Haggai 2:15

The prophet explains these words in Hag 2:15-19 by representing the failure of the crops, and the curse that has hitherto prevailed, as a punishment from God for having been wanting in faithfulness to the Lord (Hag 2:15-17), and promises that from that time forward the blessing of God shall rest upon them again (Hag 2:18, Hag 2:19). Hag 2:15. "And now, direct your heart from this day and onward, before stone was laid to stone at the temple of Jehovah. Hag 2:16. Before this was, did one come to the heap of sheaves of twenty-(in measure), there were ten: did he come to the vat to draw fifty buckets, there were twenty. Hag 2:17. I have smitten you with blasting, and with mildew, and with hail, all the work of your hands; and not one of you (turned) to me, is the saying of Jehovah." The object to which they are to direct their heart, i.e., to give heed, is not to be supplied from Hag 1:5, Hag 1:7, "to your ways" (Ros. and others), but is contained substantially in Hag 2:16 and Hag 2:17, and is first of all indicated in the words "from this day," etc. They are to notice what has taken place from this day onwards. נמעלה, lit., upwards, then further on. Here it is used not in the sense of forwards into the future, but, as the explanatory clause which follows (from before, etc.) clearly shows, in that of backwards into the past. Mitterem, literally "from the not yet of the laying ... onwards," i.e., onwards from the time when stone was laid upon stone at the temple; in other words, when the building of the temple was resumed, backwards into the past; in reality, therefore, the time before the resuming of the building of the temple: for min and mitterem cannot be taken in any other sense than in the parallel מיּום which precedes it, and מהיותם which follows in Hag 2:16. The obje…

In this chapter we have three sermons preached by the prophet Haggai for the encouragement of those that are forward to build the temple. In the first he assures the builders that the glory of the house they were now building should, in spiritual respects, though not in outward, exceed that of Solomon's temple, in which he has an eye to the coming of Christ (Hag 2:1-9). In the second he assures them that though their sin, in delaying to build the temple, had retarded the prosperous progress of all their other affairs, yet now that they had set about it in good earnest he would bless them, and give them success (Hag 2:10-19). In the third he assures Zerubbabel that, as a reward of his pious zeal and activity herein, he should be a favourite of Heaven, and one of the ancestors of Messiah the Prince, whose kingdom should be set up on the ruins of all opposing powers (Hag 2:20-23).

2:15 Look at what was happening (see study note on 1:5): Divine blessing, whether spiritual or material, is contingent upon the obedience of God’s people (Deut 30:6-10). Haggai called the people to persist in the self-examination that leads to repentance and in the fear of the Lord that his first message initiated (see Hag 1:7, 12).