The Fourth Word from the Lord
A word of comfort to the ruler
The word of the LORD came to Haggai a second time on the twenty-fourth day of the month: 21 “Tell Zerubbabel governor of Judah that I will shake the heavens and the earth. 22 I will overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers; horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother. 23 “‘On that day,’ declares the LORD Almighty, ‘I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”
The fourth and last word of the Lord in the book of Haggai starts at verse 20. This word is directed to the governor and the leader of the people, Zerubbabel. The word is a word that all rulers would love to hear. Their enemies are all going to be defeated. The previous section ended with God’s stated will to bless. The ruler is included in this blessing. And certainly, if the earthly ruler is blessed, the people under him will be blessed too. The people and ruler are to know that the phrase “In God we trust” is worth more than a stamp on our money. We want it emblazoned in our lives. When the ruler and his people trust in God, their nation is invincible. It is so because their God is invincible, and he goes on record: “I 28
will overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers; horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother.”
“If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31) is a question that holds true for the nation. The inverse is also true. If God is not for us, nothing can save us. Israel is a prime example of this fact. After Solomon’s son Rehoboam took over the rule of Israel, there was not one godly ruler. One possible exception would be Jehu, who at the time of Ahab and Jezebel did clean house, but even about him we read, “Yet Jehu was not careful to keep the law of the LORD, the God of Israel” (2 Kings 10:31). For about two hundred years the kingdom of Israel suffered under these evil rulers until, with one last sigh, it entered oblivion in 722 B.C. In 2 Kings 17:8 we read about the last act of the scenario of the nation without God: “The LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence.”
But Judah was different. Zerubbabel saw his people returned from captivity. He heard the Lord’s blessing on him. He heard the promise. He was to be the Lord’s signet ring.
In Genesis chapter 38 we read the sordid story of Judah and his illicit sexual relations with his daughter-in-law, Tamar. In that affair, Tamar asked Judah for some pledge of surety that he would send the young goat from his flock as he had promised. Judah gave as surety his seal, with its cord, and the staff in his hand” (verse 18). The seal was something that could identify him. It was his identification card.
The seal also had a part in the regalia of the priests and their clothing as the Lord prescribed it in the book of Exodus. In these signets, the names were in some way fashioned to be part of the seal. A king was known by his writing on his signet ring or scroll. It was by this that his authority was established. Throughout the Middle East, an embossed cylinder was rolled through soft wax to leave the impression of royalty and power for the beholder to witness.
Zerubbabel had God’s name stamped across the face of his life. “I have chosen you,” is what the Lord said. He was forever identified. He also stood to represent God’s power. In view of the sweeping promises God had just made to him, he could say with the apostle Paul, “If God is for me, who can be against me?”
In Revelation chapter 7 the angel coming up from the east called out in a loud voice to the angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God” (verse 3).
God’s children have his mark upon them; they in turn put their mark (his mark) on the world. We carry with us the name Jesus. We are the people that name represents when it claims to be Savior. We are the proof of his name and of his claim.
Some may notice that the events described to Zerubbabel in promise never happened in his lifetime. There wasn’t a time when the royal thrones were overthrown and the powers were shattered. The kings of the Persian Empire continued to succeed in relatively peaceful fashion.
The reference to Zerubbabel in the book of Haggai is not to a specific person but to the position or the throne of ruling. Zerubbabel is listed in both genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament (Matthew 1; Luke 3). He is one ruler in the line of the Ruler, the one to whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. In Luke 1:32,33 the angel said to troubled Mary: “He [Jesus] will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
The greatest of all battles the Savior fought was the one on Golgotha; it was there that he forever shattered the power of the “foreign kingdoms.” This happened and was proven by Jesus’ words, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The enmity between God and man was over, the enmity that hailed back to the beginning, the snake, and the two wretched transgressors.
Jesus said his kingdom was not of this world. We should not insist on finding literal representation of Haggai’s prophecy in the lives of the kings of this world. The Lord God came and did real battle with the spiritual forces of evil. He overthrew them completely, and he won. The prophecy was completed and fulfilled.
Any believer, Zerubbabel included, realizes that his greatest dangers and threat do not come from the quarters of this world’s military groups. Rather, our greatest struggles are “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). These words of prophecy are fulfilled every time God’s children win the fight as John describes it: “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
With his certain statement of having chosen Zerubbabel and with the word almighty ringing in our ears, the Lord closes this small but important book.