What time is it?

Haggai: 1-2

1.     In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying:

2.     ‘Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying: This people say: The time is not come, the time that the LORD’S house should be built.’

Verse Haggai one in the Hebrew Bible is interesting as it immediately sets a very, very specific date for when the following story is to be set. Dating events or setting a time to a story is not an uncommon thing to come across in religious texts, so the actual appearance of the dating wasn’t surprising. The essence of the verse that makes it so interesting goes beyond even how specific it is; it’s interesting because it is assuming a common calendar across readers.

Unsurprisingly, we know that the biblical calendar is a lunar calendar—one that is based upon the monthly cycles of the moon’s phases. This is in direct contrast to solar calendars, which bases its annual cycles solely on the solar year. Haggai verse one starting with a date as specific as the first day of the sixth month in the second year of a monarch’s reign is remarkably attention-grabbing, even more so to someone familiar with the history of calendar usage. Furthermore, the Gregorian calendar, probably the most commonly used calendar in use today, is a solar calendar, but evolved from a lunar calendar.

With the author of this verse claiming such a specific date, they’re making the bold assumption that every reader of this verse for the rest of forever (basically) uses the same calendar. Otherwise, what is the point of ascribing such a specific date to the story? It is possible that the author of this verse simply didn’t think that people anywhere would ever adopt a new calendar, a new measurement of time. This may explain why the author would have bothered including the dating.

If this is the case, however, then the author still makes the assumption that the people these stories are about will be remembered over time. It’s entirely plausible that other, more important, more noteworthy things happen, relegating king Darius and Alexander the Great into the shadows of history. Altogether, it’s impossible to know now which assumptions the author of Haggai verse one was making, but it is clear that they had to have made some.