Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.
Ver. 5. Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts] Haggai was but a young man, saith Epiphanius: now, therefore, lest any one that heard him should despise his youth, and slight his doctrine, he shows his authority, he comes to them cum privilegio, he delivers not the conceptions of his own brain, but the word and mind of God. For as Chrysostom saith of St Paul, so may we say of all the rest of the penmen of the Holy Scripture, Cor Pauli est cor Christi, The mind of Paul is the mind of Christ, their heart is Christ's own heart; and their words are to be received, reverenced, and ruminated, not as the words of mortal men, but (as they are indeed) the words of the ever living God, 1 Thessalonians 2:13. Excellently spake he who called the Scripture cor et animam Dei, the heart and soul of God. It is, every whit of it, divinely inspired, or breathed by God, saith the apostle, and is profitable both for reproof and for instruction in righteousness, 2 Timothy 3:16. See an instance hereof in this text, together with the prophet's rhetorical artifice in first chiding, and now directing them: to reprove, and not withal to instruct, is to snuff the lamp, but not pour in oil that may feed it.
Consider your ways] Heb. set your hearts upon them, diligently recogitate and recognize your evil doings; and so shall ye soon find out the cause of your calamity. Judge yourselves, so shall ye not be judged of the Lord: accept the punishment of your iniquity, so iniquity shall not be your ruin; your ruth (repentance), but not your ruin, 1Co 11:30 Lev 26:41 Ezekiel 18:32. Capite consilium ex rebus ipsis, vel experimentis, Learn at least by the things ye have suffered: let experience, the mistress of fools, reduce you to a right mind. Lay to heart your manifold miseries, those διδασκαλοι αμισθοι, as one calleth them, free school masters, cursed enough and crabbed, but such as whereby God openeth men's ears to discipline, and eyes to observation of his works and their own ways, Job 36:8,10; according to that of Ezekiel 40:4 "Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thy heart upon all that I shall show thee," &c.: the senses must be exercised that the heart may be affected with the word and works of God; according to that, "mine eye affecteth my heart," Lamentations 3:51; and Solomon got much of his wisdom by observation, as appeareth by his Ecclesiastes, which some have not unfitly called Solomon's soliloquy. It is but little that can be learned in this life without due and deep consideration; which is nothing else but an act of the practical understanding, whereby it reflects and stays upon its own intentions; and, comparing them with the rule, it proceeds to lay a command upon the will and affections to put them in execution. Thus David considered his ways, and, finding all out of order he turned his feet to God's testimonies, Psalms 119:59. And, to still God's enemies, Psalms 4:4, he bids them commune with their own hearts and be still, or, make a pause, viz. till they have brought their consideration to some good upshot and conclusion. For when consideration hath soundly enlightened a man's mind, informed his judgment according to that light (that candle held to his mind), and determined his will according to that judgment, it must needs bring forth sound resolutions purposes, and practices; as it did in the Ninevites, Ephraim, Jeremiah 31:19, Josiah, 2 Chronicles 34:27, the prodigal, Luke 15:17,19, the Church in Hosea, Hosea 2:6,7. She considered she was crossed, and hedged in with afflictions, and resolved to return to her first husband. The contrary inconsiderateness is complained about as a public mischief, Jeremiah 6:8; Jeremiah 8:6; Jeremiah 12:11. They have laid it waste, and being waste it mourneth unto me; the whole land lieth waste, because no man layeth it to heart, that is, considereth deeply of the cause of its desolation. Without this, though a man had all possible knowledge locked up in his brain and breast, it would be but as rain in the middle region, where it doth no good; as the horn in the unicorn's head, where it helps no disease; or as a fire in a flintstone, insensible and unprofitable till beaten out by sound consideration; this makes knowledge to become experimental, as Psa 116:6 Romans 8:1,2; this is to "follow on to know the Lord," Hosea 6:3, as without this men's knowledge is but a flash, and may end in ignorance and profaneness; because never formed and seated in their hearts, never digested by due meditation and application to their own consciences.