t terrified the people. The writer has
passed from that thought. He now speaks of the effect of God's voice on
the material world, the power of revelation over created nature. This is
a truth that frequently meets us in Scripture. Revelation is accompanied
by miracle. When the Ten Commandments were spoken by the lips of God to
the people, "the whole mount quaked greatly."[379] But the prophet
Haggai predicts the glory of the second house in words which recall to
our author the trembling of Mount Sinai: "For thus saith the Lord of
hosts: Yet once more, it is a little while, and I will shake the
heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake
all nations, and the desirable things of all nations shall come, and I
will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts."[380] It is
very characteristic of the writer of this Epistle to fasten on a few
salient points in the prophet's words. He seems to think that Haggai had
the scenes that occurred on Sinai in his mind. Two expressions connect
the narrative in Exodus with the prophecy. When God spoke on Sinai, His
voice shook the earth. Haggai declares that God will, at some future
time, shake the heaven. Again, the prophet has used the words "yet once
more." Therefore, when the greater glory of the second house will have
come to pass, the last shaking of earth and of heaven will take place.
The inference is that the word "yet once more" signifieth the removing
of those things that are shaken. The whole fabric of nature will perish
in its present material form, and the Apostle connects this universal
catastrophe with the revelation of God in His Son.

Many very excellent expositors think that our author refers, not to the
final dissolution of nature, but to the abrogation of the Jewish
economy. It is true that the Epistle has declared the old covenant a
thing of the past. But there are two considerations that lead us to
adopt the other view of this passage. In the first place, this Epistle
does not describe the abrogation of the old covenant as a violent
catastrophe, but rather as the passing away of what had grown old and
decayed. In the second place, the coming of the Lord is elsewhere, in
writings of that age, spoken of as accompanied by a great convulsion of
nature. The two notions go together in the thoughts of the time. "The
day of the Lord will come as a thief, in the which the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be