Paradise restored to mankind by theocracy (1972)
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PARADISE RESTORED TO MANKIND By Theocracy!
TEMPLE-PALACE AREA OF JERUSALEM As it may have appeared in the days of Solomon
PARADISE RESTORED TO MANKIND By Theocracy!
A Look at the Fulfillment of the Restoration Prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, as Possible from the Twentieth-Century Vantage Point COPYRIGHT, 1972 by WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA FIRST EDITION 2,000,000 Copies
PUBLISHERS
WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY
OF NEW YORK, INC.
INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.
Made in the United States of America
Dedicated to the Heavenly Theocrat in the Joyful Hope of His Restoration of Paradise to Earth as Mankind's Everlasting Home
CONTENTS
CHAPTER AND TITLE PAGE NUMBER
1 Our Basis for Hope in Its Restoration . . . . .
CHAPTER
OUR BASIS FOR HOPE IN ITS RESTORATION
PARADISE, the original perfect garden home of mankind, is no myth, no fairy tale. It is unlike the
theory of evolution, which was taught in ancient Babylon, later taught by pagan Greek philosophers of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ and recently revived in these last few centuries.*
2 Paradise, where all was beautiful, peaceful, happy, healthful and life-sustaining, was a real parklike residence that was early lost to mankind. For almost six thousand years now mankind has been trying to exist outside and away from that garden home of pleasure and delight. The effects of this are seen in both the condition of the earth and the condition of mankind today. As the world situation of our generation worsens and becomes more threatening, one thing becomes plainer, becomes more certain: If the human family is to survive, Paradise needs to be restored early to this earth. Nothing could be better or more desirable for all mankind.
8 It seems almost too good to be true—that Paradise in all its grandeur will be restored, yes, be made earth wide, and that a numberless crowd of right-hearted persons today living will still be here on earth when this marvelous restoration begins. Why, that would mean entering into an opportunity to live forever on a paradise earth in complete peace, health and happiness! But this hope was held out to us by no one less than Jesus Christ, the Founder of Christianity, not of Christendom.
Paradise is no more a myth or legend than He is. The proof of history is overwhelming that he was on earth as a perfect man nineteen centuries ago. Eyewitnesses and personal companions of His have left us written testimony of what he said and did—his blameless life, his unjust, violent death and his miraculous resurrection from the dead.
4 This remarkable man, Jesus Christ, referred to the original Paradise of mankind and also to the one to come. How it came about was like this: It was in the early part of the year 33 of our first century, and Jesus Christ was on the east side of the Jordan River, in the Roman province of Perca. He was approached by men who were acquainted with religious law and was asked whether divorce should be an easy matter between a man and a woman. Lawmakers of today ought to be interested in what Jesus Christ said to those inquirers. According to the record of an eyewitness he said:
"Did you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh"? So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has yoked together let no man put apart. They said to him: 'Why, then, did Moses prescribe giving a certificate of dismissal and divorcing her?' He said to them: 'Moses, out of regard for your hardheartedness, made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but such has not been the case from the beginning. I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery.'"—(Eyewitness) Matthew 19:3-9.
0 Jesus Christ asked them: "Did you not read?" Read where? Why, in the first book written by the prophet Moses in the sixteenth century before Jesus Christ. Then Jesus Christ quoted words from the first two chapters of that book, now called Genesis.
7 Jesus Christ did not say that the human male and female evolved or ascended from some lower form of earthly life, say, from apes, but he said that they were created to be male and female. As such, they were meant to be married as husband and wife. Where were this first man and wife created? The second chapter of Genesis states that the Creator performed the marriage in the Paradise of Pleasure, the Garden of Eden. It was in that Paradise of Pleasure that their Creator, when marrying them, said the words quoted by Jesus: "That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife and they must become one flesh."—Genesis 1:26-28; 2:7-24.
8 The lives of this first married human couple were not to be without meaning, without purpose, without responsibility to anybody else. Paradise was here before they ever got here on earth. But it was not yet earth wide. They did not first make this Paradise before moving there, any more than mankind has made this whole earth a paradise since the days of that first human married couple. Their own Creator made it, preparing it for them and having it ready when he created them. He himself had a purpose in putting them in the Paradise of Pleasure. So he put purpose also into their lives. This he indicated, when he told them what he had in mind for them, saying: "Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth."—Genesis 1:26-28.
9 Thus he set before humankind the prospect of a Paradise of Pleasure all around this earthly globe, comfortably filled with the perfect offspring of that first human couple, all of them living together as one big family in perfect peace, health and happiness and keeping the whole earth in a Paradise state. This was to continue on forever!
Divorce would never have marked that perfect state of things.
10 Jesus Christ, when on earth, knew all that. He had read for himself all that the prophet Moses had written and all the rest of the inspired Scriptures that had been written in Hebrew and Aramaic. He made quotations by memory from the book of Genesis all the way to the book of the prophecy of Malachi. He did so because he knew and believed all those Holy Writings to be the inspired truth of the Creator. That Creator was God, whom Jesus Christ spoke of as the one yoking the first man and woman together in what was to be an indissoluble marriage. (See Mark 10:3-9.) Jesus Christ knew, therefore, that that first man, as a perfect human creature, was a human "son of God," not the son of some evolving apeman.
11 Jesus Christ knew that, as far as his human fleshy body was concerned, he was a descendant from that first man, whom the Holy Scriptures call Adam, a name meaning "earthling man." The fact is, Jesus knew his whole line of descent from that first man Adam. His line of descent was on record in full in the registry of the town where his human mother, Mary the daughter of Heli the son of Matthat, lived. (Luke 3:23-38) There was a reason, therefore, for speaking of himself as "the Son of man," for he had been born into the human family. (Matthew 8:20; 16:13; 24:30; 25:31) He did not go along with the pagan Greek philosophers of ancient times and claim to have the blood of a so-called apeman in him. His human line of descent stopped with "Adam, son of God." (Luke 3:38) He recognized that human life began in the Paradise of Pleasure, and not before that, and by the special creation of God, apart from the creation of any other kind of earthly living creature. He accepted as true what the prophet Moses wrote down in Genesis 2:7-14:
12 "And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed. And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise; and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads. . . . And the name of the third river is Tigris: the same passeth along by the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates."—Douay Version of the Bible.
