Hag 2:13 | KingComments | STEP | In order to make the people aware that the crop failures they have had so far are the result of God’s punishment because of their attitude towards Him and His house, the prophet asks the priests two questions. He applies the answer in to the spiritual state of the people. The first question ( ) is about whether holiness can be transmitted. Haggai uses the example of someone who carries “holy meat in the fold of his garment”. “holy meat” is the meat of animals slaughtered to be sacrificed to the LORD ( ). The priests may also have a part of it ( ). Imagine it happens that someone with the fold of his garment which contains that holy meat, touches food. Haggai mentions a few examples of the food it could be. He also indicates that they are only examples, because it applies to “any [other] food”. Then he asks whether that food becomes holy when it is touched by the fold of his garment in which the holy meat is. Apparently, without having to think about it, the priests answered with an emphatic “no”. It is true that the fold of the garment itself becomes holy through the holy meat ( ), but it cannot pass on this holiness. Then Haggai asks a second question ( ). That question is the opposite of the previous question. This is not about someone carrying something of food, but about someone himself, a person . It is about someone who has become unclean by the touch of “a corpse”. If that unclean person “touches any of these” [i.e. the things mentioned in the previous verse], Haggai asks, “will [the latter] become unclean?” The answer of the priests here is more emphatic than the answer to the previous question. There it is a short ‘no’. Here the answer is not a short ‘yes’, but a clearly defined “it will become unclean”. Also the second question is answered correctly by the priests. Someone who is unclean by the touch of a dead person makes everything he touches unclean ( ). This is the lesson: Holiness cannot be transmitted, but uncleanness can. A healthy man cannot transmit his health, but a sick man with a contagious disease can transmit his disease (cf. ). What is unclean does infect the environment, but what is holy does not have that power. This is also how it works in daily life, as the Preacher discovered that as “dead flies” spoil a supply of “oil” that has been carefully composed, so a little foolishness causes so much harm, that all “wisdom [and] honor” are powerless in the face of that ( ). The meaning is that it only takes a small thing to render unusable or even destroy a large quantity of valuable goods. Foolishness has much more influence than wisdom. That is exactly such a statement. One weak link makes the chain break. We can apply this to many things in everyday life. When we listen to unclean music, it does not leave us untouched, it radiates something that makes us unclean ourselves. Unclean images – it only has to be a flash of something unclean or sadistic that we see on television or on the internet – sometimes linger for days, we become infected by them. We think we can go anywhere, read all kinds of literature, watch all kinds of movies without it affecting us. But we are very much mistaken, because it has an effect that makes us totally dirty. Haggai presents the people their wrong way of thinking. They thought in Babel: ‘As long as we are in Jerusalem, that is after all the city of God. As long as we are in touch with what is holy, with the holy city, that gives us the best chance to enjoy the promised blessing. Haggai goes razor-sharp against that with this priestly teaching from the law. He says: ‘Outward touch with the holy does not process anything, but outward touch with the unclean has disastrous consequences! We may not be aware of it, but touch with the unclean affects us to the bottom of our hearts. And let us not think that touch with the holy undoes the touch with the unclean. We say: ‘You should always be open to everyone.’ The Bible does not speak like that. The Bible says that we must break the bond if someone in our circle of friends, for example, openly mocks the holy. An outward touch with what is unclean through what we hear and see makes us unclean. We should not think that the outer touch with the holy outweighs that. A ritual reading of the Bible after dinner, or once in a while visiting a meeting without our heart being there, is an outward touch of the holy, which has no effect at all. The holy does not have the power of an automatic radiation. In summary we can say that all Haggai’s prophecies are directed against the nonchalance of the superficial touch in two ways: 1. The superficial touch of the holy, of which we think that it gives us something extra, gives us nothing extra. 2. The superficial touch with the unclean, of which we think we can handle, makes us unclean.

