Haggai 2:15-19
New Living Translation
15 Look at what was happening to you before you began to lay the foundation of the Lord’s Temple. 16 When you hoped for a twenty-bushel crop, you harvested only ten. When you expected to draw fifty gallons from the winepress, you found only twenty. 17 I sent blight and mildew and hail to destroy everything you worked so hard to produce. Even so, you refused to return to me, says the Lord.
18 “Think about this eighteenth day of December, the day[a] when the foundation of the Lord’s Temple was laid. Think carefully. 19 I am giving you a promise now while the seed is still in the barn.[b] You have not yet harvested your grain, and your grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, and olive trees have not yet produced their crops. But from this day onward I will bless you.”
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Haggai 2:15-19
New English Translation
15 Now therefore reflect carefully on the recent past,[a] before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple.[b] 16 From that time[c] when one came expecting a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty measures from it, there were only twenty. 17 I struck all the products of your labor[d] with blight, disease, and hail, and yet you brought nothing to me,’[e] says the Lord. 18 ‘Think carefully[f] about the past: from today, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month,[g] to the day work on the temple of the Lord was resumed,[h] think about it.[i] 19 The seed is still in the storehouse, isn’t it? And the vine, fig tree, pomegranate, and olive tree have not produced. Nevertheless, from today on I will bless you.’”
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- Haggai 2:15 tn Heb “and now set your heart from this day and upward.” The juxtaposition of מָעְלָה (maʿlah, “upward”) with the following מִטֶּרֶם (mitterem, “before”) demands a look to the past. Cf. ASV “consider from this day and backward.”
- Haggai 2:15 sn Before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple is best taken as referring to the laying of the present temple’s foundation, sixteen years earlier (536 b.c.; see Ezra 3:8). Cf. NCV “before you started laying stones”; TEV “before you started to rebuild”; NLT “before you began to lay (started laying CEV) the foundation.”
- Haggai 2:16 tn Heb “from their being,” idiomatic for “from the time they were then,” or “since the time.” Cf. KJV “Since those days were.”
- Haggai 2:17 tn Heb “you, all the work of your hands”; NRSV “you and all the products of your toil”; NIV “all the work of your hands.”
- Haggai 2:17 tn Heb “and there was not with you to me.” The context favors the idea that the harvests were so poor that the people took care of only themselves, leaving no offering for the Lord. Cf. KJV and many English versions “yet ye turned not to me,” understanding the phrase to refer to the people’s repentance rather than their failure to bring offerings.
- Haggai 2:18 tn Heb “set your heart.” A similar expression occurs in v. 15.
- Haggai 2:18 sn The twenty-fourth day of the ninth month was Kislev 24 or December 18, 520. See v. 10. Here the reference is to “today,” the day the oracle is being delivered.
- Haggai 2:18 sn The day work…was resumed. This does not refer to the initial founding of the Jerusalem temple in 536 b.c. but to the renewal of construction three months earlier (see 1:15). This is clear from the situation described in v. 19 which accords with the food scarcities of that time already detailed in Hag 1:10-11.
- Haggai 2:18 tn Heb “set your heart.” A similar expression occurs in v. 15 and at the beginning of this verse.
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