to deserve to be called My people (Tit 1:15). Here he applies the two cases just stated. By the first case, "this people" is not made "holy" by their offerings "there" (namely, on the altar built in the open air, under Cyrus, Ezr 3:3); though the ritual sacrifice can ordinarily sanctify outwardly so far as it reaches (Heb 9:13), as the "holy flesh" sanctified the "skirt," yet it cannot make the offerers in their persons and all their works acceptable to God, because lacking the spirit of obedience (1Sa 15:22) so long as they neglected to build the Lord's house. On the contrary, by the second case, they made "unclean" their very offerings by being unclean through "dead works" (disobedience), just as the person unclean by contact with a dead body imparted his uncleanness to all that he touched (compare Heb 9:14). This all applies to them as they had been, not as they are now that they have begun to obey; the design is to guard them against falling back again. The "there" points to the altar, probably in view of the audience which the prophet addressed.

15. consider—literally, "lay it to heart." Ponder earnestly, retracing the past "upward" (that is, backward), comparing what evils heretofore befell you before ye set about this work, with the present time when you have again commenced it, and when in consequence I now engage to "bless you." Hence ye may perceive the evils of disobedience and the blessing of obedience.

16. Since those days were—from the time that those days of your neglect of the temple work have been.

when one came to an heap of twenty measures—that is, to a heap which he had expected would be one of twenty measures, there were but ten.

fifty vessels out of the press—As the Septuagint translates "measure," and Vulgate "a flagon," and as we should rather expect vat than press. Maurer translates (omitting vessels, which is not in the original), "purahs," or "wine-measures."

17. Appropriated from Am 4:9, whose canonicity is thus sealed by Haggai's inspired authority; in the last clause, "turned," however, has to be supplied, its omission marking by the elliptical abruptness ("yet ye not to Me!") God's displeasure. Compare "(let him come) unto Me!" Moses in excitement omitting the bracketed words (Ex 32:26). "Blasting" results from excessive drought; "mildew, from excessive moisture.

18. Resumed from Hag 2:15 after Hag 2:16, 17, that the blessing in Hag 2:19 may stand in the more marked contrast with the curse in Hag 2:16, 17. Affliction will harden the heart, if not referred to God as its author [Moore].

even from the day that the foundation of … temple was laid—The first foundation beneath the earth had been long ago laid in the second year of Cyrus, 535 B.C. (Ezr 3:10, 11); the foundation now laid was the secondary one, which, above the earth, was laid on the previous work [Tirinus]. Or, translate, "From this day on which the temple is being begun," namely, on the foundations long ago laid [Grotius]. Maurer translates, "Consider … from the four and twentieth day … to (the time which has elapsed) from the day on which the foundation … was laid." The Hebrew supports English Version.

19. Is the seed yet in the barn?—implying, It is not. It has been already sown this month, and there are no more signs of its bearing a good crop, much less of its being safely stored in the barn, than there were in the past season, when there was such a failure; yet I promise to you from this day (emphatically marking by the repetition the connection of the blessing with the day of their obedience) a blessing in an abundant harvest. So also the vine, &c., which heretofore have borne little or nothing, shall be blessed with productiveness. Thus it will be made evident that the blessing is due to Me, not to nature. We may trust God's promise to bless us, though we see no visible sign of its fulfilment (Hab 2:3).

Hag 2:20-23. Fourth Prophecy. God's promise through Zerubbabel to Israel of safety in the coming commotions.

20. the month—the ninth in the second year of Darius. The same date as Prophecy III (Hag 2:10).

21. to Zerubbabel—Perhaps Zerubbabel had asked as to the convulsions foretold (Hag 2:6, 7). This is the reply: The Jews had been led to fear that these convulsions would destroy their national existence. Zerubbabel, therefore, as their civil leader and representative is addressed, not Joshua, their religious leader. Messiah is the antitypical Zerubbabel, their national Representative and King, with whom God the Father makes the covenant wherein they, as identified with Him, are assured of safety in God's electing love (compare Hag 2:23, "will make thee as a signet"; "I have chosen thee").

shake … heavens—(see on Hag 2:6, 7); violent political convulsions accompanied with physical prodigies (Mt 24:7, 29).

22. All other world kingdoms are to be overthrown to make way for Christ's universal kingdom (Da 2:44). War chariots are to give place to His reign of peace (Mic 5:10; Zec 9:10).

23. take thee—under My protection and to promote thee and thy people to honor (Ps 78:70).

a signet—(So 8:6; Jer 22:24). A ring with a seal on it; the legal representative of the owner; generally of precious stones and gold, &c., and much valued. Being worn on the finger, it was an object of constant regard. In all which points of view the theocratic people, and their representative, Zerubbabel the type, and Messiah his descendant the Antitype, are regarded by God. The safety of Israel to the end is guaranteed in Messiah, in whom God hath chosen them as His own (Isa 42:1; 43:10; 44:1; 49:3). So the spiritual Israel is sealed in their covenant head by His Spirit (2Co 1:20, 22; Eph 1:4, 13, 14). All is ascribed, not to the merits of Zerubbabel, but to God's gratuitous choice. Christ is the "signet" on God's hand: always in the Father's presence, ever pleasing in his sight. The signet of an Eastern monarch was the sign of delegated authority; so Christ (Mt 28:18; Joh 5:22, 23).