Today, 22 september 2019

We could understand the words of the prophet on the uselessness of all the attempts, by expressing oneself in modern language, to increase the level of the well-being of the nation completely literally, in this concrete historic context, in which they were said. In this period Judah really experienced a spiritual decline accompanied, as it happens usually, by the growth in the society of this...

We could understand the words of the prophet on the uselessness of all the attempts, by expressing oneself in modern language, to increase the level of the well-being of the nation completely literally, in this concrete historic context, in which they were said. In this period Judah really experienced a spiritual decline accompanied, as it happens usually, by the growth in the society of this mercantilism and the thirst of the profit, which characterize not the declarative, but practical materialism. But such a practical materialism almost always leads to the growth of individualism, to the destruction of this social solidarity, without which we can forget about public prosperity.

But it is only an external level purely historical semantic, which we could moreover consider typical and character not only for the times of Haggai. There is also in the words of the prophet another deeper semantic layer echoing the words of the Savior concerning the Kingdom, for which it is necessary to look first of all. Of course before the coming of Christ it was still remaining a few centuries, but indeed, even before His coming the system of priorities of the normal spiritual life was the same as in the time of the earthly ministry of the Savior: at first the relationship with God and the neighbor, according to the Torah, the observation of the commandments given by God, and only after all the rest. When the priorities changed their places, when "the rest" comes to the fore, the result turned out corresponding. And the problem here is not in the fact that God, punishing those who do not want a normal healthy spiritual life, sends failures to their works, but in the fact that a man, not living such a life, is somehow or other inevitably in prey of the disasters, if not natural, then social, and we do not yet know, which of the two would be the worse for him. Jesus (of course, much more later) will indicate the antinomy of the intention of God and the Kingdom with the words about every hair counted on the head of the believers, which will not just fall like that from their heads, accidentally.

And on the other hand, in answer to the question on the destruction of the righteous killed on the decree of Herod, He will remind of those, on whom collapsed one of the fortress towers of Jerusalem: just like that, not at all because they deserved it. And He adds: if you do not consider your ways, then you will all die. Indeed: the fallen world is inequitable, it is full of fates, and there is no requital for sin and no rewards for the righteousness here. Only solid, deep and deliberated relationships with God can give stability either for a separate person, or to the whole people in such a world. They still do not of course guarantee in themselves the external prosperity, but, at least, they free from fates. Well then in life appears the sense, which makes this life complete.