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•HAGARENE or Hagarite. (1.) One of David’s mighty men (1 Chronicles 11:38), the son of a foreigner.
(2.) Used of Jaziz (1 Chronicles 27:31), who was over David’s flocks. “A Hagarite had charge of David’s flocks, and an Ishmaelite of his herds, because the animals were pastured in districts where these nomadic people were accustomed to feed their cattle.”
(3.) In the reign of Saul a great war was waged between the trans-Jordanic tribes and the Hagarites (1 Chronicles 5), who were overcome in battle. A great booty was captured by the two tribes and a half, and they took possession of the land of the Hagarites.
Subsequently the “Hagarenes,” still residing in the land on the east of Jordan, entered into a conspiracy against Israel (comp. Psalm 83:6). They are distinguished from the Ishmaelites.
•HAGGAI festive, one of the twelve so-called minor prophets. He was the first of the three (Zechariah, his contemporary, and Malachi, who was about one hundred years later, being the other two) whose ministry belonged to the period of Jewish history which began after the return from captivity in Babylon. Scarcely anything is known of his personal history. He may have been one of the captives taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. He began his ministry about sixteen years after the Return. The work of rebuilding the temple had been put a stop to through the intrigues of the Samaritans. After having been suspended for fifteen years, the work was resumed through the efforts of Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 6:14), who by their exhortations roused the people from their lethargy, and induced them to take advantage of the favourable opportunity that had arisen in a change in the policy of the Persian government. (See DARIUS [2].) Haggai’s prophecies have thus been characterized:, “There is a ponderous and simple dignity in the emphatic