Haggai 2:15

2:10-19 Many spoiled this good work, by going about it with unholy hearts and hands, and were likely to gain no advantage by it. The sum of these two rules of the law is, that sin is more easily learned from others than holiness. The impurity of their hearts and lives shall make the work of their hands, and all their offerings, unclean before God. The case is the same with us. When employed in any good work, we should watch over ourselves, lest we render it unclean by our corruptions. When we begin to make conscience of duty to God, we may expect his blessing; and whoso is wise will understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. God will curse the blessings of the wicked, and make bitter the prosperity of the careless; but he will sweeten the cup of affliction to those who diligently serve him.

And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward,.... This being their case, and they so polluted with sin, particularly through their neglect of building the temple; they are most earnestly and importunately entreated to "lay" it "to their hearts", to ponder it in their minds, and thoroughly consider how it had fared with them from this twenty fourth day of the ninth month, in which the prophet was sent unto them to encourage them in their work, and upwards or backwards, for some years past: even from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord: the foundation of the temple was laid quickly after the Jews returned from Babylon, upon the proclamation of Cyrus, Ezra 3:10 but, through difficulties and discouragements they met with, they desisted from the work, and went no further; a stone was not laid upon it; or, as the Targum, a row, or course upon course, until this time: and now all the intermediate space of time between the first laying the foundation of the temple, and their present going to work upon it, the prophet would have them take particular notice of; how it had been with them, as to their outward circumstances; whereby it would appear, they had sinned, and the Lord had been offended with them.

Haggai 2:15-17 . And now, consider from this day, &c. — Reflect on what has happened to you, from the time that a stop was put to the building of the temple, after the first foundation of it was laid, till you began again to rebuild it. And upward — Or, forward. He had bid them look back, Haggai 1:5 ; Haggai 1:7 ; now he bids them look forward. Since those days — All the time the temple lay neglected. When one came to a heap — Namely, of corn, which seemed likely to produce twenty measures; there were but ten — Only half the quantity expected was found to be produced, through the poverty of the ear. The verse, it must be observed, according to the present rendering, is very elliptical; but if the first clause be explained by the second, which it ought to be, the sense will clearly appear to be this: When one came to a heap for twenty measures; that is, when a person came to a heap of corn on his floor, either of sheaves unthrashed, or of corn unwinnowed, and expected that it would have produced twenty measures after it was thrashed and winnowed, to his great disappointment he had but ten out of it. Such also was the case of those who came to draw out fifty measures of wine from the wine-press. I smote you with blasting — Burning and scorching winds; and with hail — Which even in cold countries many times destroys corn, fruits, and trees, by its violence; but in those hot countries does it much oftener.

And now; furthermore consider. I pray you: he affectionately entreats them to observe. From this day; this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, Haggai 2:10 . And upward, through past years; trace year after year, and your successes and disappointments in them, observe all years past before you would set upon the rebuilding of the temple after you had intermitted it; some years passed, ten, or fifteen, or twenty, or forty, (or more say some,) between your surceasing from the work and beginning to rebuild. Before a stone was laid upon a stone; the prophet meaneth either before they began to lay one stone upon another in the foundation laid in Cyrus’s time, or before they began to lay the foundation of the walls of the courts and outward edifices. In the temple; either strictly taken for the house of God, or more largely for the rest of the buildings about the house: this tacitly reproves their sloth; it was the temple they neglected, which they did long for in Babylon. Of the Lord; so much the greater their sin, for that it was the Lord’s temple was slighted.

Verse 15 - The prophet bids the people look backwards, and consider how their neglect had been visited by scanty harvests; their own experience would teach them this lesson. From this day ; viz. the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, when this address was delivered (ver. 10; comp. ver. 18). And upward; i.e. backward. He bids them go back in thought fourteen years when they first intermitted building. Before a stone, etc. This does not mean before the building was first begun, but before they began to build on the foundation already laid. Haggai 2:15

15. consider—literally, "lay it to heart." Ponder earnestly, retracing the past "upward" (that is, backward), comparing what evils heretofore befell you before ye set about this work, with the present time when you have again commenced it, and when in consequence I now engage to "bless you." Hence ye may perceive the evils of disobedience and the blessing of obedience.

15 . The A.V. is a little obscure. The verse may be rendered more clearly thus: And now consider, I pray yon, from this day (the 24th day of the ninth month, on which the prophet was speaking, ver. 10–18) and upward (that is backward), from (the time when) not yet stone was laid upon stone in the temple of the Lord. This is the other limit from which the reckoning is to be made, the time when the foundation of the temple had been laid, but no further progress in building had taken place, no “stone upon stone” had been added. It answers to the clause in ver. 18, “from the time when the temple of the Lord was founded.” 15–19 . The great moral lesson of the Book is again inculcated. Let them fix their attention on the long period of their neglect of God and His House; the eighteen years that had intervened, between the laying of the foundation of the Temple and the 24th day of the ninth month of the second year of Darius, on which this prophecy was uttered. Let them lay to heart the fact that it had been throughout a period of distress and dearth, of gloom and darkness.

Let them note the bright contrast, the plenty and prosperity, which their return to God and care for His House and worship should immediately introduce. “From this day will I bless you, saith the Lord.” The period which they are to consider is first described in ver. 15–17, and then again, with a view to impress the lesson, in ver. 18, 19, the limits of time being now more clearly defined, and the promise of blessing introduced.

And now, I pray you - Observe his tenderness, in drawing their attention to it , "Consider from this day and upward." He bids them look backward, "from before a stone was laid upon a stone," i. e., from the last moment of their neglect in building the house of God; "from since those days were," or from the time backward "when those things were," (resuming, in the word, "from-their-being" , the date which he had just given, namely, the beginning of their resuming the building backward, during all those years of neglect) "one came to a heap of twenty measures." The precise measure is not mentioned: the force of the appeal lay in the proportion: the heap of grain which, usually, would yield twenty, (whether bushels or seahs or any other measure, for the heap itself being of no defined size, neither could the quantity expected from it be defined) there were ten only; "one came to the pressvat to draw out fifty" vessels out of the press, or perhaps fifty poorah, i. e., the ordinary quantity drawn out at one time from the press, there were, or it bad become twenty, two-fifths only of what they looked for and ordinarily obtained. The dried grapes yielded so little.