It’s good to see that God gets what he wants, once in a while. The events of this text differ from those we’ve heard of the last Sundays. Here there is no rampant trampling on the poor, no idolatrous affluence, no thwarting of justice against which Micah, Zephaniah and Haggai railed.

A remnant of people had returned to Israel some eighteen years before from exile, an exile imposed by Darius and then relieved by Cyrus. Eighteen years is not a long time to resettle after your country has been devastated. Things were not going too well, chapter one tells us. They were sowing much and harvesting little, eating but never having enough; drinking but never being full; clothing themselves yet they were never warm; earning wages but putting them into a bag with holes. It was a situation altogether…