13 As regards the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, human ancestors of Jesus Christ, namely, Sheaftiel and Zerubbabel (whose name means "Seed of Babel [or, Babylon]"), had been exiles for many years in the Mesopotamian valley that lies between those two rivers. That was during the years 607 to 537 before our Common Era. (Luke 3:23-27; Matthew 1:1, 12-16) But at that time the original Paradise of Pleasure was not in existence, in that neighborhood of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. It had been wiped out completely by that global deluge of which Jesus Christ spoke, saying: "Just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be."—Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:26, 27; Genesis 6:9 to 9:17.
14 Jesus Christ was talking here, not about pagan myths and legends, but about hard facts of history. He taught and believed in the onetime existence of mankind's original home, the Paradise of Pleasure, and the expulsion of Adam and his wife from it for disobedience to God their Creator, and the destruction of that unexpanded Paradise in the global flood of Noah's day, not in the days of Uta-Napishtim of the pagan epic of the god-man Gilgamesh.* He also looked forward to the restoration of Paradise to mankind, and also expected to have a hand in restoring it.
When would he be privileged by God to do so? During the thousand years that he reigns at God's right hand in heaven, as the Messianic king over all mankind, the living and the dead. When, on Passover Day of the year 33 C.E., he was on trial for life before Pontius Pilate and this Roman governor tried to find out whether he would be an earthly king or not, Jesus Christ replied in the negative, saying:
13 "My kingdom is no part of this world. If my kingdom were part of this world, my attendants would have fought that I should not be delivered up to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from this source."—John 18:33-36.
18 Hours later, when he hung by nails to the execution stake at Mount Calvary outside the walls of Jerusalem, Jesus Christ made it known that he tied in the restoration of Paradise to mankind with his heavenly kingdom. One of the two criminals who hung on stakes alongside him turned sympathetic and said to Jesus: "Jesus, remember me when you get into your kingdom." This sympathetic man thus revealed that he believed in a resurrection of the dead both for Jesus Christ and for himself. Was he right? Yes! For Jesus said to him: "Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23:39-43) By Almighty God's all-performing power Jesus Christ his faithful Son was resurrected from the dead on the third day of his death. Forty days later, in the presence of eleven or more eyewitnesses, he ascended back to heaven to present the value of his perfect human sacrifice to God in behalf of all mankind, including that sympathetic criminal on the stake—Aces 1:1-11, 21, 22; Luke 24:50-52; Hebrews 9:24-28.
17 Thus, after his reign of a thousand years begins, the King Jesus Christ can remember that sympathetic evildoer and see to it that he gets into the Paradise restored to this earth, in fulfillment of the promise made to him on that dark day of suffering death by execution. The dead body of that sympathetic evildoer and that of his fellow criminal were buried that same Passover Day, as was also the body of Jesus Christ. But that kindly-disposed criminal was not resurrected on the third day along with Jesus Christ. No, but he still lies sleeping in death in the dust of the earth along with all the rest of mankind, waiting for Jesus to remember him and favor him with a resurrection after Jesus enters upon his thousand-year reign. His resurrection to life on earth will bring him into the Paradise that will by then have been restored to mankind. The King Jesus Christ will extend his interest and attention and dynamic energy to that earthly Paradise, and in that sense he will be with the inhabitants of Paradise, including that sympathetic criminal. What a comforting hope that man had with which to die on that Passover Day of 33 C.E.!—John 11:25, 26.
THE NEED OF GOD RULE (THEOCRACY)
18 Restoration of Paradise to mankind is assured, is guaranteed! This is no thought to be scoffed at by fanatical believers in the theory of evolution or other unbelievers. Even they themselves will have to admit that something needs to be done before very long if the human family is to survive to the end of this twentieth century and into the twenty-first century of our Common Era. All such doubters and disbelievers will have to agree that this earth needs to undergo a transformation to a Paradise state if what they may call "the human species" is to enjoy existence much longer.
If it were left to mankind itself, even in this scientific, nuclear, space age, to bring this about, the case would be hopeless.
19 Mankind has already gone too far in polluting and ruining his natural environment, and no reversal of the trend is possible, even with the world organization of the United Nations for international cooperation. However, the sorely needed restoration of Paradise to our earth does not rest with deteriorating mankind and disintegrating human society. The guarantee of this lifesaving transformation comes from a loving Creator, God!
20 This is the only alternative. Man's rule of the earth cannot do it! People's rule (democracy) cannot do it! Wealthy persons' rule (plutocracy) cannot do it! Technical experts' rule (technocracy) cannot do it! God's rule (Theocracy) can do it!
21 Theocracy will not be defeated in its purpose toward mankind and mankind's earthly residence. Let none of us be fooled any longer by the false philosophies of self-conceited men, but let us all face the fact: Mankind started out under Theocracy! Mankind, at its perfect beginning in Paradise with an unsubdued earthly globe outside, was not absolute ruler of all that it surveyed. Mankind had a ruler higher than whom there is no one. That ruler was mankind's Creator, God, the Maker of heaven and earth and the Planter of Paradise. He is The Theocrat. From the start he was mankind's Theocratic Ruler. He rightly laid down the rule for mankind's living in the Paradise of Pleasure. He set before mankind its tasks. The Theocratic Ruler had a beautiful purpose concerning mankind's realm, the earth. This purpose was conceived within his own Self. It was his moving idea during the six creative days in which he was making the earth ready for being inhabited by mankind under just the right and perfectly balanced conditions.
