Why did God call Zerubbabel His signet ring in Haggai 2:23? A signet ring represented a ruler’s authority. God had compared Zerubbabel’s grandfather, Jehoiachin, to a ring He would tear off His hand. Now He promised to make Zerubbabel like His signet ring. This final message of Haggai shows how God preserved the line of David, kept His judgment and His promise, and pointed forward to Jesus Christ.
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Table of contents
- What Did a Signet Ring Represent in the Bible?
- Jehoiachin Was the Signet Ring God Would Tear Off
- Sin Can Take from Us What God Gave Us
- Haggai’s Final Message Went to Zerubbabel
- God Gets the Last Word over Every Kingdom
- Why God Called Zerubbabel His Signet Ring
- God Kept His Judgment and His Promise
- Christ Is the Signet Ring and Everyone in Him Is Sealed
- Trust the God Who Keeps His Word
What Did a Signet Ring Represent in the Bible?
This past week, a notary came to my house for some real estate paperwork. Because I knew this notary would be coming, I saved other paperwork that required a notary for this appointment. In total, there were seven different documents for the notary, and each document required multiple signatures. There were hundreds of pages, and I signed my name so many times it became a mindless activity.
It was an interesting week to do this because I had been studying signet rings. In the ancient world, men with power and authority used seals to make documents official. If I had a signet ring, I could have pressed it down on each document.
A signet ring contained a seal, usually carved in stone. When its owner wanted to make something official, he pressed it into soft clay or hot wax. The mark represented him and his authority.
When a king handed his signet ring to someone, he was handing over his own authority. Consider three examples from Scripture:
- When Pharaoh promoted Joseph, Genesis 41:42 says he took his signet ring off and put it on Joseph’s hand. From then on, Joseph ruled Egypt in Pharaoh’s name.
- In 1 Kings 21:8, Jezebel wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal, and a man named Naboth died because of it. Whoever held the ring held the king’s authority.
- King Ahasuerus gave his ring to Mordecai, and Esther 8:8 says an edict sealed with the king’s ring “cannot be revoked.” The ring made a document permanent.
So, you can imagine why a signet ring was never treated carelessly. It was kept on the hand, or on a cord around the neck.
There are two men in Scripture whom God compares to His own signet ring: Jehoiachin and Zerubbabel. Understanding what God said to the first helps us understand His promise to the second.
Jehoiachin Was the Signet Ring God Would Tear Off
Jehoiachin was the second-to-last king of Judah. Consider this terrible summary of his reign:
2 Kings 24:8–9 — Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem… And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done.
Eighteen years old. Three months on the throne. And in three months he managed to do everything his evil father had done.
God spoke about him through Jeremiah. Coniah is another name for Jehoiachin:
Jeremiah 22:24 — As I live, declares the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, yet I would tear you off
Notice how God opens: “As I live.” That is God swearing an oath, and there is nothing bigger He can swear by than Himself.
Even if this man were the signet ring on God’s right hand, God would tear him off. The next verses describe his life coming apart:
Jeremiah 22:25–27 — and give you into the hand of those who seek your life, into the hand of those of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26 I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you shall die. 27 But to the land to which they will long to return, there they shall not return.
Three things worth noticing:
- God hands him over to the very man he was afraid of: the king of Babylon.
- His mother went with him. Our sin always affects others.
- And they will long to come home, but they will die in Babylon.
Jeremiah 22:28 — Is this man Coniah a despised, broken pot, a vessel no one cares for? Why are he and his children hurled and cast into a land that they do not know?
Not a treasured vessel that got chipped. Instead, a piece of pottery that shattered, that nobody bothers to pick up.
Jeremiah 22:29 — O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord!
When God repeats Himself three times, He wants the whole country to hear this. Now the heaviest sentence in the passage:
Jeremiah 22:30 — Thus says the Lord: “Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah.”
Because a signet ring represented a ruler’s authority, saying God would tear Jehoiachin off His hand meant God would take away his royal authority. His offspring would not succeed in sitting on David’s throne and ruling again in Judah. That is exactly what happened.
You might be thinking of two questions. First, wasn’t there one more king after Jehoiachin? Yes: Zedekiah. But he was Jehoiachin’s uncle, not his descendant, so his reign did not violate the judgment.
Second, what about God’s promise to David? God had promised him an enduring throne, but now it looked as though that promise had been broken. Haggai’s final message brings us back to that question.
Sin Can Take from Us What God Gave Us
Jehoiachin’s life teaches us the first lesson: sin can take from us what God gave us.
Look at everything this young man lost, and notice that not one thing on the list was something he built:
- a throne he was handed
- a city he didn’t found
- a family name he inherited
- a mother’s freedom
- his children’s future
- and a place in a covenant line that went back more than four hundred years
He didn’t earn any of it, but all of it was taken from him in about ninety days.
One of the primary purposes of the Old Testament is to give us examples to learn from. There is application here for every one of us.
