The style of Haggai is generally tame and prosaic, though at times it rises to the dignity of severe invective when the prophet rebukes his countrymen for their selfish indolence and neglect of God's house. But the brevity of the prophecies is so great, and the poverty of expression which characterizes them so striking, as to give rise to a conjecture, not without reason, that in their present form they are but the outline or summary of the original discourses. They were delivered in the second year of Darius Hystaspes (B.C. 620), at intervals from the 1st day of the 6th month to the 24th day of the 9th month in the same year.