Haggai
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Haggai belongs to the very first group that returned to Jerusalem under King Cyrus’s decree, some fifty thousand Jews led by Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest, about fifty years after the exile began. Their stated purpose was simple: go home and rebuild the temple. But between local opposition from governors and Samaritans who did not want to see Jerusalem restored, and their own drifting attention, the project stalled. For sixteen years, the returned exiles forgot why they had come back at all. They stopped building God’s house and started building their own, and building them well, with…