It is set out in the thought that he expressed, of which we read:
22 "And God got to see that it was good. And God went on to say: 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every moving animal that is moving upon the earth.' And God proceeded to create the man in his image, in God's image he created him; male and female he created them."—Genesis 1:25-27.
238 God is unchangeable in his expressed purpose. He is undefeatable in his declared and recorded purpose. When he declared that it was his will for man to have in subjection "all the earth," he meant for that to be fulfilled without fail. He foresaw the Garden of Eden (on soil already subdued) extended all around and over this earthly ball, a delightful thing to look at from the heavens and a praise to the Creator who had made man in his image and according to his likeness. In spite of all that the Great Theocrat has permitted to take place on earth for the past almost six thousand years of human existence, that is still his purpose, his grand objective. This fact should be encouraging to all of us who are sickened at heart at seeing this earth, which has such wonderful possibilities, being ruined by selfish men, even being stained with human blood violently shed, aye, even more than this, being threatened with total depopulation by international nuclear and chemical warfare.
24 When the first woman and then the first man used their free moral agency and broke a simple prohibitory command of their God Ruler, they were rebelling against Theocracy. They were really taking themselves out from under Theocracy and putting themselves under the rule of the demon that brought temptation to sin through the instrumentality of one of the serpents in Paradise.
The results down to this day show that mankind thus came under demonocracy. (Genesis 3:1-13) The Scriptural question is straight to the point: "Do you not know that if you keep presenting yourselves to anyone as slaves to obey him, you are slaves of him because you obey him, either of sin with death in view or of obedience with righteousness in view?" (Romans 6:16) Yes, we know that. Out of our own experience and observation, we know that the presenting of themselves to sin against Theocracy brought the dying process and eventual death upon the sinners. Adam and his wife Eve. It made them slaves to sin and to the promoter of sin, the Demon Tempter, who is well designated "the original serpent."
—Genesis 3:16-19; Revelation 12:9.
25 Adam and Eve could have lived till now, yes, forever in Paradise, if they had not disobeyed the law that was first stated to Adam in Paradise: "Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death." (Genesis 2:16, 17, Douay Version) When sentencing the breakers of this theocratic law to death, but before driving them out of Paradise to the unsubdued ground outside, God said to Adam:
26 "Because you listened to your wife's voice and took to eating from the tree concerning which I gave you this command, 'You must not eat from it,' cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. And thorns and thistles it will grow for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return."—Genesis 3:17-19.
27 As yet childless, Adam and Eve were driven out of their perfect home to work out the sentence of death.
As we read concerning this action of God: "And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever. And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken. And he cast out Adam; and placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubims, and a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."—Genesis 3:22-24, Douay Version.
Instead of being a Paradise keeper or gardener, Adam now had to become a farmer. God said to him: "Cursed is the ground on your account." This did not mean that all the ground outside the Paradise of Pleasure was to continue cursed forever, preventing any restoration of Paradise. Because Adam had been created in perfection and had just begun to mar it, he had tremendous physical stamina, and despite his hard work he lived to be nine hundred and thirty years of age, fathering many sons and daughters. (Genesis 4:1 to 5:5) During all that time the ground continued cursed on his account. He and his many offspring could not convert it into anything like a paradise. It appears that that cursed state of the ground outside the Paradise continued down through seven hundred and twenty-six years more to the global deluge of Noah's day, Noah being the tenth man in line of descent from Adam.
29 Then that earth-engulfing flood wiped out the unextended Paradise, and there was no longer a distinction between it and the rest of the earth. Noah, his wife, their three sons and the three women who had become their wives, eight persons in all, rode out that astounding cataclysm in a huge ark constructed according to God's orders and design. When these eight human survivors let out all the animals and birds from the ark and themselves stepped out on the cleansed ground, God spoke as the Theocratic Ruler of mankind.
He stated his theocratic laws for mankind. He caused the rainbow to appear and used it as a sign of his covenant or solemn promise never again to bring on a global deluge. But he made no mention of renewing his curse upon the ground. Yet, despite the absence of a curse upon all the ground, mankind that has swarmed over all the earth has been unable to bring it up to a Paradise state everywhere. According to our twentieth-century scientists known as ecologists, mankind is ruining its natural environment and endangering all human life.—Genesis 6:9 to 9:19.
There is no need, however, for discouragement on the part of us who do not look to sin-enslaved, dying men to make this earth a place fit to live in forever. Rather, how glad we can be that Almighty God, the Theocratic Owner of the whole earth, is unchanging in his purpose to have a Paradise on this earth, not just over there in the neighborhood of the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, but in all four quarters of the earth! If it is his purpose to have this beautification of the whole earth accomplished by the end of his seventh creative day—Scripturally a period of seven thousand years, then the time is near at hand for the ruining of the earth by exploiters to be stopped by theocratic power and for the blessed transformation to a delightsome garden to begin. Already, nearly six thousand years of man's existence from the close of the sixth creative day have run their dreary course. We must be approaching the threshold of that thousand-year-long reign of Jesus Christ, which must be accompanied by Paradise according to what Jesus promised the sympathetic evildoer on the stake there at Mount Calvary.—Revelation 20:4, 6.
31 Beauty just impossible for us to paint in mere words will then adorn the whole earth. Natural beauty will be attended by physical, mental and spiritual health for those who dwell amid such Paradise glory.
The loving Theocratic Restorer of the garden home of perfect man and woman gives us prophetic word pictures of what he can actually do for the eternal happiness of mankind when reconciled to Him. He uses as a sample illustration a small land not too distant from the original Paradise, a land that had lain desolate for seventy years during the exile of His disobedient people to Babylonia in the Mesopotamian valley. From that pagan land of false idolatrous worship he redeemed them, released them, to return to their long-desolate homeland and its holy Mount Zion. Telling them of the astonishing transformation that was to be brought about there under his blessing, the Great Theocrat said by his prophet Isaiah:
"The wilderness and the waterless region will exult, and the desert plain will be joyful and blossom as the saffron. Without fail it will blossom, and it will really be joyful with joyousness and with glad crying out. The glory of Lebanon itself must be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and of Sharon. There will be those who will see the glory of Jehovah, the splendor of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, you people, and make the knees that are wobbling firm. Say to those who are anxious at heart: 'Be strong. Do not be afraid. Look! Your own God will come with vengeance itself, God even with a repayment. He himself will come and save you people.'
