Haggai 2:17: “I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labors of your hands; yet you turned not to me, saith the Lord?”
I have a friend who recently called me a sentimental old goat. To be fair, I called myself that and she was just agreeing. But it made me think an old goat story.
When I was student at Moody Bible Institute I remember a chapel where an engineer from the radio department brought the message. Actually, it was an apology. You see a few weeks earlier Moody hosted the Wheaton College choir for a Sunday afternoon concert in Torrey Gray auditorium to be broadcast live over WMBI throughout the Midwest and its affiliates. This engineer was responsible for the broadcast and he sat up in a sound proof booth overlooking Torrey Gray auditorium. Our college president stood on the platform with the choir and looked up at our hero in the broadcast booth and asked: “How much time do we have Ben?” Ben flipped a switch to turn on his microphone (remember it is soundproof in the booth) and said: “You have 30 seconds Dr. Sweeting.” In a few seconds Ben held up his fingers and counted down ten seconds. Dr. Sweeting introduced the choir director, a really really old fossil. I mean some people are old but his guy was old. The choir director stepped to the platform and held up his hand and then for some reason, maybe someone in the choir had his tie crooked, the director threw down his hands and went storming off the stage. Dead silence followed. I looked up at Ben because I remember some radio students telling me an engineer’s worst nightmare is dead silence on live radio. I saw Ben was in a state of panic.
A few moments later the choir came on stage, held up his hands and then once again threw his hands down and stormed off the stage. Dead silence. Ben was pounding his head with his fist. A third time the choir director walked up on stage, put his hands up and would you believe it a third time he stormed off the stage. This was more than Ben could handle and he shouted out: “Get moving you old goat.” I know the booth is sound proof, but Ben forgot to turn off his microphone and not only did the three thousand people in the auditorium hear “Get moving you old goat” but the microphones on stage picked up “Get moving you old goat.” And the entire Midwest and all its affiliates heard; “Get moving you old goat.”
Poor Ben, he had to tape an apology to be broadcast every hour over WMBI for the next week, go to Wheaton to personally apologize to the Old Goat, apologize to the student body and answer all the mail and according to Ben: “Boy did he get the mail.” He read to us one letter. It was from a man who said his pastor asked him to help out in a nursing home on Sundays. But Sundays was his day to relax, read the paper and listen to the radio. So he said no. That Sunday after dinner he sat down in his chair, turned on the radio and opened his paper but he was so convicted that he cried out to God. “God if you want me to minister in that nursing home why don’t you just tell me.” All of a sudden he heard: “Get moving you old goat.” He took that as God telling him to minister in a nursing home.
The Book of Haggai is an often overlooked Book of the Bible, probably because it is only two chapters. Haggai was the first of the three post exilic prophets. The others were Zechariah who lived the same time Haggai did and Malachi who lived about 100 years after Haggai. It is believed that Haggai was taken captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar when he was a child. He began his ministry about 16 years after the return of the Jews to Judah to rebuild the temple.
Haggai came to the scene when the work on rebuilding the temple came to a halt due to the Samaritans raiding the Hebrew’s crops while they were trying to rebuild the temple. The harassment was so great that the people gave up on the temple and for 18 years just focus on making a living and restoring their economy. Only problem is that during those 18 years things got worse and they ended up in famine.
Think about it for a moment. Did God ever call you to do something and you started off with great enthusiasm but then when resistance came along or your livelihood was threatened, you gave up. 18 years go by and still you have your tale tucked behind you, thinking about completing your mission to God. Well, here is Haggai with a word for you. “Get moving you old goat.” In fact he is attributing the current famine in the land due to the failure of the people to carry out God’s desire. “I smote you with blasting…”
The word smote is nakah which is a sudden striking down. This is in a Hiphil form so God has brought about some situation that caused a blasting. In the Hebrew it is a shadam. This is a wasted or worthless cornfield or vineyard. In other words, God caused a sudden wasting of the cornfields and vineyards. This may be a reference to the harassment of the Samaritans who would ransack their cornfields and vineyards to keep the people from rebuilding the temple and hopefully discourage them to the point where they would return to Persia. The word shadam is built on the word dam which means blood. The Shin represents a corruption or destruction. In other words God cause a destruction or corruption of their life’s source, their crops, their economy. Basically, God is saying that He was the one who brought about the sudden destruction of their economy, not the Samaritans. He brought it about because they abandoned His calling.
He also smote them with hail which, even today, will destroy an entire crop of corn or grain. He also sent mildew. Mildew is yaraq which is a pale greenish color and is felt by some scholars to refer to a disease that afflicts corn and other types of grain. I mean Israel’s poor corn and grain crop did not stand a chance. What the Samaritans did not ransack, hail took out and what was left from that was struck with a disease.
The prophet concludes by saying in all the labors of your hand. What you work so hard for, your entire savings, you retirement funds, God can wipe it out in one swift blow. You see the people were trying to re-build the temple and make a living at the same time. When problems arose they focused on making a living and put the work of the temple on hold until they improved their economic condition, but Haggai was saying: “Hey, gang, look, you economics will be wiped out by plague, bandits, and storms whether you’re working on the temple or not. At least if you continued to work on the temple, you would have been getting God’s work accomplished. Now look, nothing is accomplished.
That last phrase is a little disturbing: Yet you turned not to Me. The word translated as turn is literally in the Hebrew with you or in company with you. Quite literally this phrase reads: And yet you did not walk in company with me. That was the problem not their ceasing to build the temple but their ceasing to walk hand in hand with God. It is sort of a picture of God and the people building the temple together, and suddenly God looks over His shoulder and sees everyone is gone and He is left alone.
We are facing some difficult times in this country and all God is asking is that we just walk hand in hand with Him, continue doing His good work. If bandits, disease, or storms hit, don’t run and hide, just keep laboring with the Lord. The bandits, disease and storms will come whether you are laboring with Him or not. Isn’t it better to have your hand in His when those things do come? So just take God’s hand and get moving you old goat.
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