Haggai — Chapter 1
Synopsis Capitis
Chapter 1 rebukes the returned exiles for building their own panelled houses while the Temple lies in ruins, and challenges them to consider why their labours bear no fruit. À Lapide reads this as a perennial rebuke against those who invest in earthly comfort while neglecting divine worship. The drought and famine are providential chastisements directing attention back to first principles.
Verse 1
In anno secundo Darii regis
Haggai's precise dating (second year of Darius, sixth month, first day) is noted by à Lapide as evidence of the historical scrupulosity of the prophets. He connects the post-exilic chronology to the Seventy Weeks of Daniel and uses it to establish the prophetic timeline leading to Christ. Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest are figures of the civil and religious leadership of the restored community.
Verse 2
Haec dicit Dominus exercituum populus iste
'Thus saith the Lord of hosts: This people saith, The time is not yet come for building the house of the Lord.' À Lapide identifies the excuse—'the time has not come'—as the universal rationalization for religious negligence. He cites Chrysostom: people always find reasons to defer the service of God. The contrast between panelled private houses and the ruined Temple is a figure of misplaced priorities in every age.
Verse 7
Haec dicit Dominus exercituum ponite corda vestra
'Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Set your hearts to consider your ways.' The repeated summons to consider (pone cor tuum: put your heart to it) is one of Haggai's characteristic rhetorical devices. À Lapide develops a theology of moral examination of conscience: the verb 'set your hearts' (ponite corda) requires deliberate, directed attention to the state of one's soul and life.
Verse 14
Et suscitavit Dominus spiritum Zorobabel
'And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zorobabel the son of Salathiel.' À Lapide treats the divine stirring of human spirits as an act of actual grace—the interior motion that moves the will without destroying its freedom. The communal response (v.12) shows that prophetic preaching, when accompanied by divine grace, moves an entire people. He cites Augustine on the cooperation of human will with divine grace.