Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine - These words, which have occasioned some to think, that God, in speaking of the glory with which He should fill the house, meant our material riches, suggest the contrary. For silver was no ornament of the temple of Solomon. Everything was overlaid with gold. In the tabernacle there were bowls of silver, in Soloman' s temple they and all were of gold I Kings 7:50; II Chronicles 4:8. Silver, we are expressly told, "was nothing accounted of I Kings 10:21 in the days of Solomon: he I Kings 10:27. made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones - for abundance." Rather, as God says by the Psalmist Psalms 50:10-12, "Every beast of the forest is Mine, so are the cattle upon a thousand hills: I know all the fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is Mine and the fullness thereof:" so here He tells them, that for the glory of His house He needed not gold or silver: for all the wealth of the world is His. They had no ground "to grieve then, that they could not equal the magnificence of Solomon who had abundance of gold and silver." All was God' s. He would fill it with divine glory. The Desire of all nations, Christ, should come, and be a glory, to which all created glory is nothing.
"God says really and truly, that the silver and gold is His, which in utmost bounty He created, and in His most just government administers, so that, without His will and dominion, neither can the bad have gold and silver for the punishment of avarice, nor the good for the use of mercy. Its abundance does not inflate the good, nor its want crush them: but the bad, when bestowed, it blinds: when taken away, it tortures."
"It is as if He would say, Think not the temple inglorious, because, may be, it will have no portion of gold or silver, and their splendor. I need not such things. How should I? "For Mine is the silver and Mine the gold, saith the Lord Almighty." I seek rather true worshipers: with their brightness will I guild this temple. Let him come who hath right faith, is adorned by graces, gleams with love for Me, is pure in heart, poor in spirit, compassionate and good." "These make the temple, i. e., the Church, glorious and renowned, being glorified by Christ. For they have learned to pray, Psalms 90:17. "The glory of the Lord our God be upon us."
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Haggai 2:8:
Joel 3:5
Zechariah 1:1
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