The prophecy begins with fully admitting the depressing facts which were chilling the popular enthusiasm.  Compared with the former Temple, this which they had begun to build could not but be ‘as nothing.’  So the murmurers said, and Haggai allows that they are quite right.  Note the turn of his words:  ’Who is left ... that saw this house in its former glory?’ There had been many eighteen years ago; but the old eyes that had filled with tears then had been mostly closed by death in the interval, and now but few survived.  Perhaps if the eyes had not been so dim with age, the rising house would not have looked so contemptible.  The pessimism of the aged is not always clear-sighted, nor their comparisons of what was, and what is beginning to be, just.  But it is always wise to be frank in admitting the full strength of the opinions that we oppose; and encouragements to work will never tell if they blink difficulties or seek to deny plain facts.  Haggai was wise when he began with echoing the old men’s disparagements, and in full view of them, pealed out his brave incitements to the work.

The repetition of the one exhortation, ’Be strong, be strong, be strong,’ is very impressive.  The very monotony has power.  In the face of the difficulties which beset every good work the cardinal virtue is strength.  ‘To be weak is to be miserable,’ and is the parent of failures.  One hears in the exhortation an echo of that to Joshua, to whom and to his people the command ‘Be strong and of good courage’ was given with like repetition (Joshua i.).

But there is nothing more futile than telling feeble men to be strong, and trembling ones to be very courageous.  Unless the exhorter can give some means of strength and some reason for courage, his word is idle wind.  So Haggai bases his exhortation upon its sufficient ground, ’For I am with you, saith Jehovah of hosts.’  Strength is a duty, but only if we have a source of strength available.  The one basis of it is the presence of God.  His name reveals the immensity of His power, who commands all the armies of heaven, angels, or stars, and to whom the forces of the universe are as the ordered ranks of His disciplined army; and who is, moreover, the Captain of earthly hosts, ever giving victory to those who are His ‘willing soldiers in the day of His power.’  It is not vain to bid a man be strong, if you can assure him that God is with him.  Unless you can, you may save your breath.

Here is the temper for all Christian workers.  Let them realise the duty of strength; let them have recourse to the Fountain of strength; let them mark the purpose of strength, which is ‘work,’ as Haggai puts it so emphatically.  We have nothing to do with the magnitude of what we may be able to build.  It may be very poor beside the great houses that greater ages or men have been able to rear.  But whether it be a temple brave with gold and cedar, or a log, it is our business to put all our strength into the task, and to draw that strength from the assurance that God is with us.