"At that time the eyes of the blind ones will be opened, and the very ears of the deaf ones will be unstopped. At that time the lame one will climb up just as a stag does, and the tongue of the speechless one will cry out in gladness. For in the wilderness waters will have burst out, and torrents in the desert plain. And the heat-parched ground will have become as a reedy pool, and the thirsty ground as springs of water. In the abiding place of jackals, a resting-place for them, there will be green grass with reeds and papyrus plants.
"And there will certainly come to be a highway there, even a way; and the Way of Holiness it will be called.
The unclean one will not pass over it. And it will be for the one walking on the way, and no foolish ones will wander about on it. No lion will prove to be there, and the rapacious sort of wild beasts will not come up on it. None will be found there; and the repurchased ones must walk there. And the very ones redeemed by Jehovah will return and certainly come to Zion with a joyful cry; and rejoicing to time indefinite will be upon their head. To exultation and rejoicing they will attain, and grief and sighing must flee away."—Isaiah 35:1-10; written in the eighth century before our Common Era.
25 As a further encouragement to the ones repurchased and ransomed from exile and captivity in idolatrous Babylon to go forth and return to their homeland with the prospect of making it something like the Garden of Eden, the Creator of heaven and earth went on to say through the same prophet: "So my word that goes forth from my mouth will prove to be. It will not return to me without results, but it will certainly do that in which I have delighted, and it will have certain success in that for which I have sent it. For with rejoicing you people will go forth, and with peace you will be brought in. The mountains and the hills themselves will become cheerful before you with a joyful outcry, and the very trees of the field will all clap their hands. Instead of the thicket of thorns the juniper tree will come up. Instead of the stinging nettle the myrtle tree will come up. And it must become for Jehovah something famous, a sign to time indefinite that will not be cut off."—Isaiah 55:11-13.
88 Lovely prophecies those, and Oh how they do emphasize one vital fact! In all our hopes for Paradise to be restored to our earth we cannot leave out of consideration earth's Creator. We must also take into account another important thing. What? The worship that we owe to this wonderful Creator. This is something that people generally overlook. Oh, yes, they would like to have "heaven right here on earth," but they do not care to worship the Only One who can make it like that, by restoring Paradise to earth.
87 It is obvious that man cannot create his own paradise. Why, look at all his efforts over millenniums of time. Look at all the scientific means he has at hand today. And yet man has proved to be unable to bring this earth up to a Paradise state free from drought, blight, plant pests, famine, deadly undernourishment and starvation. Something has been wrong. This has to do with man's worship. He has obscured the true worship. He has failed to worship the Creator of all lovely things, the divine Planter of the original earthly Paradise, yes, the Great Theocrat who drove out the first man and woman from that Paradise because they broke off their unselfish worship of Him. Paradise is for worshipers of him.
Without the blessing of this worshipful Creator there can be no return of mankind to a Paradise home. Ancient history provides us with a real-life illustration of the truth of that principle. This historical example was furnished through the very people whom the Owner of all things repurchased from exile and slavery in ancient Babylon, in 537 B.C.E. They were reinstated in their beloved homeland, the desolate state of which was to be restored to its natural beauty according to the glowing prophecies of the Creator's prophets. More than sixteen years of opportunity passed, but why did that favored people not prosper? Something must have been wrong. Something had been overlooked. Something had been pushed into the background. What was it? The Repurchaser and Theocratic Ruler of that liberated people knew. To point out what was the matter, he raised up his prophet named Haggai. What Haggai pointed out then is of serious concern to us now. Let us see.
CHAPTER
WHY HIGHEST HOPES WERE DISAPPOINTED
WE ALL live off the land. We are all dependent on what grows out
of the ground. Suppose, now, all of us were gardeners or farmers. What if you sowed a lot of seed, and you looked for much, but you got very little from it? You pruned your grapevines and cultivated them, but you collected little fruit. You planted your flax and took good care of it, but there was little that you brought in with which to have linen made for clothing. Your olive trees were given all due attention, but there were few olives to send to the press to make oil. You came to your storehouse and wanted to collect twenty measures of grain, but, look! there proved to be only ten measures there actually. You came to your winepress vat after crushing all the available grapes, and in order to entertain or to sell you needed to carry away fifty measures, and, see there! all you could draw off was twenty measures. Suppose this kept up for year after year! What would you think?
2 Oh, you might blame it upon the continual dry seasons—the drought. In the rainless season there was not even the fall of dew to moisten things up to save the growth from the ground. The earth became scorched. Besides, the grains were blasted with mildew. Not only that, there was the hail that beat down fruit from the trees and smashed the vegetation to the earth. Then, too, if you tried to get a job off the land and earn some extra money to make ends meet, there were no jobs available, or what was paid for services was very small. On top of that, social conditions were very disturbed, and there was no peace for anyone going out or coming in.
Yes, it would seem reasonable to look at matters from a natural, materialistic viewpoint and blame it on the weather and the lack of security. Weather, yes! But what is behind the weather? Who is responsible for the weather? Might the real reason for crop failure lie there? If so, why?
3 Seemingly, we are here just imagining a disastrous case for an agricultural community. But really we are presenting the features of an actual historical case. It was specially recorded in the sacred history to serve as a useful, practical lesson to us today who have come into a far worse state of affairs than existed back there in the illustrative case. (Haggai 1:6, 9-11; 2:15-17; Zechariah 8:9, 10, 13) The lesson is not out of date for us who live in these "advanced times," just because the historical case presented itself about two thousand five hundred years ago. Principles, that is, rules of operation with respect to the affairs of nations and with respect to cause and effect, do not change.
