Hag 2:15-18 | JFB | STEP | 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.

Haggai 2:15-18

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.

16. Since those days were—from the time that those days of your neglect of the temple work have been.

when one came to an heap of twenty measures —that is, to a heap which he had expected would be one of twenty measures, there were but ten.

fifty vessels out of the press—As the Septuagint translates "measure," and Vulgate "a flagon," and as we should rather expect vat than press. MAURER translates (omitting vessels, which is not in the original), "purahs," or "wine-measures."

17. Appropriated from Am 4:9, whose canonicity is thus sealed by Haggai's inspired authority; in the last clause, "turned," however, has to be supplied, its omission marking by the elliptical abruptness ("yet ye not to Me!") God's displeasure. Compare "(let him come) unto Me!" Moses in excitement omitting the bracketed words (Ex 32:26). "Blasting" results from excessive drought; "mildew, from excessive moisture.

18. Resumed from Hag 2:15 after Hag 2:16, 17, that the blessing in Hag 2:19 may stand in the more marked contrast with the curse in Hag 2:16, 17. Affliction will harden the heart, if not referred to God as its author [MOORE].

even from the day that the foundation of . . . temple was laid—The first foundation beneath the earth had been long ago laid in the second year of Cyrus, 535 B.C. (Ezr 3:10, 11); the foundation now laid was the secondary one, which, above the earth, was laid on the previous work [TIRINUS]. Or, translate, "From this day on which the temple is being begun," namely, on the foundations long ago laid [GROTIUS]. MAURER translates, "Consider . . . from the four and twentieth day . . . to (the time which has elapsed) from the day on which the foundation . . . was laid." The Hebrew supports English Version.