‏ Haggai 2:13

When Holy and When Unclean

In order to make the people aware that the crop failures they have had so far are the result of God’s punishment because of their attitude towards Him and His house, the prophet asks the priests two questions. He applies the answer in Hag 2:14 to the spiritual state of the people.

The first question (Hag 2:12) is about whether holiness can be transmitted. Haggai uses the example of someone who carries “holy meat in the fold of his garment”. “holy meat” is the meat of animals slaughtered to be sacrificed to the LORD (Num 6:20). The priests may also have a part of it (Lev 6:26 ; 29 ; Lev 7:6 ; Lev 7:15-16 ; 31-34).

Imagine it happens that someone with the fold of his garment which contains that holy meat, touches food. Haggai mentions a few examples of the food it could be. He also indicates that they are only examples, because it applies to “any [other] food”. Then he asks whether that food becomes holy when it is touched by the fold of his garment in which the holy meat is.

Apparently, without having to think about it, the priests answered with an emphatic “no”. It is true that the fold of the garment itself becomes holy through the holy meat (Lev 6:27), but it cannot pass on this holiness.

Then Haggai asks a second question (Hag 2:13). That question is the opposite of the previous question. This is not about someone carrying something of food, but about someone himself, a person. It is about someone who has become unclean by the touch of “a corpse”. If that unclean person “touches any of these” [i.e. the things mentioned in the previous verse], Haggai asks, “will [the latter] become unclean?”

The answer of the priests here is more emphatic than the answer to the previous question. There it is a short ‘no’. Here the answer is not a short ‘yes’, but a clearly defined “it will become unclean”. Also the second question is answered correctly by the priests. Someone who is unclean by the touch of a dead person makes everything he touches unclean (Num 19:22).

This is the lesson: Holiness cannot be transmitted, but uncleanness can. A healthy man cannot transmit his health, but a sick man with a contagious disease can transmit his disease (cf. 1Cor 15:33). What is unclean does infect the environment, but what is holy does not have that power.

This is also how it works in daily life, as the Preacher discovered that as “dead flies” spoil a supply of “oil” that has been carefully composed, so a little foolishness causes so much harm, that all “wisdom [and] honor” are powerless in the face of that (Ecc 10:1). The meaning is that it only takes a small thing to render unusable or even destroy a large quantity of valuable goods. Foolishness has much more influence than wisdom. That is exactly such a statement. One weak link makes the chain break.

We can apply this to many things in everyday life. When we listen to unclean music, it does not leave us untouched, it radiates something that makes us unclean ourselves. Unclean images – it only has to be a flash of something unclean or sadistic that we see on television or on the internet – sometimes linger for days, we become infected by them. We think we can go anywhere, read all kinds of literature, watch all kinds of movies without it affecting us. But we are very much mistaken, because it has an effect that makes us totally dirty.

Haggai presents the people their wrong way of thinking. They thought in Babel: ‘As long as we are in Jerusalem, that is after all the city of God. As long as we are in touch with what is holy, with the holy city, that gives us the best chance to enjoy the promised blessing. Haggai goes razor-sharp against that with this priestly teaching from the law.

He says: ‘Outward touch with the holy does not process anything, but outward touch with the unclean has disastrous consequences! We may not be aware of it, but touch with the unclean affects us to the bottom of our hearts. And let us not think that touch with the holy undoes the touch with the unclean.

We say: ‘You should always be open to everyone.’ The Bible does not speak like that. The Bible says that we must break the bond if someone in our circle of friends, for example, openly mocks the holy. An outward touch with what is unclean through what we hear and see makes us unclean. We should not think that the outer touch with the holy outweighs that. A ritual reading of the Bible after dinner, or once in a while visiting a meeting without our heart being there, is an outward touch of the holy, which has no effect at all. The holy does not have the power of an automatic radiation.

In summary we can say that all Haggai’s prophecies are directed against the nonchalance of the superficial touch in two ways:

1. The superficial touch of the holy, of which we think that it gives us something extra, gives us nothing extra.

2. The superficial touch with the unclean, of which we think we can handle, makes us unclean.