Hag 1:3-11 | TNotes

1:4 ^a Why are you? Rhetorical questions in prophetic literature call for agreement rather than a reply (see 2:3 ^b). The purpose of this question is to remove the listeners’ opportunity to offer excuses in response to the message.

• The luxurious (or covered, paneled) houses of the people contrasted with God’s Temple, which was in ruins (or desolate) and thus unusable.
1:5 ^c Look at what’s happening to you (literally Set your heart on these matters): For the Hebrews, the heart is the place where thinking, feeling, and willing all occur. So this command (also 1:7 ^d; 2:15 ^e, 18 ^f) calls upon the people to think carefully and draw the proper conclusions about the connection between what’s happening to them (drought and poverty, 1:6 ^g) and their failure to restore proper worship of the Lord (1:8-9 ^h).
1:6 ⁱ eat ... drink ... put on clothes: Each of these conveys continuous action (i.e., you keep filling your plates ... you keep drinking and drinking ... you put on layer after layer of clothes), heightening the sense of futility.

• pockets filled with holes (literally a pierced bag): The image depicts the loss of wages. Many families faced poverty despite their steady labors.
1:8 ^j Now go up into the hills: The stands of trees around Jerusalem were insufficient to meet the demands of the Temple project. Such supplies would have been imported from Lebanon and Syria to the north.

• The challenge to rebuild my house underscores the importance of worship in the life of the community and the need for a proper sanctuary so worship of the Lord might take place according to the law. The land would experience blessing and prosperity when the Lord’s Temple—his dwelling place—was rebuilt (2:4 ^k).
1:9 ^l I blew it away: The Lord destroyed the harvest because the people’s priorities were wrong—they thought only of themselves rather than of God.

• says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies: The “God-as-speaker formula,” which often closes a prophecy (1:13 ^m; 2:8 ⁿ, 17 ^o, 23 ^p), verified Haggai’s message as the sure word of God.
1:11 ^q I have called for a drought: The people failed to recognize their plight as a divine judgment on their misplaced priorities, so Haggai interpreted the situation in light of the curses attached to the covenant (Deut 28:15-68 ^r, especially vv 22-24 ^s, 38-40 ^t).

• Drought (Hebrew khoreb) is a wordplay on “ruins” (Hag 1:4 ^u, 9 ^v; Hebrew khareb)—Judah’s experiences corresponded with the condition in which they had left the Lord’s Temple.