4 More than that, although those people involved away back there are now long off the world stage, the Immortal Theocrat, the Creator who is behind the weather, is still on hand to reckon with as the Restorer of Paradise to mankind. He does not change as to his manner of dealing with his human creatures. We cannot afford to ignore him without unpleasant consequences for ourselves. Wisely, then, in a teachable frame of mind, let us examine this actual case history and apply the beneficial lesson of it to ourselves.
BACK TO THE YEAR 520/519 BEFORE OUR COMMON ERA
Time of our historical setting is back in the sixth century before our Common Era. For more than eighty years the destruction of the internationally known city of Jerusalem by the powerful armies of Babylon is in the past.
As a well-deserved retribution Babylon itself has had the humiliation of bowing to a conqueror, Cyrus, and ceasing to be the Third World Power of Bible history. That was in the world-shaking year of 539 B.C.E. The Persian Empire is now the dominant world power, the fourth in succession in Bible history. However, Greece is beginning to assert itself strongly and threatening in due time to seize the dominant world position. Some years before this it was even predicted to become the next succeeding world power. (Daniel, chapters 7, 8, 11; Zechariah 9:13) Never did the city of Jerusalem become a world power, but it proved to be the city where the most important events of all human history took place. It began to be rebuilt and reoccupied by the exiles whom the Persian conqueror, Cyrus the Great, released from captivity in Babylon in the year 537 B.C.E.—Ezra 1:1 to 3:2.
Thus the sacred city of Jerusalem was reestablished and the province of Judah was formed as one of the many jurisdictional districts of the expanding Persian Empire. An ancestor of Jesus Christ, namely, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, was the governor of the province, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak the son of Seraiah was the high priest of the national religion. Shortly after the returned exiles got settled in the land and tried to fulfill the real purpose of their return, they ran into difficulties with their pagan neighbors on their borders. Their major project came to a standstill and was finally banned by the central Persian government. The prosperity of the province of Judah ceased. The highest hopes of the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, with which they had left Babylon, were disappointed. Time wore on for about seventeen years of this. Then the Main One involved in this situation, which appeared to be a cursed one, decided that there had been enough of this. That One was the Great Theocrat, the invisible God Ruler of the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.
7 The year of the theocratic intervention in the affairs of Judah and Jerusalem is definitely dated. It is the year that the Great Theocrat raised up his visible human spokesman, the prophet named Haggal. He was one of the exiles that had returned from Babylon, if not in the year 537 B.C.E., then in a later year. His name means "Festive, or, Festal"; or, if the final "i" of his name is an abbreviation for "Yah," then his name means "Festival [Hhag] of Yah," this "Yah" being the abbreviation for Jehovah. He is traditionally thought to have been an old man by this time. To make for historical accuracy, he dates his prophecies. His book of prophecies bearing his name Haggal is the third last book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, or the third last book of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures as listed in the Authorized Version of the Bible. In the opening verse of his dated book he writes:
"In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of Jehovah occurred by means of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, the governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak the high priest, saying."—Haggai 1:1.
9 This Darius the king is different from "Darius the Mede," who was associated with King Cyrus the Persian in the overthrow of Babylon in the year 539 B.C.E., he being then sixty-two years old. (Daniel 5:30, 31; 6:1-28) After Darius the Mede the throne of the fallen Babylon was taken over solely by King Cyrus the Persian. He was succeeded by his son Cambyses. After him a reputed usurper, the Magian Gaumata, seized the throne of the Persian Empire. He was overthrown by Darius the Persian, who thus became the Persian Darius I. He is generally given the surname Hystaspis. As the regnal year of the Persian kings began in the spring of the year, the second year of this Persian Darius the king would continue to the following spring, and so it would correspond with 520/519 B.C.E., according to our dating.
The sixth month of that year would be reckoned from the spring of 520 B.C.E., and would be Haggai's lunar month known as Elul. (Nehemiah 6:15) That lunar month would correspond with our August-September. Since the day on which the word of Jehovah occurred to the prophet Haggai was the first day of that lunar month, it was the day of the new moon.
10 According to the theocratic law given through the prophet Moses, that day of the new moon was a day for blowing the sacred trumpets over sacrifices offered to Jehovah God on that day. (Numbers 10:10) Also, special offerings by fire were made to Jehovah. (Numbers 28:11-15) The custom also arose of making religious visits on that day to where Jehovah's altar was located. (2 Kings 4:23) This would draw many devout persons to Jerusalem. Hence the prophet Haggai should have had a larger crowd than usual to which to address the "word of Jehovah" on that day of Elul 1, 520 B.C.E. Haggai was doubtless at Jerusalem on that day, for his prophetic word was addressed to Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua who officiated at Jerusalem. Haggai's message affected the whole nation and deserved to be heard.
THE NATIONAL HOUSE OF WORSHIP INVOLVED
11 What, now, did the word that occurred by means of the prophet Haggai say? Haggai 1:2 tells us: "This is what Jehovah of armies has said, 'As regards this people, they have said: 'The time has not come, the time of the house of Jehovah, for it to be built.''" The people whom Haggai addressed had to admit this fact.
15 Who, though, told "Jehovah of armies" what "this people" had been saying? Why, Jehovah of armies himself had heard it with his marvelous means of hearing from heaven. It was a striking way in which he referred to himself, namely, as "Jehovah of armies" (Y'hoovah' Ts'baoth', in Hebrew).
Throughout the inspired Hebrew Scriptures, from Genesis to Malachi, this designation "Jehovah of armies" occurs 281 times, the prophet Samuel being the first to use it in writing. (1 Samuel 1:3) Even the inspired Christian writers, Paul and James, used it. (Romans 9:29; James 5:4) Was this reminder of Jehovah as being a Commander in Chief of heavenly armies a consolation to the then inhabitants of Jerusalem and the province of Judah?
