‘Is it the time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house is waste?

Those repatriated Jews were saying that it was not the time for them to build the temple of Jehovah, and so “this house” of divine worship was lying “waste,” with just a foundation laid back in 536 B.C.E., but with no superstructure thereon. At the same time they themselves were living in their well-roofed houses with a ceiling and with their walls nicely paneled with fine woods. What a marked contrast there was between their private homes for fleshly comforts and the sacred house of Jehovah for the spiritual interests of the whole nation! Was this not an unbalanced state of affairs? Did this not betray that they were putting more emphasis on material things, comforts of their own flesh, than on their spiritual needs and their obligations to the Great Theocrat, Jehovah?