Haggai 1:10
in Haggai 1Therefore, on account of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth has withheld its crops.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Therefore for your sake the heavens withhold the dew, and the earth withholdeth its fruit.
KJV
Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.
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This verse in Haggai 1
Commentary
9 notes on this verse(Verse 10) Therefore, says the Lord of hosts, because my house is deserted, and each of you hastens to his own house, for this reason the heavens are withheld from you so that they do not give rain, and the earth withholds its produce. Not only, he says, did the heavens not give rain, by which the watered soil produces crops; but not even the morning and evening dew, so that the dry fields, at least, are tempered with a little moisture.
This site's exposition
the heaven over you is stayed
on Haggai 1:10-11
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.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
He intends by this to remind them of what they have suffered by neglecting the temple. When you overlooked my house lying in ruins and took an interest in rebuilding your own houses, he is saying, then the rain stopped, the land did not yield …
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
): The heaven over you is stayed from dew; he that has the key of the clouds in his hands shut them up, and withheld the rain when the ground called for it, the former or the latter rain, and then of course the earth is stayed from her fruit; for, if the heaven be as brass, the earth is as iron.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew,....
The good success of this sermon, appearing in the people's return and close application to that work, wherein the prophet, in God's name, animated and encouraged them, assuring them that God was with them,
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
heaven . . . is stayed from dew--literally, "stays itself." Thus heaven or the sky is personified; implying that inanimate nature obeys Jehovah's will; and, shocked at His people's disobedience, withholds its goods from them (compare Jer 2:12, 13).
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
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.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
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.
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
because of you the heavens have kept back Because of your sins.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 4 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
9 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| עַל־ | ʾal- | there- | H5921 → | 5755 times |
| כֵּ֣ן | ken | -fore | H3651 → | 771 times |
| עֲלֵיכֶ֔ם | ʾaleikhem | on you | H5921 → | 5755 times |
| כָּלְא֥וּ | kalu | they have withheld | H3607 → | |
| שָמַ֖יִם | shamayim | [the] heavens | H8064 → | 421 times |
| מִטָּ֑ל | mital | from dew | H2919 → | |
| וְהָאָ֖רֶץ | vehaaretz | and the land | H776 → | 2504 times |
| כָּלְאָ֥ה | kalah | it has withheld | H3607 → | |
| יְבוּלָֽהּ׃ | yevulah | produce its | H2981 → |
עַל־there-
ʾal-H5921 →5755 times
כֵּ֣ן-fore
kenH3651 →771 times
עֲלֵיכֶ֔םon you
ʾaleikhemH5921 →5755 times
כָּלְא֥וּthey have withheld
kaluH3607 →
שָמַ֖יִם[the] heavens
shamayimH8064 →421 times
מִטָּ֑לfrom dew
mitalH2919 →
וְהָאָ֖רֶץand the land
vehaaretzH776 →2504 times
כָּלְאָ֥הit has withheld
kalahH3607 →
יְבוּלָֽהּ׃produce its
yevulahH2981 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
1 Kings 17:1Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD lives—the God of Israel before whom I stand—there will be neither dew nor rain in…
it leads to
- Luke 4:25–26
But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all…
- James 5:17
Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.
- Luke 1:17
And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to…
- 1 Kings 22:14
But Micaiah said, “As surely as the LORD lives, I will speak whatever the LORD tells me.”
- 2 Kings 3:14
Then Elisha said, “As surely as the LORD of Hosts lives, before whom I stand, were it not for my regard for the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at…
- Luke 4:25–26
Through
Leviticus 26:19I will break down your stubborn pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze,
it leads to
- Deuteronomy 28:23
The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.
- 1 Kings 17:1
Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD lives—the God of Israel before whom I stand—there will be neither dew nor rain in…
- Deuteronomy 28:23
Through
1 Kings 8:35When the skies are shut and there is no rain because Your people have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and they turn from their sins because…
it leads to
- Luke 4:25
But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all…
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Luke 4:25
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies3
On this verse
On this chapter
About Haggai
This page draws on 9 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Haggai; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Theodore of Mopsuestia, COMMENTARY ON HAGGAI 1:9-11.