e true Possessor of
all their wealth. But the scope of verse 9 seems to transcend these
promises, and to point to an undescribed 'glory,' still greater than
that of the universal flocking of the nations with their gifts, and to
reach a climax in the wide promise of peace given in the Temple, and
thence, as is implied, flowing out 'like a river' through a
tranquillised world.

'Yet once, it is a little while.' How long did the little while last?
There were, possibly, some feeble incipient fulfilments of the prophecy
in the immediate future; for, after the exile, there were convulsions in
the political world which resulted in security to the Jews, and the
religion of Israel began to draw some scattered proselytes. But the
prophecy is not completely fulfilled even now, and it covers the entire
development of the 'kingdom that cannot be moved' until the end of time.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews thus understands the prophecy
(Hebrews xii. 26, 27), and there are echoes of it in Revelation xxi.,
which describes the final form of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. So
the chronology of prophecy is not altogether that of history; and while
the events stand clear, their perspective is foreshortened. All the ages
are but 'a little while' in the calendar of heaven. In regard to the
whole of the prophetic utterances, we have often to say with the
disciples, 'What is this that he saith, a little while?' Eighteen
centuries have rolled away since the seer heard, 'Behold, I come
quickly,' and the vision still tarries.

The old interpretation of 'the desire of all nations' as meaning Jesus
Christ gave a literal fulfilment of the prophecy by His presence in the
Temple; but that meaning of the phrase is untenable, both because the
verb is in the plural, which would be impossible if a person were meant,
and because the only interpretation which gives relevancy to verse 8 is
that the expression means the silver and gold, there declared to be
Jehovah's. That venerable explanation, then, cannot stand. There were
offerings from heathen kings, such as those from Darius recorded in Ezra
vi. 6-10, and the gifts of Artaxerxes (Ezra vii. 15), which may be
regarded as incipient accomplishments; but such facts as these cannot
exhaust the prophecy.

It must be admitted that nothing happened during the history of that
Temple to answer to the full meaning of this prophecy. But was it
therefore a delusion that God spoke by Haggai? We must dis