Journal: Review and Expositor
Volume: RevExp 97:1 (Winter 2000)
Article: Haggai-Bringing God into the Picture
Author: Mark McEntire

Haggai-Bringing God into the Picture1

Mark McEntire

[Mark McEntire is Assistant Professor of Religion at Meredith College, Raleigh, North Carolina.]

The little book of Haggai is unique among the prophetic books. It is the only book which sets all of the included work of a prophet into a narrative framework: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all contain significant sections of this type, but all break away from the narrative flow into long oracular sections with little or no narrative framework. The result is that none of the three big prophetic books, on the surface, is a coherent narrative work from beginning to end. Among the Twelve Prophets, there is very little narrative framework, with the exception of that found in the book of Jonah. Jonah, however, must be placed in an entirely different genre and contains very little oracular material. Haggai thus stands alone in the Hebrew Bible as a complete and coherent narrative work formed around the delivery of prophetic oracles. This narrative is not without points of difficulty and potential confusion, however. The shaping of oracles into prophetic narrative events is no simple task. Much attention has been given to the composition history of the book of Haggai, but far less to the shape of the present narrative and how it functions as a story. Recent study, particularly the commentary of David L. Petersen has made significant advances over previous works in addressing such issues, but some puzzling questions persist.

I wish to approach some of these difficulties by exploring the possibility of reading Haggai as a series of prophetic events in a plotted sequence. Among the important implications which come with a narrative approach are that each event should be understood in the context of the others and that characters should be understood within the context of events. A foundational question that I propose we keep in mind is this: What is the writer of the book of Haggai doing? Is the task more like recording the work of the prophet, making use of an editorial framework; or is it more like telling a story, using a series of prophetic events? In a narrative study, the word “oracle” becomes problematic, at least in part because of the form-critical baggage it carries. I will continue to use this term out of necessity from time to time, though its meaning may be a bit vague

RevExp 97:1 (Winter 2000) p. 70

in a discussion of Haggai as a story, since “oracles” are no longer units to be isolated and excised from the rest of the book. The messages conveyed by the prophet are integral parts of the prophetic events which make up the story.

In the little book of Haggai there are five prophetic events. Each of these events contains a chronological marker and some form of prophetic message. The messages, or oracles, are introduced by some kind of formula. One difficulty of the book is the way in which the introductory formulae of the oracles are matched, or seemingly mismatched, with the contents of the oracles. With one possible exception, the introductory formulae in Haggai are of two types. One type, “The word of YHWH came by the hand (hayyah beyad) of Haggai the prophet saying,” would seem best suited to introduce the delivery of an oracle by the prophet to an audience. A second type, “The word of YHWH came unto (hayyah el) Haggai saying,” seems fit for introducing the preceding reception of the oracle by the prophet. There are five such introductory formulae in Haggai. The first three formulae are of the former, delivery-oriented type (hayyah beyad), and the final two of the latter, reception-oriented type (hayyah el). (Note that I have not included You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.