Haggai 2:16

Since those days were, when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the pressfat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(16) Since those days were.—Better, from the time when things were so, or, since such things were—i.e., throughout that whole period of neglect up to the date when they resumed the work of restoration. Throughout that period the harvests had grievously disappointed expectation. A heap of sheaves which ought to have contained “twenty “—the measure is not specified—yielded only “ten;” and a quantity of grapes which should have yielded fifty poorahs, only produced twenty. The word poorah elsewhere means a “wine press;” here, apparently, it is the bucket or vessel which was used to draw up the wine. The last clause of the verse must therefore be rendered “When one came to the pressfat to draw out fifty poorahs, there were but twenty.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:10-19 Many spoiled this good work, by going about it with unholy hearts and hands, and were likely to gain no advantage by it. The sum of these two rules of the law is, that sin is more easily learned from others than holiness. The impurity of their hearts and lives shall make the work of their hands, and all their offerings, unclean before God. The case is the same with us. When employed in any good work, we should watch over ourselves, lest we render it unclean by our corruptions. When we begin to make conscience of duty to God, we may expect his blessing; and whoso is wise will understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. God will curse the blessings of the wicked, and make bitter the prosperity of the careless; but he will sweeten the cup of affliction to those who diligently serve him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And now, I pray you - Observe his tenderness, in drawing their attention to it , "Consider from this day and upward." He bids them look backward, "from before a stone was laid upon a stone," i. e., from the last moment of their neglect in building the house of God; "from since those days were," or from the time backward "when those things were," (resuming, in the word, "from-their-being" , the date which he had just given, namely, the beginning of their resuming the building backward, during all those years of neglect) "one came to a heap of twenty measures." The precise measure is not mentioned: the force of the appeal lay in the proportion: the heap of grain which, usually, would yield twenty, (whether bushels or seahs or any other measure, for the heap itself being of no defined size, neither could the quantity expected from it be defined) there were ten only; "one came to the pressvat to draw out fifty" vessels out of the press, or perhaps fifty poorah, i. e., the ordinary quantity drawn out at one time from the press, there were, or it bad become twenty, two-fifths only of what they looked for and ordinarily obtained. The dried grapes yielded so little.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16. Since those days were—from the time that those days of your neglect of the temple work have been.

when one came to an heap of twenty measures—that is, to a heap which he had expected would be one of twenty measures, there were but ten.

fifty vessels out of the press—As the Septuagint translates "measure," and Vulgate "a flagon," and as we should rather expect vat than press. Maurer translates (omitting vessels, which is not in the original), "purahs," or "wine-measures."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Since those days; all that while the temple lay neglected, and you were contented with maimed and half worship, men were disappointed half in half.

When one came to a heap, which he expected would prove twenty measures, ephahs, or bushels, or what other measure you please,

there were but ten; it proved but half your hopes; thus your corn failed: but your oil much more failed, and you found but two where you expected five: this barrenness you cannot be ignorant of.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Since those days were,.... From the time the foundation of the temple was laid, unto the time they began to work again, which was a space of about fifteen or sixteen years:

when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten; when the husbandman having gathered in his corn, and who was generally a good judge of what it would yield, came to a heap of it on his corn floor, either of sheaves not threshed, or grain not winnowed, and expected it would have produced at least twenty measures, seahs, or bushels; afterward it was threshed and winnowed, to his great disappointment he had but ten out of it; there were so much straw and chaff, and so little grain; or when he came to a heap of grain, wheat, or barley, in his granary, where he thought he should have twenty bushels of it; but when he had measured it, proved but ten; being either stolen by thieves, or eaten by vermin; rather the latter:

when one came to the wine vat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty; by the quantity of grapes which he put into the press to tread and squeeze, he expected to have had fifty measures, or baths, or hogsheads of wine; but, instead of that, had but twenty; the bunches were so thin, or the berries so bad: there was a greater decrease and deficiency in the wine than in the grain.

Geneva Study Bible

{i} Since those days were, when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the pressfat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty.

