From Insight for Living 

The prophet Haggai recorded his 4 messages to the Jewish people of Jerusalem in 520 BC, 18 years after their return from exile in Babylon (538 BC).  Haggai 2:3  seems to indicate that the prophet had seen Jerusalem before the destruction of the temple and the exile in 586 BC, meaning he was more than seventy years old by the time he delivered his prophecies. From these facts, the picture of Haggai begins to come into focus. He was an older man looking back on the glories of his nation, a prophet imbued with a passionate desire to see his people rise up from the ashes of exile and reclaim their rightful place as God’s light to the nations.