Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
Ye have sown much, and bring in little. Nothing has prospered with you while neglecting your duty to God. The punishment corresponds to the sin. They thought to escape poverty by not building, but keeping their money to themselves: God brought it on them for not building (Proverbs 13:7; Proverbs 11:24). If men would seek God's kingdom as their first aim, they would secure additionally the secondary things of this life (Matthew 6:33). Instead of cheating God, they had been only cheating themselves.
Ye clothe you, but there is none warm - "there is none warm," through insufficiency of clothing; as ye are unable through poverty, from failure of your crops, to purchase sufficient clothing. The verbs are infinitive х laabowsh (H3847), shaatow (H8354), 'aakowl (H398), haabee' (H935)], implying a continued state: 'Ye have sown, and have been bringing in but little; ye have been eating, but not been eating to the being satisfied; ye have been drinking, but not to the being filled; ye have been putting on clothes, but not to the being warmed.' Careful consideration of God's dealings with us will indicate God's will regarding us. The events of life are the hieroglyphics in which God records His feelings toward us, the key to which is found in the Bible (Moore).
And he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes - proverbial for labour and money spent profitlessly (Zechariah 8:10: cf. Isaiah 55:2; Jeremiah 2:13). Contrast, spiritually, the "bags that wax not old, the treasure in heaven that faileth not" (Luke 12:33). Through the dearness of necessaries, those who worked for a day's wages parted with them at once, as if they had put them into a bag with holes.