Proper 32 C: Haggai 1:15b-2:9

I’m going to begin a series of biblical reflections based on the revised common lectionary. I’m doing this first of all because I found my Lenten reflections of last year to be a worthwhile exercise – both as a Lenten discipline and as a hermeneutical practice. But I am also acting on an intuition that I have yet to fully articulate. It has something to do with an alternative practice of time. If I am attempting to elaborate a thinking of messianic time, then this will not be unconnected to notions of repetition, distention, contraction, etc….none of which are unconnected to the reading of sacred texts in a liturgical context.

Haggai 1:15b-2:9
1:15 on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month.
2:1 In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying:
2:2 Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say,
2:3 Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?
2:4 Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts,
2:5 according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.
2:6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land;
2:7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts.
2:8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts.
2:9 The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.

Comment:
First a general comment about prophecy. Rosenzweig points out that God speaks both in human language and in a human voice. Divine speech is not merely mediated, but contingent upon, a human voice: the voice of the prophet.

The prophet is not a mediator between God and man, and he does not receive Revelation so that he can transmit it further; on the contrary the voice of God comes from him immediately, out of him God speaks immediately as I. In contrast to the master who committed the great plagiarism of Revelation, the true prophet lets God speak and transmits to the amazed audience the Revelation that took place in secret. Strictly speaking, it is not at all that he lets God speak, but at the moment [when] he opens his mouth, it is already God who is speaking; the prophet scarcely has time to start with the formula: “Thus speaks the Eternal One [Lord]” or with the still briefer and quicker formula that dispenses even with the verbal form, “Word of the Eternal One [Lord],” and before God has taken possession of his lips the I of God remains the root word resounding through Revelation like a pedal-note, it rises in protest against any translation by He, it is I and must remain so. Only an I and not a He can speak the imperative of love; it must never say anything except: love me. (192)

I have commented before on the role of the imperative in Rosenzweig. Here the general point about prophecy holds true. It is not Haggiai who speaks, but the “word of the Lord.” This is not to say that the biblical text does not narrate theophanic moments, but, on the one hand, these are the exception more than the rule; secondly, the result tends to be less than ideal. So, for instance, the paradigmatic theophany of the Hebrew scriptures – the appearance of God to Moses at Sinai – is in immediate proximity to the embarrassment of the Golden Calf; the originary encounter between God and man in the Garden is one of shame and banishment.

The divine voice that resounds in the prophet’s mouth speaks of hope, restoration, prosperity. But, the condition of this hope is the ruin of the present. “Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?” The truth of the present is its ruin, what is phrased as a question is in truth a proposition: what was is no more. Courage is offered to the weak, the ruined; not the strong and the established, such would not be courage, but haughtiness, pride. Furthermore, the promise of restoration is not merely a repetition, but a deep repetition. That is, it is not simply the rebuilding of a house that has been destroyed: it is the recurrence of an old redemption (from Egypt) and an older creation (of the world). This is also an iteration – a non-identical repetition – insofar as the new does not start from scratch, but combines creation and redemption in a single act. The work God performs on the earth (“shaking”) this time does not bring forth natural produce, but cultural produce: “the treasures of the nations.” Finally, these treasures do not cycle back into an exchange economy, they are not simply expropriated from a nation or nations and appropriated by another (Israel), but they return in a similarly deep repetition to their originary source: “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts.”