13 It should have been. At that time they had no standing army, such as the mightily armed nations of the world have today. When they left the Babylonish land of exile to return to their homeland, they had no army to accompany them for protection against mauders along the way. Even in the year 468 B.C.E., the scribe-priest Ezra refused to have a military force and horsemen from King Artaxerxes of Persia to accompany him to Jerusalem.—Ezra 8:22, 23.
14 Now, what was it that this unarmed "people," the inhabitants of Jerusalem and of Judah, had been saying that excited Jehovah of armies so greatly? This personal opinion of theirs: "The time has not come, the time of the house of Jehovah, for it to be built." Such a "house" would be a building for the worship of Jehovah of armies at Jerusalem, where the high priest Joshua the son of Jehozadak could officiate along with all the other priests of the ancient family of Aaron. It would be a temple. Properly, such a house of worship or temple would be of interest to Jehovah of armies. "This people" of Jerusalem and Judah were worshipers of Jehovah. Why, then, were they saying, "The time has not come, the time of the house of Jehovah, for it to be built"? What was objectionable about that? At least, it showed a lack of interest in the fullest worship of their God. It also betrayed a lack of faith in the unconquerable "Jehovah of armies." Consequently, "this people” was missing out on its prime purpose in being back there in Jerusalem and Judah.
What was that?
DELINQUENCY TOWARD THE HOUSE OF DIVINE WORSHIP
15 Seventeen years before this, in the spring of the year of 537 B.C.E., these now residents of Jerusalem and Judah had been released from exile in Babylon. It was really Jehovah of armies who was repurchasing them and ransoming them that they might come over the Way of Holiness and return to Zion, as Jerusalem is also called. (Isaiah 35:8-10) Was the repurchasing of "this people" just to give these exiles a place to live away from idolatrous Babylon, preferably the beloved land of their forefathers? Or what really was the principal purpose of returning to this land that had lain desolate without man or domestic beast for seventy years, from the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E. onward? (2 Chronicles 36:17-21) This is plainly stated in the imperial decree issued in 537 B.C.E. by Cyrus the Great, the Persian conqueror of Babylon on the Euphrates River. (2 Chronicles 36:22, 23) This decree is fully set out by the scribe-priest Ezra, in these words:
"And in the first year of Cyrus the king of Persia, that Jehovah's word from the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Jehovah roused the spirit of Cyrus the king of Persia so that he caused a cry to pass through all his realm, and also in writing, saying: 'This is what Cyrus the king of Persia has said, "All the kingdoms of the earth Jehovah the God of the heavens has given me, and he himself has commissioned me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God prove to be with him. So let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of Jehovah the God of Israel—he is the true God—which was in Jerusalem. As for anyone that is left from all the places where he is residing as an alien, let the men of his place assist him with silver and with gold and with goods and with domestic animals along with the voluntary offering for the house of the true God, which was in Jerusalem." ...
"Also, King Cyrus himself brought forth the utensils of the house of Jehovah, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought out from Jerusalem and then put in the house of his god.
And Cyrus the king of Persia proceeded to bring them forth under the control of Mithredad theumman of Jerusalem and the control of Chieftain of Judah. . . All the utensils of gold and of silver were five thousand four hundred. Everything Sheshbazzar brought up, along with the bringing up of the exiled people out of Babylon to Jerusalem."—Era 1:1-11.
16 This "Sheshbazzar the chieftain of Judah" is apparently the same one as Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel the governor of Judah. (Ezra 2:1, 2; 5:1, 2, 14-16; Haggai 1:1, 14; 2:2, 21) Zerubbabel the governor of Judah and the rest of the returned exiles realized that their main mission in returning to their homeland was to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem for Jehovah's worship. This is shown by a historical fact: At the end of the seventy years of desolation of Jerusalem and of Judah these repurchase exiles built an altar to Jehovah on the same location as that of the former temple altar, and later laid the foundation for building a new temple. We read:
"When the seventh month [Tishri] arrived the sons of Israel were in their cities. And the people began to gather themselves as one man to Jerusalem. And Jeshua the son of Jehozadak and his brothers the priests and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and his brothers proceeded to rise up and build the altar of the God of Israel, to offer up burnt sacrifices upon it, according to what is written in the law of Moses the man of the true God. So they established the altar firmly upon its own site, for fright came upon them because of the peoples of Israel, and people came upon them because of the Jews to Jehovah upon it, the burnt sacrifices of the morning and of the evening. Then they held the festival of booths [Tishri 15-22] according to what is written, with the burnt sacrifices day by day in number according to the rule of what was due each day. . . From the first day of the seventh month [Tishri] on they started to offer up burnt sacrifices to Jehovah, when the foundation of Jehovah's temple itself had not yet been laid. . .
"And in the second year [586 B.C.E.] of their coming to the house of the true God at Jerusalem, in the second month [Ziv, or Iyyar; April/May1, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jehovadak and the rest of their brothers, the priests and the Levites, and all those who had come out of the captivity to Jerusalem started; and they now put in positions the Levites from twenty years of age upward to act as supervisors over the work of the house of Jehovah.
. . When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Jehovah, then the priests in official clothing, with the trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph, with the cymbals, stood up to praise Jehovah according to the direction of David the king of Israel. And they began to respond by praising and giving thanks to Jehovah, 'for he is good, for his loving-kindness toward Israel is to time indefinite.' As for all the people, they shouted with a loud shout in praising Jehovah over the laying of the foundation of the house of Jehovah.
"And many of the priests and the Levites and the heads of the paternal houses, the old men that had seen the former house, were weeping with a loud voice at the laying of the foundation of this house before their eyes, while many others were raising the voice in shouting for joy. Hence the people were not distinguishing the sound of the shout of rejoicing from the sound of the weeping of the people, for the people were shouting with a loud shout, and the sound itself was heard even to a great distance." -Ezra 3:1-13.