Every one of us has been handed things we did not earn, and can lose because of sin:
- a marriage we did not build alone
- children whose trust we did not earn
- a reputation handed to us over years
- a ministry God entrusted to us
- health and freedom we did nothing to deserve
- opportunities God opened that may never open again
None of these are things we won. Instead, God entrusted them to us. And Jehoiachin is proof that what God gives can be taken away because of sin, and it can happen quickly.
This warning fits the call to put God first in Haggai 1. We should take seriously what He has entrusted to us.
Haggai’s Final Message Went to Zerubbabel
As you read Kings and Chronicles, you notice that events are dated by the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah. Here are a few examples:
1 Kings 15:1 — “In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam [of Israel], Abijam began to reign over Judah.”
2 Kings 18:9 — “In the fourth year of Hezekiah [king of Judah], which was the seventh year of Hoshea… king of Israel…”
2 Chronicles 34:3 — Josiah “in the eighth year of his reign [over Judah]… began to seek the God of David his father.”
By Haggai’s day, Judah no longer had a king on David’s throne. Instead, the dates were reckoned by Darius, the king of Persia:
Haggai 1:1, 15; 2:10 — In the second year of Darius the king [of Persia], in the sixth month, on the first day of the month…1:15 on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king… 2:10 On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet,
By the time Haggai began preaching, Darius ruled a kingdom that looked invincible. The Jews had gone decades without a king on David’s throne, and God had said through Jeremiah that He would cast off His signet ring. Here is how the situation looked:
- The Persian Empire is continuing indefinitely
- The Jewish kingdom is over, and the throne of David is no more
This gives us the important background we need as we look at the fourth and last message in Haggai.
Haggai 2:20 — The word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month,
The word came “a second time” because this was the second message on the same date: the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, December 18, 520 B.C. Earlier that day, Haggai had delivered his third message, concluding with God’s promise, “From this day on I will bless you.”
There is one major difference with this fourth message from the previous three. Every other message in this book goes to a crowd: “this people,” “all the remnant of the people,” the priests. This one goes only to Zerubbabel.
Haggai 2:21a — “Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying:
This is the book’s personal word to Zerubbabel. His family history helps us see why he needed this encouragement.
God Gets the Last Word over Every Kingdom
Haggai 2:21b–22 — I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, 22 and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders. And the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his brother.
“I am about to shake the heavens and the earth” repeats what God said in Haggai 2:6. Here, notice what He promises to do:
- He will overthrow the throne of kingdoms.
- He will destroy their strength.
- He will overthrow the chariots and the men riding in them.
- And the horses and their riders will go down — “every one by the sword of his brother.”
Chariots and horses were among the most expensive and feared weapons a nation could own. This was the heavy armor of the ancient world, but God said He would overthrow all of it.
He is not only talking about Persia. He will overthrow every kingdom of the world. This brings us to the second lesson: God gets the last word over every kingdom.
Think about the community whose governor received this promise: about 50,000 people in a small province, with no army, no king, and no wall, trying to finish a building. They were a religious minority inside somebody else’s empire. But God still told their governor that He would overthrow the kingdoms.
When Haggai spoke these words, Persia was the largest empire the world had ever seen, stretching from India to Ethiopia. If you had stood in Jerusalem in 520 BC and looked around, you would have concluded that Persia was permanent and this little community rebuilding the temple was the thing that would disappear.
But God looked at the same world and said, “I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms.” And He did:
- Persia fell to Greece.
- Greece fell to Rome.
- Rome fell too.
Every kingdom that looked unshakable is gone, and the people of God, who had no army, no king, and no wall, are still here worshiping the same God.
God Can Turn the Nations against One Another
And notice also how God says He will do it: “every one by the sword of his brother.” He will have them defeat each other as we have seen God do with enemies before:
He did it to the Midianites when Gideon’s three hundred men blew their trumpets and broke their jars (Judges 7:22). He did it to the invading armies when Jehoshaphat sent the choir out in front of the soldiers (2 Chronicles 20:23).
Sometimes God does not raise up an army against an army. He simply lets them turn on each other. The Jews won’t have to lift a finger.
As Christians, we are in the minority. But being in the minority is not the same as being on the losing side. The kingdoms that seem so powerful today are on the same list as Persia, Greece, and Rome. They have thrones, but God gets the last word over every one of them.
Why God Called Zerubbabel His Signet Ring
Haggai 2:23 — On that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the Lord, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the Lord of hosts.
Three times in one verse is the phrase “declares the Lord.” There is nothing else like that in this book. God signs one sentence three times.
God says remarkable things to Zerubbabel. At the beginning of the verse, He calls him “my servant,” which is what He called David. Toward the end, He says, “I have chosen you,” using the language of election. In the middle comes the promise: “I will… make you like a signet ring.”
Here is the connection that holds this message together: Zerubbabel is Jehoiachin’s grandson, which also makes him one of David’s descendants. But God says the opposite to these two men:
- To Jehoiachin the grandfather: “Even if you were the signet ring on my right hand, I would tear you off.”
- To Zerubbabel the grandson: “I will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you.”
With this statement, God maintained the line of David. David was followed by many generations, then Josiah, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Shealtiel, and Zerubbabel. Jehoiachin was the ring torn off; Zerubbabel was the ring put back on. The line continued to Christ.
