-- before those [days] were, when one came to a heap of twenty [measures], there were but ten; when one came to the vat to draw out fifty press-measures, there were but twenty.
God asks His people to do the arithmetic of their lean years. Grain and wine both came in far short of what they had counted on. So where did the missing measures go? And why is the God who withheld them now about to promise blessing?
The verse is not about farming. God asks His people to read a stretch of years correctly. One writer explains which way they were told to look. (He quotes the previous verse from an older translation.)
This explains the prophet's words, "And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward." That is, they were to look back on the past. The word "upward" here means taking a backward look... Verses 15 to 17 describe how He dealt with them while they were neglecting His house. God could not bless them while their hearts were turned away from Him. That would go against His holiness and against His love for them... So He dealt with them in judgment. He chastised them to wake them out of their spiritual sleep. His aim was to teach them the lesson God's people always need: their true blessing and prosperity lie only in the Lord's ways, and not in their own.
The ten measures that never appeared were not bad weather or bad luck:
What made their failure more striking is that God was no longer keeping up His throne in Israel. Even so, He did not relax His moral government... It was the Lord who blighted their selfish efforts. He was dealing with the unbelief of the returned remnant, and with the neglect that came from it. It was not because He did not love them, but because He did. "For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." When the Lord allows people to go away without rebuke, that is the clear and sure sign that every practical bond is broken — if any bond ever existed. It shows that He now disowns them, at least for the time.
This was not one bad season. It was a settled pattern:
Ever since they stopped building His house, bitter disappointment had been their lot. All their self-seeking brought them no gain, but steady loss. The Lord had withheld the blessing He gives His earthly people in earthly things... All this must be considered from the standpoint of the Jew. Even so, the principle holds good for us as well. The promise in Matthew 6:33, "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you," also refers first of all to the believing Jew. Yet it has its application for us... Neglect of the things of God always brings the same bitter disappointment.
The shortfall had a stated cause:
And why did He send this blight on everything they worked for and everything they expected? Let us write the answer permanently on our hearts: "Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house."
God's discipline has a purpose, and His people can miss it:
The aim of God's ways in government with His people is that they should lay their condition to heart. This is why He uses His rod... He still acts on the same principle in government... And nothing shows how unfeeling our hearts are more clearly than this. We pass through trials, whether personally or in connection with the Church. Then we pay little or no attention to the purpose God had in view, and flatter ourselves that all is well. Every stroke of God's rod should produce deep searching of heart. Where it does not, it is the sure forerunner of harder chastenings from His hand.
God counts up the lean years for people who have already gone back to work:
Three months passed between the day the people started work on the Lord's house and the day they laid the foundation. It is striking to notice that the Lord did not begin to bless them until the foundation was laid. He waited during those three months to test His people's hearts and the reality of their restoration. He also waited to work in them a sense of their past condition, and so to prepare them to receive the blessing He was about to give. It is always so in His ways with His people. His heart towards them never changes, but how He shows it must depend on their condition.
- Count. God asks His people to add up what they received against what they expected. The gap is the message.
- Cause. God Himself withheld the missing measures, because His house lay in ruins while every man ran to his own.
- Care. The blight was not the absence of love but the proof of it. Where God leaves failure unrebuked, the bond is gone.
- Conscience. Loss only profits the one who takes it to heart. Ignored chastening leads to heavier chastening.
- Change. Once their work reached the foundation of His house, the record of loss closed and blessing began that day.
I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the work of your hands; and ye [turned] not to me, saith Jehovah.
The temple foundation has just been laid. Haggai asks the people to look back over years of ruined harvests, to see who sent them, and to face what God wanted from them and never got.
The failed crops were not an accident of weather. Commentators read them as God's deliberate answer. The people had come home from exile, then settled into their own comfort while His house lay in ruins. One writer describes the reasoning behind the discipline:
God could not bless them while their hearts were turned away from Him. His holiness and His love for His people both forbade it. He had brought them back from captivity, and they were using that grace as a way to gain their own ease and comfort. So He dealt with them in judgment. He chastised them to wake them out of their spiritual sleep, and to teach them the lesson God's people always need: their true blessing and prosperity is found in the Lord's ways only, and not in their own.
The tragedy is that they never made the connection. Every explanation was available to them except the right one:
They sowed much, and reaped little. They ate and drank, but were not satisfied. They earned good money, but it trickled away as in a bag full of holes. No doubt they blamed the recession, the unstable politics of the time, the strange weather. It never occurred to them that God was trying to get through to them. "Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins."
The verse names three blows, and the last is hail. One writer explains how a gift from heaven turns into a weapon:
Hail is rain chilled into ice. The mercies of heaven, once despised, turn into pitiless judgment.
The blow fell on "all the products of your toil" — everything they worked for. The verses just before explain why. The priests had confirmed a ruling: holiness does not spread by touch, but defilement does. Haggai then applied that ruling to the nation itself:
Just as a man in an unclean condition defiles what he touches, so the nation of Israel defiled whatever they took up. All their works and offerings are unclean. There must be personal cleanness before anyone can act or offer rightly.
Condition comes first, work second. Another writer applies that to God's people now:
It shows that the root of all failure with the remnant of that day, as with the people of God today, traces back to a low moral condition. In other words, it warns us that outward activity in the Lord's service will not prosper unless a right moral condition goes with it.
The verse closes by recording what never came. One writer describes the state behind it:
The people were in such a state, and so hardened, that they felt nothing under the Lord's chastisements — they did not turn to Him.
The same writer applies this to God's people now, and warns where a missed lesson leads:
He still acts on the same principle in His government. Much of the chastening that falls on His people is meant to make them lay their condition to heart. And nothing proves more plainly how unfeeling our hearts are than this. We pass through trials, alone or along with the Church, and we pay little or no attention to what God had in view, and flatter ourselves that all is well. Every stroke of God's rod should set our hearts searching. Where it does not, heavier chastening from His hand is sure to follow.
The people have just started to obey, and the next verses announce blessing. Haggai raises the painful past to mark the turn, not to crush them:
Still, we are allowed to see that however great the failure of God's people, if they repent and obey the word, they will be blessed. So as soon as the remnant take up the work of the house, the LORD can say, "from this day on I will bless you."
- Cause. The ruined harvests were God's own hand. His people had put their own comfort ahead of His house.
- Purpose. The rod aimed at their hearts. It was sent to wake them up and show them that God's ways, not their own, hold their real blessing.
- Failure. It did not work. They stayed hard, and never heard God's voice in what was happening to them.
- Test. If a trial leaves us unchanged, still sure that all is well, heavier discipline is on the way.
- Turn. The moment they obeyed and took up His work, the record of judgment closed and the promise of blessing began.