Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi all prophesied in the second year of the reign of Darius (Megillah 15a).

Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi received the traditions of the Torah from the prophets before them (Avot d’Rabbi Natan 1).

With the death of the last prophets - Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi - Divine Inspiration departed from Israel (Yoma 9b).

We can place the prophetic career of Haggai with exactitude. The second year of the reign of the Persian king, Darius I, was 520 B.C.E. Further, Haggai tells us that his prophecy was delivered between the first of Elul and the twenty-fourth of Kislev (Haggai 1:1).

Haggai is a preacher with explicit purpose. His “mission possible,” and he has chosen to accept it, is to convince the newly restored citizens of Judah to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. It is a new age, but the memory (read: “admonitions”) of his predecessors still informs his preaching:

Consider your ways.
Ye have sown much, and brought in little,
Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink,
Ye clothe you, but there is none warm;
And he that earneth wages earneth wages
For a bag with holes (Haggai 1:5-6).

Appealing for political support from Zerubbabel, son of Judah’s governor, and religious support from Joshua, son of the high priest, Haggai galvanizes the nation to action, cajoling and threatening his reluctant people with the discomforting thought that unless the new Temple were erected, all God’s promises of salvation would come to nought.

The book is less poetic than parabolic and sermonic. As long as the Temple’s restoration was ignored, the people’s offerings would be rejected. The Lord wanted a refurbished Home, and that would bring forth His attribute of loving- kindness. For good measure, Haggai predicts the overthrow of the Persian yoke and the establishment of the kingdom of Israel:
In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, My servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, and will make thee a signet; for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts (Haggai 2:23).

On the twenty-fourth of Kislev, prefiguring the celebration of the Temple’s rededication (Hannukah), the foundations of the second Temple were established. It was a time of our people’s religious joy. Haggai means “holiday,” but life with him was certainly no picnic.