Haggai 2:7

And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts.

And I will shake all nations - not convert; but I will cause that agitation which is to precede Messiah's coming, as the healer of the nations' agitations. The previous shaking shall cause the yearning "desire" for the Prince of peace. Moore, etc., translate, 'the beauty,' or "the desirable things (the precious gifts) of all nations shall come" (Isaiah 60:5; Isaiah 60:11; Isaiah 61:6). He brings these objections to applying "the Desire of all nations" to Messiah.

(1) The Hebrew [ chemdat (H2532)] means the quality, not the thing desired-namely, its desirableness or beauty. But the abstract is often put for the concrete. So 'a man of desires' - i:e., one desired or desirable (margin, Daniel 9:23; Daniel 10:3; Daniel 10:11).

(2) Messiah was not desired by all nations, but a "root out of a dry ground," having "no beauty that we should desire Him" (Isaiah 53:2). But what is implied is not that the nations definitely desired Him, but that He was the only one to satisfy the yearning desires which all felt unconsciously for a Saviour, shown in their painful rites and bloody sacrifices. Moreover, while the Jews, as a nation, desired Him not (to which people Isaiah 53:2 refers), the Gentiles, who are plainly pointed out by "all nations," accepted Him; and so to them He was peculiarly desirable.

(3) The verb "shall come" [ baa'uw (H935)] is plural, which requires the noun to be understood in the plural, whereas, if Messiah be intended, the noun is singular. But when two nouns stand together, of which one is governed by the other, the verb agrees sometimes in number with the latter, though it really has the former as its nominative -

i.e., the Hebrew "come" is made in number to agree with "nations," though really agreeing with "the desire." Besides, Messiah may be described as realizing in Himself at His coming "the desires (the noun expressing collectively the plural) of all nations:" whence the verb is plural. So in Song of Solomon 5:16, He is altogether lovely;" in the Hebrew [wªkulow machªmadiym] the same word as here, 'all desires' ---- i:e., altogether desirable, or the object of desires. The verb, being masculine, seems covertly to imply that by the feminine collective noun there is implied not mere abstract desirableness, but a man concentrating in Himself all that is desirable-the Embodiment of the "good things to come," unto whom "the gathering of the people should be" (Genesis 49:10), according to Jacob's prophecy here referred to, and whose birth was, according to the angel's announcement to the shepherds, "good tidings of great joy to all people," (Luke 2:10).

(4) Haggai 2:8, "The silver is mine," etc., accords with the translation, 'The choice things of all nations' shall be brought in. But the eighth verse harmonizes quite as well with the English version of Haggai 2:7, as the note at Haggai 2:8 will show.

(5) The Septuagint and the Syriac versions agree with Moore's translation; but the Vulgate confirms the English version: so early Jewish rabbis before Jerome's time. Plato, 'Alcibiades' 2, shows the yearning of the Gentiles after a spiritual deliverer: 'It is therefore necessary,' says Alcibiades, on the subject of acceptable worship, 'to wait until One teach us how we ought to behave toward the gods and men.' Alcibiades replies, 'When shall that time arrive, and who shall that Teacher be? for most glad would I be to see such a man.' The Jews, and those in the adjoining nations instructed by them, looked for Shiloh to come, unto whom the gathering of the people was to be, from Jacob's prophecy (Genesis 49:10). The early patriarchs, Job (Job 19:25-18; Job 33:23-18) and Abraham (John 8:56) desired Him.

And I will fill this house with glory - (Haggai 2:9). As the first temple was filled with the cloud of glory, the symbol of God (1 Kings 8:11; 2 Chronicles 5:14), so this second temple was filled with the "glory" of God (John 1:14) vailed in the flesh (as it were in the cloud) at Christ's first coming, when He entered the temple, and performed miracles, "healing the blind and the lame" who "came to him" there (Matthew 21:12); but that "glory is to be revealed at His second coming, as this prophecy in its ulterior reference foretells (Malachi 3:1). The Jews before the destruction of Jerusalem all expected Messiah would appear in the second temple. Since that time they invent various forced and false interpretations of such plain Messianic prophecies.