How the message came to Haggai, we are not sure. Maybe it was a voice, a vision, or a dream. But it was a word that originated in God (see also Haggai 1:3; Haggai 2:1, Haggai 2:10, Haggai 2:20). The prophet is only an instrument: the mention of by the hand of
rather than the more common to
emphasizes that the prophet is simply the channel through whom the Lord’s word is transmitted.1 We are not reading Haggai’s reflections. It is the Lord who is the true author.
1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: