CRITICAL NOTES.]
Haggai 2:15. Consider] Review of their condition from the present specific time to the period before resumption of work—“to connect their distress, then suffered, with their unfaithfulness.” They had ten measures when they expected twenty; twenty vessels instead of fifty from the press-vat; they were smitten with two blights of corn which were predicted as chastisements for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28:27; Amos 4:9); yet none turned to God.
Haggai 2:18.] Resumed from Haggai 2:15, after Haggai 2:16-17, that the blessing in Haggai 2:19 may stand in the more marked contrast with the curse in Haggai 2:16-17 [Fausset].
Haggai 2:19.] After an appeal to lay to heart past times, in which blessings had been withheld, they must now fix their eyes upon the time now beginning. “It is winter (Haggai 2:10); the seed, only just committed to the earth, was not yet in the barn. No fresh leaves on the fruit-trees—vine, fig tree, pomegranate, and olive—but ye have begun again to build; from this day forward I will hasten to bless you” [Wordsworth].
GOD’S RELATION TO MEN DETERMINED BY THEIR CONDUCT.—Haggai 2:15-19
The people are bidden to review their condition from the present time to the period preceding the resumption of the temple. The time when the work was resumed is specified here, because it was the turning-point of their fortunes. Their condition before that event is recalled for their contemplation, that it might connect their distress then suffered with their unfaithfulness; and the brief period succeeding their return to obedience is included, because they could not so soon recover from their embarrassments, no harvest having yet intervened [Lange].
I. If duty be neglected men are punished. If we repudiate what is due to God, we expose ourselves to danger. Without the controlling influence of duty the wisest and strongest go astray.
1. They are fruitless in their labour (Haggai 2:17). “I smote you … in all the labours of your hands.” To the disease of the corn we have the hail, which smote the vines. The grape for the rich, and the fig for the poor, were smitten by the judgment of God (Psalms 78:47).
2. They are disappointed in their hopes (Haggai 2:16). The heap of sheaves when threshed only yielded half of what they expected. The juice of the grapes gave not the usual measure. God’s curses are upon men’s labours, if they care not for his work and honour. “The Lord shall smite thee with … blasting and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.”
II. If duty be performed men are blessed. As the consequence of repentance and obedience the Jews had a prospect of rich and speedy blessings.
1. Blessed from the day of amendment. “From this day will I bless you” (Haggai 2:19). God blesses more readily than we think. The day of return to him is the day of rejoicing for us. Temporal blessings shall be followed by spiritual, and we shall prove that “Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.”
2. Blessed beyond former abundance. The vine and olive, which had borne little or nothing, would produce from that day more abundantly. The earth would yield its increase, and God would bless them beyond all probability and degree. Thus do we learn that rewards or chastisements come to man according to his conduct towards God. That natural laws serve for moral discipline, and that whoso is wise will observe these things. “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land” (Isaiah 1:19; Zechariah 8:9-12).
CONSIDERATION OF DIVINE CHASTISEMENTS
God’s dealings may be seen and felt by all, without being understood. Hence men need constantly to be stirred up to consider them. “Now, I pray you to consider from this day.”
I. Consider the cause of chastisement. God’s anger rested upon them when they neglected their spiritual interests. We assign any cause for sufferings rather than our sins. “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee.”
II. Consider the time of chastisement.
1. The past. “From before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord” (Haggai 2:15).
2. The present. “From this day.” Think of the evils which befell you before you set to work, and remember the blessings promised from the day of its commencement. A true understanding of the past is often the best preparation of the future.
III. Consider the source of chastisement. “I smote you with blasting” (Haggai 2:17). Men do not recognize Divine agency in the government of the world. The Jews were sensible of their calamities, but did not inquire seriously into the cause of them. Tully thought that God had nothing to do with rain and dew, and ordinary occurrences in life. Science dethrones God, and assigns nature to inflexible laws or infinite power. But all things are upheld by God’s power (Hebrews 1:3), and made subservient to his purpose. “Fire and hail, snow and vapour, stormy wind fulfilling His word.
IV. Consider the aggravations of chastisement. “Yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord” (Haggai 2:17). Affliction will harden the heart if God’s purpose be not discovered in it. Impenitence will be a ground of further controversy. The more men revolt, the more will they be smitten (Isaiah 1:5). “The people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts.”
“Though woo’d and awed,
Bless’d and chastised, a flagrant rebel still!” [Dr Wardlaw].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Haggai 2:15. The retrospect.
1. Its beginning. With the resumption of work. Its direction. “From this day and upward” (i.e. backward). Literally, “from the not yet of the laying … onwards,” i.e. onwards from the time when stone was laid upon stone at the temple; in other words, when the building of the temple was resumed, backwards into the past [Keil].
3. Its design. To learn the evils of disobedience, and the blessings of obedience.
Haggai 2:17. Divine chastisements.
1. In their intention to bring back to God.
2. In their results, “yet ye turned not.” This result grievous to God, and sorrow to men. “Not being untutored in suffering, I learn to pity those in affliction” [Virgil].
Haggai 2:19. It was winter. No seed in the barn and no signs of a crop, much less of safe ingathering. “Yet from this day will I bless.”
1. God’s blessing immediate. “From this day”—as soon as you return to me and my work.
2. God’s blessing certain. No visible sign in nature—every appearance against it. But the promise is sure—“infinitely to be preferred even in prospect, to the world’s best things in possession” [Fausset]. God is so sovereign and absolute a Lord of all things, and hath times and seasons, blessings and cursings, so in his hands, that he may undertake to do things whereof there is no visible probability or certainty in the second causes, and can certainly perform them; therefore doth he undertake to bless them, when second causes and the season could speak no such thing [Hutcheson].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Haggai 2:15-19. From this day. Live much in a short time. “Redeem the time,” and repair thy omissions in some manner, by redoubling thy diligence. Let the book of thy life, the book that must be opened at the last day, be full of sense and worthy matter: let there be no void spaces and empty gaps (idle words and idle hours are such) in it; let every page of it, every day, be filled with what is significant, intelligible, rational, and worthy to be transcribed and copied out by others [Dr Worthington].
Consider. Things are not to be done by the effort of the moment, but by the preparation of past moments [Cecil].
Haggai 2:17-19. Mildew. Thorns and thistles were brought forth from the earth as a judgment for disobedience; serpents and savage beasts became evil to man or to each other for the same cause. Every hour reminds us of our fallen condition; but God has so tempered mercy with judgment, that even the natural world calls the sinner to repentance, but not to despair [Brewer].
“These worlds had never been, hadst thou in strength
Been less, or less benevolent than strong.
They are thy witnesses, who speak thy power
And goodness infinite” [Cowper].