Then the word of the LORD came: Good News Translation has restructured this to make the LORD the subject, “The LORD then gave this message.” Good News Translation has also made it clear that the message is “to the people” as a whole, though their two leaders are addressed by name in 1.1. This is clearly right, as the content of verses 4-11 would hardly be of great importance if it applied only to two men.

In some languages it will not be necessary to repeat the words the prophet after Haggai as this information has been provided in the first verse.

We may translate this verse as “The LORD then gave the following message to the people using Haggai as his mouthpiece” or “The LORD then used Haggai to convey the following message to the people.”

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Haggai. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2002. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .