Haggaichapter 1
15 verses · Haggai · 520 BC · The Twelve
Key verse
In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,
It stands in You live in paneled houses while my house lies waste, verses 1 to 6.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Dated to the day (the second year of Darius, sixth month, first day) and addressed to Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest. The people say it is not the time to build Jehovah's house, and the prophet answers with a question that lands in their own living rooms: 'Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your ceiled houses, while this house lieth waste?' Then the audit: 'Ye have sown much, and bring in little… and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.' Consider your ways. Twenty-three days later they obey, Jehovah stirs up their spirit, and work resumes, carried by six words: 'I am with you, saith Jehovah' (1:13).
Context
Prophecy · Haggai · Haggai overview
The world behind this chapter
Haggai 1The history
The first group came home under Cyrus's decree in 538 BC, rebuilt the altar, and laid the temple foundation around 536 BC. Then local opposition and official complaints froze the project, and it stayed frozen for about sixteen years. People got on with their lives.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The dates in this book are given by the Persian regnal calendar, which lets us convert them to the modern calendar within a day. The second year of Darius I was 520 BC. Darius had come to the throne in a violent succession crisis in 522 BC and spent his first years putting down revolts across the empire, a fact he advertised on a huge trilingual inscription cut into a cliff at Behistun.
Haggai's charge is specific: "Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?" Paneled or roofed houses were finished construction, the kind you build when you intend to stay. The temple, meanwhile, was a foundation with weeds on it.
The economic diagnosis follows: you have sown much and bring in little, you eat but are not filled, you earn wages to put into a bag with holes. A drought had been called on the land, the grain, the new wine, the oil, and the labor of their hands.
The response is what makes this book remarkable. Twenty-three days later, the whole community, governor, high priest, and people, went to work. Almost no prophet in the Old Testament gets obeyed that fast.
What it meant to them
This spoke to a community that had lost its nerve rather than its faith. Nobody in Jerusalem had renounced God. They had simply concluded that the time had not come, and quietly reorganized their lives around that conclusion.
The promise given when they moved is five words long: "I am with you, saith the LORD." No timeline, no funding, no guarantee against the neighbors. That was enough to restart the work.
Sources cited
- Edwin Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
Where the chapter sits
Haggai 1 falls in Consider your ways; build the house (chapters 1). The first oracle: the people are panelling their own houses while the LORD's house lies waste.
Consider your ways. The appeal; the response; the spirit of the people stirred.
After it: The latter glory and the signet, chapters 2.
The whole shape of Haggai→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. You live in paneled houses while my house lies waste
1. (vv. 1-3)
Haggai 1:1
“In the state; that was Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, of the house of David, who was commander-in-chief of the Jews, in their return out of captivity. In the church; and that was Joshua the son of Josedech, who was now high priest.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Haggai 1:1
“In the second year of Darius - , i. e., Hystaspis. The very first word of prophecy after the captivity betokens that they were restored, not yet as before, yet so, as to be hereafter, more than before. The earthly type, by God’s appointment, was fading away, that the heavenly truth might dawn. The earthly king was withdrawn, to make way for the heavenly.”
Haggai 1:1
“Hence it was that his brother being slain by the consent of the nobles, the kingdom came to Darius. He, then, as we may learn from histories, was the third king of the Persians.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Haggai 1:2
“The time is not come - They thought that the seventy years spoken of by Jeremiah were not yet completed, and it would be useless to attempt to rebuild until that period had arrived. But Abp. Usher has shown that from the commencement of the last siege of Jerusalem unto this time, precisely sixty-nine years had been completed.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Haggai 1:2
"God," say they, "hath interposed many difficulties to punish our rash haste" [CALVIN]. Smerdis' interdict was no longer in force, now that Darius the rightful king was on the throne; therefore they had no real excuse for not beginning at once to build. AUBERLEN denies that by "Artaxerxes" in Ezr 4:7-22 is meant Smerdis.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Haggai 1:3
“And the word of the Lord came - o “Before, he prophesied nothing, but only recited the saying of the people; now he refutes it in his prophecy, and repeats, again and again, that he says this not of himself, but from the mind and mouth of God.” It is characteristic of Haggai to inculcate thus frequently, that his words are not his own, but the words of God.”
In the second year of Darius: The date is exact, the second year of Darius, the sixth month, the first day, and the bench reads the precision itself as a claim: this word came at a datable hour to a datable king, addressed jointly to Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest, the civil and priestly heads of the returned remnant. Sixteen years had passed since the altar's foundation was laid and the work had stalled under opposition and discouragement. The people's excuse is quoted in their own words, the time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built, a sentence verse 3's second word from the Lord will spend the chapter answering.
2. (v. 4)
Haggai 1:4
“Is it time for you - If the time be not come to rebuild the temple, it cannot be come for you to build yourselves comfortable houses: but ye are rebuilding your houses; why then do ye not rebuild the house of the Lord? The foundation of the temple had been laid fourteen years before, and some considerable progress made in the building; and it had been lying waste in that unfinished state to the present time.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Haggai 1:4
"It is high time," says one, "that my house were wainscoted." "It is high time," says another, "that mine were painted." And God's house, all this time, lies waste, and nothing is done at it.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Haggai 1:4
“Is it time--It is not time (Hag 1:2), ye say, to build Jehovah's house; yet how is it that ye make it a fit time not only to build, but to "dwell" at ease in your own houses? you, O ye--rather, for "you, you"; the repetition marking the shameful contrast between their concern for themselves, and their unconcern for God [MAURER].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Is it time for you: The Lord answers the people's excuse with their own contradiction: is it time for you to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? Cieled means paneled, finished with costly woodwork, the mark of comfortable private building while the temple site stood bare stone and rubble. Gill and Clarke both note the sting is not that the people lack time or resources, since they have plainly found both for their own homes, but that they have ranked the Lord's house last on a list where it belongs first.
3. (vv. 5-6)
Haggai 1:5
“And now, thus saith the Lord of hosts; “Consider,” (literally “set your heart upon) your ways,” what they had been doing, what they were doing, and what those doings had led to, and would lead to. This is ever present to the mind of the prophets, as speaking God’s words, that our acts are not only “ways” in which we go, each day of life being a continuance of the day before; but that they are ways which lead, somewhere in God’s Providence and His justice; to some end of the “way,” good or bad.”
1 more voice on this verse
Haggai 1:5
“Consider your ways--literally, "Set your heart" on your ways. The plural implies, Consider both what ye have done (actively, La 3:40) and what ye have suffered (passively) [JEROME]. Ponder earnestly whether ye have gained by seeking self at the sacrifice of God.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Haggai 1:6
“Ye have sown much - God will not bless you in any labor of your hands, unless you rebuild his temple and restore his worship. This verse contains a series of proverbs, no less than five in the compass of a few lines.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Haggai 1:6
“They were sensible of the smart of the judgment, and every one complained of the unseasonable weather, the great losses they sustained in their corn and cattle, and the decay of trade; but they were not sensible of the cause of the judgment, and the ground of God's controversy with them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Consider your ways: , literally set your heart upon your ways, opens the first of the chapter's two calls to the same phrase, and the command is diagnostic before it is corrective: look at the actual shape of your life and ask why it does not add up. The list that follows is a portrait of futility, sown much and brought in little, eaten and never filled, clothed and never warm, wages earned into a bag with holes, each clause naming a good pursued and a good that will not hold. Henry reads the bag with holes as Haggai's own coinage for a curse that drains resources exactly at the point of use, unseen until the purse is counted empty.
B. Consider your ways: you sowed much and brought in little
1. (vv. 7-9)
Haggai 1:7
“Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider your ways. What they have been; what has been the consequence of them; and to what the above things are to be ascribed. This exhortation is repeated, to impress it the more upon their minds; and to denote the importance of it, and the necessity of such a conduct; See Gill on Hag 1:5.”
Haggai 1:8
“Go up to the mountain, and bring wood - Go to Lebanon, and get timber. In the second year of the return from the captivity, they had procured cedar trees from Lebanon, and brought them to Joppa, and had hired masons and carpenters from the Tyrians and Sidonians; but that labor had been nearly lost by the long suspension of the building. Ezr 3:7.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Haggai 1:8
“Stones also were doubtless needed. That the old walls were not standing, as the Hebrew interpreters quoted by JEROME state, or the new walls partly built, appears from Hag 2:18, where express mention is made of laying the foundations.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Haggai 1:9
“Ye looked - , literally “a looking;” as though he said, it has all been one looking, “for much,” for increase, the result of all sowing, in the way of nature: “and behold it came to little,” i. e., less than was sown; as Isaiah denounced to them of old by God’s word, Isa 5:10. “the seed of a homer shall yield an ephah,” i. e., one tenth of what was sown. “And ye brought it home, and I blew upon it,” so as to disperse it, as, not the wheat, but the chaff is blown before the wind.”
2 more voices on this verse
Haggai 1:9
“Observe wherefore God thus contended with them, and stopped the current of the favours promised them at their return ( Joel ii. 24 ); they provoked him to do it: It is because of my house that is waste. This is the quarrel God has with them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Haggai 1:9
“Ye looked for much--literally, "looked" so as to turn your eyes "to much." The Hebrew infinitive here expresses continued looking. Ye hoped to have your store made "much" by neglecting the temple.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways: Consider your ways repeats a second time, now paired with the remedy: go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house, and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. Wood from the local hills answers the same request Cyrus's decree had already authorized (Ezra 3:7), so the obstacle was never supply but will. Verse 9 names the cause behind the drought of verses 6 and 10 directly: ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little, and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it, because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house, the Lord himself identifying the withheld blessing as discipline rather than accident.
2. (vv. 10-11)
Haggai 1:10
“Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew - It appears from the following verse that God had sent a drought upon the land, which threatened them with scarcity and famine.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Haggai 1:10
“Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew,....”
Haggai 1:10
“Therefore, for you, - on your account; (As in Ps. 44:43.) for your sins, (Jon.) He points out the moral cause of the drought, whereas men think of this or that cause of the variations of the seasons, and we, e. g., take into our mouths Scriptural words, as “murrain of cattle,” and the like, and think of nothing less than why it was sent, or who sent it. Haggai directs the mind to the higher Cause, that as they withheld their service from God, so, on their account and by His will, His creatures withheld their service from them.”
Haggai 1:11
“It is called and introduced living speech of God, and effective, and sharp above every two-edged sword (Heb. IV), so that the neglectful soul (which is interpreted as a dry land, and desires to dwell more in hollows than to build the house of God) may be struck by its blade, and whatever fruits it thinks it has, may be scattered. The sword is also brought against the mountains that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, and against the wheat, and wine, and oil, with which they deceive the people who have been deceived by the assemblies of heretics...”
Jerome· written before 420· COMMENTARY ON HAGGAI 1:11patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Haggai 1:11
“And I called for a drought upon the land - God called to the people and they would not hear. It is His ever-repeated complaint to them. “I called unto you, and ye would not hear.” He called to His inanimate creatures to punish them, and “they” obeyed. So Elisha tells the woman, whose son he had restored to life, 2Ki 8:1. “The Lord hath called to the famine, and it shall also come to the land seven years.” And upon men, - in that the drought was oppressive to man.”
Haggai 1:11
“This drought God called for, and it came at the call; as the winds and the waves, so the rays of the sun, obey him. It was universal, and the ill effects of it were general; it was a drought upon the mountains, which, lying high, were first affected with it. The mountains were their pasture-grounds, and used to be covered over with flocks, but now there was no grass for them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the heaven over you is stayed: The drought is total, heaven withholding dew and earth withholding fruit, and the Lord's own drought called down on the land, the mountains, the corn, the new wine, the oil, the ground's yield, men, cattle, and all the labor of the hands. Keil reads the sweep of the list, every category of agrarian life named in turn, as the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28 arriving on schedule, the very mechanism the law had warned would follow neglect of the Lord's house and worship. The drought is not random hardship but a covenant lawsuit made visible in weather and harvest.
C. The people obeyed and the LORD stirred up their spirit
1. (vv. 12-13)
Haggai 1:12
“But as it is not till Hag 1:14 after Haggai's second message (Hag 1:13) that the people actually obeyed, MAURER translates here, "hearkened to the voice of the Lord," and instead of "as," "because the Lord had sent him." However, English Version rightly represents their purpose of obedience as obedience in God's eyes already, though not carried into effect till Hag 1:14.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Haggai 1:12
“It is sometimes so; when good preaching is most scarce it does most good, whereas the manna that is rained in plenty is loathed as light bread. And, because they so readily received this prophet, God, within a month or two after, raised them up another, Zech. i.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Haggai 1:13
“And Haggai, the Lord’s messenger - Malachi, whose own name was framed to express that he was “the Lord’s messenger,” and Haggai alone use the title, as the title of a prophet; perhaps as forerunners of the great prophet whom Malachi announced. Malachi also speaks of the priest, as Mal 2:7 “the messenger of the Lord of hosts,” and prophesies of John Baptist as Mal 3:1 “the messenger” of the Lord, who should go before His face.”
1 more voice on this verse
Haggai 1:13
“He hastens as it were to forget their former unfaithfulness, and to assure them, when obedient, that He both is and will be with them: Hebrew, "I with you!" God's presence is the best of blessings, for it includes all others. This is the sure guarantee of their success no matter how many their foes might be (Ro 8:31).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
obeyed the voice of the Lord: The response is immediate and total: Zerubbabel, Joshua, and all the remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, and the people did fear before the Lord. No other prophet in the Twelve records so swift and complete an obedience to a single sermon. Then spake Haggai the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message answers that obedience at once with the shortest and plainest word of assurance in the book, I am with you, saith the Lord, Henry noting that the messenger's title and the message's content are one sentence, the prophet himself named a messenger of the Lord for having carried exactly what the Lord said.
2. (vv. 14-15)
Haggai 1:14
“Every good impulse and revival of religion is the direct work of God by His Spirit. came and did work--collected the wood and stones and other materials (compare Hag 1:8) for the work. Not actually built or "laid the (secondary) foundations" of the temple, for this was not done till three months after, namely, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month (Hag 2:18) [GROTIUS].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Haggai 1:14
“The Lord of hosts - By which name he delights to be known among the returned captives; and it was a name best suited to their present state, compassed on all hands with enemies.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Haggai 1:15
“In the four and twentieth day of the month - The interval of twenty-three days must have been spent in preparation, since the message came on the first of the month, and the obedience was immediate.”
1 more voice on this verse
Haggai 1:15
“Note, Those that have lost time have need to redeem time; and the longer we have loitered in that which is good the more haste we should make when we are convinced of our folly. How God met them in a way of mercy.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the Lord stirred up the spirit: The chapter closes on the source of the obedience just recorded: the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the spirit of Joshua, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people, so that they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts. The bench reads the stirring as prevenient, the Lord moving the will before the will moves the hands, the same verb used of Cyrus at Ezra 1:1 and 5. The date closes the chapter exactly as it opened it, the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, twenty-three days after the first oracle, marking how short a span stood between the rebuke and the resumed work.
This page carries no textual note on Haggai 1. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
Keep studying
On this page
Studies4
On this verse
On this chapter
On this book
People4