17 At that time those repatriated Israelites were not saying: "The time has not come, the time of the house of Jehovah, for it to be built." (Haggai 1:2) But soon there came opposition from the outside to those "sons of the Exile." This was because the religiously purified Israelites would not let the outside pretending worshipers of Jehovah join with them in building the temple to the God of Israel. So these resentful rebuffed neighbors became adversaries and kept interfering with the temple rebuilding during all the rest of the reign of King Cyrus and the reigns of the succeeding kings of the Persian Empire down into the reign of King Darius Hystaspis the Persian. Before the reign of this Persian Darius I, those Palestinian adversaries succeeded in having the imperial ruler ban the work of building the temple of Jehovah by accusing the repatriated "sons of the Exile" of being seditionists. —Ezra 4:1-22.
18 The Bible calls the Persian emperor who issued the ban by the name of Artaxerxes, and says: "Now after the copy of the official document of Artaxerxes the king had been read before Rehum and Shimshai the scribe and their colleagues, they went in a hurry to Jerusalem to the Jews and stopped them by force of arms. It was then that the work on the house of God, which was in Jerusalem, stopped; and it continued stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius the king of Persia."—Ezra 4:23, 24.
19 The second year of the reign of King Darius I coincided with 520/519 B.C.E., and this meant that the stoppage of the work of building a new temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem lasted for about sixteen years, from the time that the foundation of this temple had been laid by Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua (or, Jeshua; Jesus, in the Greek Septuagint Version). This ban imposed by the Persian emperor, Artaxerxes, must have left the Jews in Jerusalem and Judah quite confused, in a quandary. They may have wondered how the ban of this later emperor could countermand the decree of King Cyrus the Great that was issued in 537 B.C.E. as part of the "law of the Medes and the Persians, which is not annulled." (Daniel 6:8, 12) They did not think to put the matter to a test in the law courts of the Persian Empire, carrying the case even to the Supreme Court of the empire, to the court of last instance, which was with the emperor himself. The coming in of a new emperor, a successor to Artaxerxes, would allow for that. But who, now, would push the case? No one else but "Jehovah of armies" Himself.
20 Two centuries previously, by means of his prophet Isaiah, the Great Theocrat Jehovah had spoken of himself as "the One saying of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd, and all that I delight in he will completely carry out'; even in my saying of Jerusalem, 'She will be rebuilt,' and of the temple, 'You will have your foundation laid."
This is what Jehovah has said to his anointed one, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have taken hold of, to subdue before him nations." (Isaiah 44:28-45:1) Consequently, it was not the will of Jehovah of armies that the decree of Cyrus concerning the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem should be annulled. Jehovah is not the kind of God that has the foundation of a building laid and then finds himself unable to complete the building, so that all the onlookers should "start to ridicule him, saying, 'This [God] started to build but was not able to finish.'" (Luke 14:29, 30) No, Jehovah completes what he begins; his word never returns to him unfulfilled, "without results." —Isaiah 55:11.
POPULAR OPINION AND IMPERIAL BAN CHALLENGED
21 So now the time had come for Jehovah of armies to correct the long-expressed misimpression of the Jews in Jerusalem and Judah that the time had not yet come for the house of Jehovah to be rebuilt. What, then, did he do? He raised up prophets who were not afraid to speak out contrary to popular opinion. Ezra 5:1 tells us who these prophets were, saying: "And Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the grandson of Iddo the prophet prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and in Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them." The opening verses of the recorded prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah give us the year when they started prophesying, namely, "in the second year of Darius the king" of Persia. But Haggai started off before Zechariah by having the word of Jehovah occur by means of him on the first day of the lunar month Elul, the day of the new moon when Jerusalem might have many pilgrims from the cities of Judah outside.
22 First of all, the prophet Haggai notified the people there at Jerusalem that Jehovah of armies knows what they are saying about the time for building His house of worship, the building of which was authorized by the Persian emperor, Cyrus the Great.
Divine patience had been exercised long enough with the Jews who were of that frame of mind. Now, when the situation seemed to be at its worst, when the steady opposition of the pagan religious adversaries had been reinforced by an imperial ban, even now was the time for the popular opinion of this repurchased people to be challenged. They needed to be shown what they were guilty of and the reason why things had been going so badly with them.
23 Now comes the challenge! "And the word of Jehovah continued to come by means of Haggal the prophet, saying: 'Is it the time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house is waste? And now this is what Jehovah of armies has said, "Set your heart upon your ways. You have sown much seed, but there is a bringing of little in. There is an eating, but it is not to satisfaction. There is a drinking, but not to the point of getting intoxicated. There is a putting on of clothes, but it is not with anyone's getting warm; and he that is hiring himself out is hiring himself out for a bag having holes [and the wage-earner earning into a pocket with a hole in it]."”—Haggai 1:3-6, NW; By.
24 There was a vital reason for their faring so poorly in a material way. Those repatriated Jews were saying that it was not the time for them to build the temple of Jehovah, and so "this house" of divine worship was lying "waste," with just a foundation laid back in 536 B.C.E., but with no superstructure thereon. At the same time they themselves were living in their well-roofed houses with a ceiling and with their walls nicely paneled with fine woods. What a marked contrast there was between their private homes for fleshy comforts and the sacred house of Jehovah for the spiritual interests of the whole nation! Was this not an unbalanced state of affairs? Did this not betray that they were putting more emphasis on material things, comforts of their own flesh, than on their spiritual needs and their obligations to the Great Theocrat, Jehovah?
Was this without consequences to them, not only to them in a spiritual way but also in a material way? Were they hurting themselves, not only religiously, but also economically? Yes!
25 Why also economically, in a material way? Because theirs was a God-given land. Jehovah had also repurchased them from Babylon and brought them back as his ransomed people to that land. "So," as He had long ago told their forefathers, "the land should not be sold in perpetuity, because the land is mine. For you are alien residents and settlers from my standpoint." (Leviticus 25:23) As the land was His, he could make the land prosper and he could hold back his blessing from the land. He thus became responsible for its productivity. If he was displeased with his ransomed people, would he not logically withhold his blessing? And through his prophet Haggai did He not indicate divine displeasure because his house, the most important house in the whole land of Judah, was lying waste, and that for so many years?
