From the earliest times this passage, by the majority of the Christian Church, has been interpreted of the coming of Christ. The Vulgate renders ver. 7_b_, _Et veniet Desideratus cunctis gentibus_, and so a large number of the Latin Fathers, who are followed by Luther, _Der Trost aller Heiden_, and by our own Authorised Version, _And the Desire of all nations shall come_. This was not contrary to Jewish tradition, for Rabbi Akiba had defined the clause of the Messiah, and Jerome received the interpretation from his Jewish instructors. In itself the noun, as pointed in the Massoretic text, means _longing_ or _object of longing_.[686] But the verb which goes with it is in the plural, and by a change of points the noun itself may be read as a plural.[687] That this was the original reading is made extremely probable by the fact that it lay before the translators of the Septuagint, who render: _the picked_, or _chosen, things of the nations_.[688] So the old Italic version: _Et venient omnia electa gentium_.[689] Moreover this meaning suits the context, as the other does not. The next verse mentions silver and gold. “We may understand what he says,” writes Calvin, “of Christ; we indeed know that Christ was the expectation of the whole world; ... but as it immediately follows, _Mine is the silver and Mine is the gold_, the more simple meaning is that which I first stated: that the nations would come, bringing with them all their riches, that they might offer themselves and all their possessions a sacrifice to God.”[690] 3. THE POWER OF THE UNCLEAN (Chap. ii. 10-19). Haggai’s third address to the people is based on a deliverance which he seeks from the priests. The Book of Deuteronomy had provided that, in all difficult cases not settled by its own code, the people shall seek a _deliverance_ or _Torah_ from the priests, _and shall observe to do according to the deliverance which the priests deliver to thee_.[691] Both noun and verb, which may be thus literally translated, are also used for the completed and canonical Law in Israel, and they signify that in the time of the composition of the Book of Deuteronomy that Law was still regarded as in process of growth. So it is also in the time of Haggai: he does not consult a code of laws, nor asks the priests what the canon says, as, for instance, our Lord does with the question, _how readest thou_? But he begs them to give him _a_ Torah or _deliverance_,[692] based of course upon existing custom, but not yet committed to writing.[693] For the history of the Law in Israel this is, therefore, a passage of great interest. _On the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of Jehovah came to[694] Haggai the prophet, saying: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, Ask, I pray, of the priests a deliverance,[695] saying:—_