Haggai 2:10-14
Ask the Priests for a Ruling
10On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Haggai the prophet, saying,
11“This is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Ask the priests for a ruling.
12If a man carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and it touches bread, stew, wine, oil, or any other food, does that item become holy?’” “No,” replied the priests.
13So Haggai asked, “If one who is defiled by contact with a corpse touches any of these, does it become defiled?” “Yes, it becomes defiled,” the priests answered.
14Then Haggai replied, “So it is with this people and this nation before Me, declares the LORD, and so it is with every work of their hands; whatever they offer there is defiled.
Berean Standard Bible
Another date. The twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, the same year of Darius, and the building work has been going on for a while now.
What God does next he does sideways. There is no announcement handed down through the prophet. Haggai is told to put a question to the priests and let them give a ruling on it, so the answer comes out of the mouths of the men whose job it is to know these things, before the point of the question is stated.
The first one is about consecrated meat. If a man carries it in the fold of his garment, and the cloth brushes his bread, his stew, his wine, his oil, does that food become holy? No, said the priests. Holiness does not spread by touching. Something set apart for God can rest against your coat and your lunch all afternoon, and your lunch is still lunch.
So Haggai asked, If one who is defiled by contact with a corpse touches any of these, does it become defiled? Yes, it becomes defiled, the priests answered.
So the pair does not balance, and that is the uncomfortable part of it. Clean does not spread by contact. Unclean does. Any parent in the room already knows how this goes, because one sick child in a house makes a sick house, and one well child in a house full of sick ones does not make a well house. The priests have given the ruling themselves.
Then Haggai replied, So it is with this people and this nation before Me, declares the LORD, and so it is with every work of their hands; whatever they offer there is defiled.
These are men who had obeyed. They had gone up the hill, brought the timber down, and been told that God was with them. Now they hear that none of that work makes them clean, because cleanness does not travel that way. What they carry goes into the work. The work does not come back out and scrub them.
He is not taking back a word of chapter 1. The house still has to be built. What he refuses to let them believe is that the house can be handed in instead of them.
How We Know
The second half of Haggai's question is written law, and the priests answer it correctly.
Numbers 19:22 states that anything the unclean person touches becomes unclean, and whoever touches it is unclean until evening. Leviticus 22:4-7 keeps a man who has touched anything defiled by a corpse from eating the sacred offerings until evening has passed and he has washed.
So when the priests say yes, it becomes defiled, they are quoting their own handbook, in public, and Haggai does not have to argue for it.
The first half he leaves with them. They answer no, holiness does not carry on at a remove, and the prophet accepts their ruling rather than correcting it. The argument he then makes rests on the answers they gave him.
Questions
1 God has a point to make. How does he go about making it?
AnswerBy having Haggai put a question to the priests instead of announcing anything himself. The experts give two rulings, and only after they have committed themselves does the prophet say what he was driving at.
2 What are the two questions, and what did the priests answer?
AnswerWhether consecrated meat carried in a garment makes the food it touches holy, and whether a man defiled by a corpse makes what he touches defiled. No to the first. Yes to the second.
3 Is there something you do that leaves you feeling like a good person afterward? What is it?
AnswerWhatever it is, hold it next to what Haggai tells these people. They were doing the exact thing God had asked of them, and he still would not let the doing of it stand in for them. The work does not clean the worker, however good the work is.
4 Why would Haggai's conclusion have stung these particular men?
AnswerBecause they had already turned round and obeyed. They had begun the work, and this is when he tells them that what they offer is defiled. The rebuke in chapter 1 was for people who had not started. This one is for people who had.
What This Means for Us
The hard sentence here is aimed at people who had just begun doing the right thing. They were not being scolded for disobedience. They were being kept from a swap, in which the project quietly stands in for the person. We try the same swap with church, with service, with giving, and with the family devotion itself. All good things, none of them a substitute. So think about which one any of us has been treating as our evidence, and then bring the person along instead, since the person is what was being asked for.
Prayer
Father, we hand you our activity and hope that it counts as us. Thank you that you will not accept the swap, even when the activity is something you asked us for yourself. Clean us first, and then let the work of our hands be clean too. Amen.