God Kept His Judgment and His Promise
Now you could look at this and say, “How could God do this? He judged Jehoiachin, but then went back on that judgment!”
That is not what happened. Jeremiah 22:30 said Jehoiachin’s offspring would not succeed in sitting on David’s throne and ruling again in Judah. Zerubbabel received the signet-ring promise, but he remained a governor. He was never made king.
This brings us to the third lesson: God kept His judgment and His promise. God restored the Davidic line, but He did not restore the throne in Zerubbabel’s lifetime. He did not soften His judgment against Jehoiachin, and He did not forget His promise to David.
Why Do Matthew and Luke Give Different Genealogies?
To understand the connection to Christ, we need to consider a common question: why does Jesus have two different genealogies in Matthew and Luke? This is technical, but it matters. The two genealogies address three dilemmas.
The first dilemma concerns Jesus’ humanity and sinlessness. Jesus had to be born of a woman so He could be fully human, but every descendant of Adam is born under the curse. For Christ to avoid inheriting Adam’s sin nature, He could not be born of a man. The virgin birth resolves this, and Luke’s genealogy shows Jesus being born of Mary, fully Man.
The second dilemma concerns His right to David’s throne. That royal right was established through the father. Jesus’ claim to David’s throne is established through His legal father, Joseph, as demonstrated in Matthew’s genealogy.
Think of the distinction this way: Luke’s genealogy shows Jesus as fully man, born of His mother, Mary. Matthew’s genealogy shows His claim to David’s throne through His legal father, Joseph.
Both genealogies come down from David, but through two different sons:
- Matthew establishes Jesus’ claim to the throne and goes through Solomon and all the other kings we know, such as Asa, Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat, and Josiah.
- Luke goes through Nathan, one of David’s other sons who wasn’t king, followed by a bunch of other guys we know almost nothing about because they also weren’t kings, and this genealogy shows Jesus was born of Mary and fully human.
What does this have to do with Haggai? Both genealogies name Zerubbabel. Matthew mentions him in Matthew 1:12–13, and Luke mentions him in Luke 3:27.
When God told Zerubbabel He would make him like His signet ring, it was more than a kind gesture toward a faithful governor. God was maintaining the messianic line. If the ring stays off, there is no line. If the ring goes back on, the line continues.
The Virgin Birth and the Judgment on Jehoiachin
The third dilemma concerns God’s judgment and His promise. God said Jehoiachin’s offspring would not succeed in sitting on David’s throne and ruling again in Judah. Yet He had promised David an enduring throne. How could both words stand?
Matthew and Luke both name Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, but their genealogies differ. We should be cautious about reconstructing how those lines connect. What is clear is that God preserved His promise to David through judgment and fulfilled it in Christ.
This clarifies the discussion of the genealogies around 38 minutes into the recorded sermon.
Do you see how careful God is? He kept His judgment against Jehoiachin and His promise to David. He kept His word from Jeremiah 22, but He still seated His Son on the throne of David.
Christ Is the Signet Ring and Everyone in Him Is Sealed
I enjoy studying types and shadows that point forward to Christ. Some receive much more attention than others: David, Melchizedek, Isaac, Jonah, the bronze serpent, the rock in the wilderness, and the bread from heaven.
Zerubbabel does not receive as much attention. Perhaps you have never thought of him as a type or shadow of Christ. But he points us to our final lesson: Christ is the signet ring, and everyone in Him is sealed.
Connect the words “make you like a signet ring” in Haggai 2:23 with John 6:27:
John 6:27 — On [the Son of Man] God the Father has set his seal.
When I talk about types and shadows, you’ll often hear me say Jesus is the “True and greater,” because there are always ways types and shadows fall short of the true and greater substance found in Christ. If the type or shadow didn’t fall short, it wouldn’t be the type or shadow. It would be the reality.
Zerubbabel was made like a signet ring. Jesus is the One on whom the Father set His seal. Christ is the Father’s signet ring.
Matthew 28:18 — “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Zerubbabel carried some authority for his lifetime. Christ has all authority for all time.
God the Father put His seal on His Son, but if you’re in His Son, you’re sealed too:
Ephesians 1:13 — In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
God has done something beautiful with the signet-ring imagery as He carried it forward through the centuries:
He used it to pronounce judgment on an evil king, Jehoiachin. He used it to encourage a faithful governor, Zerubbabel. He set His seal on His Son. And He seals every believer with the promised Holy Spirit.
We are not only forgiven. We are sealed.
Trust the God Who Keeps His Word
Jehoiachin warns us to take sin seriously. The fall of mighty kingdoms reminds us that God gets the last word. Zerubbabel’s signet-ring promise directs us to the God who keeps His word and preserves His purposes in Christ.
God is a King who does not take the ring off His hand.
If you have never come to Christ, this is what He offers: to be taken, chosen, and sealed by God Himself. If you are in Christ, the hope to which the last verse of Haggai points belongs to you, too. He took you. He chose you. And He does not take the ring off.
Continue studying Haggai with God’s answer to discouragement or revisit the preceding message, “From This Day On I Will Bless You.”
