By Fr. George Dorbarakis
The Prophet Haggai was descended from the tribe of Levi. He was born in Babylon during the captivity of the Israelite people there (586–538 BC). While still young he came from Babylon to Jerusalem and prophesied together with the Prophet Zechariah for thirty-six years. The incarnation of Christ was foretold by him, four hundred and seventy years before His Birth, and he clearly prophesied the return of the people from captivity. He even saw part of the construction of the new Temple built by the Israelites who had returned. Upon his death he was buried near the priests, like them gloriously, for he too was of priestly lineage. He was very old, highly respected because of his age, widely known for his virtue, loved by all, and honored as a glorious and great prophet. His name is interpreted as ‘feast’ or ‘one who is celebrated.’
With the Prophet Haggai we find ourselves within the atmosphere of God’s first revelation to the world, the Old Testament: there where God was preparing the ground for His coming as a man. For we must not forget that the Old Testament is of such importance for our Church not because it records Israelite history — this would chiefly concern the Israelites — but because it prophesies the New Testament: the coming of Christ. The Old Testament, therefore, is clearly oriented toward the New, and only from this perspective can one understand its significance. In other words, its Christological character reveals its equal standing with the New Testament; for this reason both the Old and the New Testament are called Holy Scripture. The Lord Himself showed this clearly when, among other things, He said that "whatever Moses and the Prophets wrote, they wrote about Me."
The Christological character of the prophecies of the Prophet Haggai is also recorded by the hymnographer Saint Theophanes. Many of the hymns of his Service refer precisely to the event of God’s coming as a man, to His incarnate economy. “You prophesy the saving redemption for all mankind,” he notes among other things; “You indicated to your prophet the living temple born from the Virgin, O Christ,” he emphasizes elsewhere; and again: “O God-seeing prophet, you clearly foretold that the unoriginate Word would appear in the latter times.” Thus, although with the Prophet Haggai we are carried back several centuries before Christ, through his prophecies inspired by the Holy Spirit (“having your mind illumined by the divine Spirit, O prophet”) we once again stand on the ground of the New Testament, beholding with him the Birth of our Lord Himself.
The Prophet Haggai is "bound" to the return of his compatriots from the Babylonian captivity and to the rebuilding of the new Temple of Jerusalem, since the older one had been destroyed by the Babylonians. This double "bond" is repeatedly emphasized in the hymns of our Church, though always with a corresponding reference to the spiritual life of Christians. What do we mean by this? On the one hand, the Holy Hymnographer takes the liberation of the Jews as an occasion to speak also of the liberation of Christians themselves from their own "Babylonian captivity" — the snares of the devil — through the presence of Christ (“You brought mankind up from the long captivity, O Savior, from the deepest abyss, and as the Lover of mankind You led him back to the City above.” On the other hand, the rebuilding of the Temple proclaimed by the Prophet is used as a means to emphasize both that the Prophet himself became a temple of God (“He who dwells in the highest and fills the whole world with holiness reveals you, O prophet, to be a temple,” and that we Christians are temples of the Holy Spirit and are called to confirm this continually in our daily life (“Grant that we may become temples of the living God, O blessed one.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