28 Under the circumstances, there must have been some connection between the "waste" condition of Jehovah's house of worship and the fact that these ransomed Jews were sowing much seed on the Godgiven land and yet they were bringing in little in the way of crops. They were reaping something to eat, indeed, but it was not enough to satisfy their desires or needs. They were drinking wine made from the juice of their vineyards, but they did not have a large enough vintage so as to make sufficient wine that they could go as far as getting themselves intoxicated thereon. They were able to manufacture something to put on the outside of their bodies, but not enough, or not of such quality, as to keep them warm during cold weather. And if any needy ones hired themselves out to earn a living or to help in meeting expenses, it seemed as if the money they earned was put into a money bag full of holes to let the coins drop out and be lost with no benefit to the wage earners.
In view of the relationship of these occupants of the land to the heavenly Owner of the land and their religious obligations to Him, there must have been some vital connection between his "waste" house and their economic depression.
27 This connection must have been real in view of what Jehovah their God had promised by means of his prophet Ezekiel shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolating of the land of Judah more than seventy years ago: "This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, 'In the day of my cleansing you from all your errors I will also cause the cities to be inhabited, and the devastated places must be rebuilt. And the desolated land itself will be cultivated, whereas it had become a desolate waste before the eyes of every passerby. And people will certainly say: 'That land yonder which was laid desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the cities that were a waste and that were laid desolate and that were torn down are fortified; they have become inhabited.' And the nations that will be left remaining round about you will have to know that I myself, Jehovah, have built the things torn down. I have planted what has been laid desolate. I myself, Jehovah, have spoken and I have done it.'" —Ezekiel 36:33-36.
28 When the ransomed remnant of God-fearing Jews returned to the desolated land in 537 B.C.E., they had the highest hopes of having such a glowing prophecy fulfilled. But now, by the year 520 B.C.E., their highest hopes had been disappointed. Why? Yes, why were not the pagan peoples round about saying: "That land yonder which was laid desolate has become like the garden of Eden"? The reason why is obvious: The ransomed remnant of Jews were neglecting the worship of the One who had made such a grand promise through the prophet Ezekiel.
Is there not a point in this that we today, who hope in the transformation of the whole earth into a Paradise, should take to heart? Yes. But what was the remedy that needed to be applied back there? It should be an advisory example for us now.
CHAPTER 3
IT IS still Elu1 1, or the first day of the sixth lunar month, in the second year of the reign of Darius I, the king of the Persian Empire. That would be about the middle of the month of August of the year 520 B.C.E., according to our calendar of today. (Haggai 1:1) By means of his prophet Haggai, Jehovah was calling attention to the ways of his repurchased people whom he had restored to their homeland after it had lain desolate for seventy years. (2 Chronicles 36:17-21) Jehovah was urging them to give heartfelt consideration to the unusual ways in which things were happening to them. Then they would be able to see the connection between their having all their hard work on the land prove to be so unrewarding and their letting the house of Jehovah's worship lie waste, although they were taking good care of themselves as to housing conditions—Haggai 1:2-6.
THE REMEDY FOR THOSE WITH DISAPPOINTED HOPES
2 Was the reason for the Jews to fare so badly after being back on their homeland for seventeen years basically a religious one?
If it was, then Jehovah was the One who could unerringly point out to them that reason and also prescribe the remedy. He was not pleased at their being so concerned about their material welfare and their neglecting his house of worship. So, after putting up with this unbalanced attitude of theirs for so long a time, he said to them by means of the prophet Haggai: "This is what Jehovah of armies has said, 'Set your hearts upon your ways.' 'Go up to the mountain, and you must bring in lumber. And build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and I may be glorified,' Jehovah has said." Then to point out what was really responsible for their disappointing results from such hard work, he had Haggai prophesy further:
"There was a looking for much, but here there was just a little; and you have brought it into the house, and I blew upon it—for what reason?" is the utterance of Jehovah of armies. 'By reason of my house that is waste, while you are on the run, each one in behalf of his own house. Therefore over you the heavens kept back their dew, and the earth itself kept back its yield. And I kept calling for dryness upon the earth, and upon the mountains, and upon the grain, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon what the ground would bring forth, and upon earthling man, and upon domestic animal, and upon all the toil of the hands.' "Haggai 1:7-11.
4 When those foregoing words were declared, the unconstitutional ban that was laid by the late King Artaxerxes of Persia upon the building of Jehovah's temple at Jerusalem was still in effect. Yet Jehovah of armies, speaking through Haggai, told the hard-faring Jews to get materials and "build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and I may be glorified." (Haggai 1:8) The question at issue now became, Which is to be obeyed—Jehovah's will or the imperial ban, the will of a now dead misinformed man? Whose order is to be carried out—that of the living Most High God, the Great Theocrat, or that of a dead Persian emperor?
If they did as the later Christian apostles did, "obey God as ruler rather than men," they would arouse the objections and opposition of those who favored the ban, but they would gain the approval of God. (Acts 5:29) They were already pleasing those pagan oppositionists but were displeasing God. So, now, were they willing to stir up the displeasure of their pagan adversaries and thereby win the good pleasure of Jehovah of armies?
Those pagan adversaries could not control the weather of the land of Judah. Not even the whole Persian Empire could do so. They could not cause the heavens to produce the needed dew in the dry season of the year. They could not cause the earth to render its yield, so that the Jewish tillers of the soil not only sowed much and looked for much but also brought in much. Or, conversely, those imperial Persians and the neighboring adversaries of the Jews could not remove, during the ordinarily wet season, the dryness that came upon the earth, upon the grain, upon the new wine, upon the oil, upon all other produce of the ground, nor the dryness that came upon man, domestic animal and what men toiled for with their hands. But Jehovah of armies could do so, for those adverse things were from him in expression of his displeasure.
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