Haggai: Messages 1&2

In Minor Prophets we have been going over the book of Haggai. Haggai is made up of four messages to the people of Israel who have returned after the exile. The first message was given on the first day of the month in about August or September, which was the time of the grape and fig harvest. The first day of the month was a time of celebration when they were to bring their offering out of their abundance from the harvest. However, the people are not seeing an abundance but rather are experiencing poverty. Along with being reminded that they had a poor harvest, they have probably gathered at the temple for the celebration, but the temple is still just a pile of ruble. In the first message God tells them He is displeased with them because they have spent time finishing and making their own homes nice while His house is still desolate. That is why they have been in poverty. God says He has withheld the rain and the dew from the land. Assyria to the north, Babylon to the east, and Egypt to the south are all river cultures but the Jordan River is to low to irrigate with so Israel is a rain culture. The people respond to this message and they begin rebuilding.
The second message is a not a negative message but a positive and hopeful one. It comes after the people have been working on the temple about three weeks to a month. In the first message God got on the people for their lack of concern about His house, this time though the people are discouraged. The temple is not looking good at all. There were some in the crowd who could remember the temple before it had been destroyed (even before it was destroyed the temple had not been very glorious because it had been raided several times, and striped of its gold to use to pay tribute to other nations)and they wept at what they saw now. They would have had to be old because it has been around 70yrs. since the destruction and they would have had to be old enough to remember it. God knows the people think it sucks, but He reminds them that all the silver and all the gold are His and He will provide it when they are ready. He also gives them the promise in 1:9 that the "latter glory of this house will be greater than the former" (This is fulfilled later when Herod the Great has work done on the temple)