Haggai: Structure and Meaning 537 “I am with you, says the LORD” (1,13); similarly, he also says in the second oracle: “for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts” (2,4). In the third oracle the question of the relations between God and Israel arises, but this time God claims that the people are not with God: “yet you did not return to me, says the LORD” (2,17). The covenant relationship between God and his people is reflected in different terminology in the fourth oracle but with a similar meaning: “for I have chosen you, says the LORD of hosts” (2,23). The nature of the relations between God and Israel following the destruction occupies a central place in the post-exilic literature. After the events of 587 BCE there was a widespread belief that the meaning of the Destruction was that God had cast off his people. The destruction of the Temple and the expulsion of the people from their land were interpreted by the people as severance of the relation between God and His people. For the people, the Temple constituted the place of the Divine Presence. The destruction of the Temple meant for the people that God had left the Temple. The people’s exile because of their sins was considered as a loss of their status as the chosen people. There is extensive biblical evidence of this feeling (19). In Lam 3,18 the people are portrayed as suffering and as despairing of the possibility that God will deliver them. The feeling of the sufferer in this lament is that it is impossible to turn to God (3,8) and that there is no salvation from his situation (3,6). To counteract the feeling of despair that God will not deliver His people, the poet announces: “For the Lord will not reject forever” (3,31). The people’s feeling that God had cast them off appears explicitly in Ezekiel 37 (20). In this prophecy, the dry bones are an expression of the people’s loss of hope, their feeling that they will never return to their land (21). The people’s feeling of despair appears explicitly in Jer 33,24. These feelings are clearly evident in many places in Deutero-Isaiah. The prophet continually repeats the claim that Israel is the chosen people, as against the people’s belief that God had cast them off (e.g.: Isa 40,27 -31, 41,8, 14; 43,1) (22). Evidently, this religious-psychological problem was not solved simultaneously with the return to Zion and not even with the rebuilding of the Temple. On the contrary, these events could reinforce the feeling that God was not in the people’s midst. The economic difficulties and the modesty of the Temple strengthened the people’s belief and feeling that God was not part of their existence (23). The repetition of the idea in the book that God is with (19) See E. ASSIS, “Why Edom? On the Hostility Towards Jacob’s Brother in the Prophetic Literature”, VT 56 (2006) 1-21. (20) See e.g.: M. GREENBERG, Ezekiel 1–20 (AB, New York 1983) 744-746. (21) In fact, this type of thought might have already begun in the aftermath of the exile of 597, see Ezek. 8,12. (22) See e.g.: J.N. OSWALT, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66 (NICOT, Grand Rapids – Cambridge 1998) 9; M.C.A. KORPEL, “Second Isaiah’s Coping with Religious Crisis: Reading Isaiah 40 and 55”, The Crisis of Israelite Religion. Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exilic and Post-Exilic Times (eds. B. BECKING – M.C.A. KORPEL) (Leiden 1999) 90-105 (esp. 104-105). (23) O. STECK, “Zu Haggai 1:2-11”, ZAW 83 (1971) 374-377; J. TOLLINGTON, “Readings in Haggai: From the Prophet to the Completed Book, a Changing message in Changing Times”, The Crisis of Israelite Religion. Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exilic and Post-Exilic Times (eds. B. BECKING – M.C.A. KORPEL) (Leiden1999) 195.