HAGGAI

After the Persians came to power, they decreed that displaced peoples could go back to their homelands. So about 50,000 Jews made their way back to their promised land and began to rebuild their temple destroyed by the Babylonians. But that was only a small remnant of Jews who returned after 70 years of captivity. Much local opposition stopped the work; for sixteen years the temple stood unfinished and ignored. It was at this time (about 520 B.C.) Haggai came on the scene, and along with Zechariah, he successfully urged the people to resume their task. The same events are recounted in Ezra chapters 1-4. Haggai represents a new type of prophet who existed after the Babylonian exile. He describes many hardships in the first chapter.  What sort of hope does the conclusion offer?

ZECHARIAH

The prophet Zechariah ministered at the same time as Haggai to the exiles who had returned to their land from Babylon about 520 B.C. He, like the other prophet, encouraged the Jews to finish rebuilding their temple. The first eight chapters are fairly straightforward, but the final six chapters are obscure ones focused on the far future. Christians point to 9:9, 11:13-14, 12:10-13:9 as looking forward to Jesus.