(i) That is, before the building was begun.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

16. Since those days were] Lit. from their being. We may supply either “days” as in A.V. or “things,” since those things were, i.e. that reprehensible conduct of yours. The R. V. renders happily, through all that time.

when one came] Lit. to come, i.e. there was coming, or one came.

twenty measures] The word “measures” is not in the Hebrew. The LXX. supply seahs, (σάτα), the Vulg. bushels (modiorum). But the word is perhaps purposely omitted, because the prophet wishes to lay stress on the proportion. The heap, which when it was laid in the barn contained twenty measures (what measures they were it matters not for his present purpose), was found by the owner when he came to use it to have dwindled down to ten. The words as they stand are very forcible, “To come to a heap of twenty and there were ten.”

there were] The introduction of the verb “were” is perhaps intended to be emphatic: q. d. “the heap was expected to be twenty, it was (in real existence) ten.” And so again lower down in the same verse.

pressfat] i.e. the lower vat or reservoir into which the must squeezed out from the grapes in the press or upper vat flowed. “From the scanty notices contained in the Bible, we gather that the wine-presses of the Jews consisted of two receptacles or vats placed at different elevations, in the upper one of which the grapes were trodden, while the lower one received the ex-pressed juice. The two vats are mentioned together only in Joel 3:13 :—‘The press (gath) is full: the fats (yekebim) overflow’—the upper vat being full of fruit, the lower one overflowing with the must.… The two vats were usually dug or hewn out of the solid rock (Isaiah 5:2, margin; Matthew 21:33). Ancient wine-presses, so constructed, are still to be seen in Palestine, one of which is thus described by Robinson:—‘Advantage had been taken of a ledge of rock; on the upper side a shallow vat had been dug out, eight feet square and fifteen inches deep. Two feet lower down another smaller vat was excavated, four feet square by three feet deep. The grapes were trodden in the shallow upper vat, and the juice drawn off by a hole at the bottom (still remaining) into the lower vat.’ B. R. iii. 137, 603).” Dict. of Bible, Art Wine-press.

fifty vessels out of the press] Lit. fifty purah. The A.V. supplies the word “vessels” after “fifty,” just as it does “measures” after “twenty,” in the former part of the verse, and then taking the word “purah” to mean the press (as it does in Isaiah 63:3, the only other place in which it occurs), again supplies “out of” before it. This preserves the parallelism between the two parts of the verse. Perhaps, however, “purah” may here mean a liquid measure (LXX. μετρητής); possibly, as Keil suggests, “the measure which was generally obtained from one filling of the wine-press with grapes;” lit. “fifty wine-presses.” The earlier copies of R. V. print vessels in italics, and leave purah untranslated. The mistake however has now been corrected.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 16. - Since those days were. The word "days" is supplied. Revised Version, "through all that time," viz. the fourteen years spoken of in ver. 15. Septuagint, τίνες η΅τε, "what ye were;" the Vulgate omits the words. When one came to an heap of twenty measures. The word "measures" is not in the Hebrew: it is supplied by the LXX., σάτα (equivalent to scabs), and by Jerome, modiorum. But the particular measure is of no importance; it is the proportion only on which stress is laid. The prophet particuiarizes the general statements of Haggai 1:6, 9. The "heap" is the collection of sheaves (Ruth 3:7). This when threshed yielded only half that they had expected. There were (in fact) but ten; καὶ ἐγένετο κριθῆς δέκα σάτα, "and there were ten measures of barley." The press fat; the wine fat, the vat into which flowed the juice forced from the grapes when trodden out by the feet in the press. A full account of this will be found in the 'Dict. of the Bible,' arts. "Wine press" and "Wine." Fifty vessels out of the press. The Hebrew is "fifty purah." The word purah is used in Isaiah 63:3 to signify the press itself, hence the Authorized Version so translates it here, inserting "out of," and supplying "vessels," as "measures" above; but it probably here denotes a liquid measure in which the wine was drown. LXX., μετρητάς (equivalent to Hebrew baths). Jerome, lagenas; and in his commentary, amphoras. They came and examined the grapes and expected fifty purahs, "press measures," but they did not get even half that they had hoped. There were but twenty. Knabenbauer suggests that the meaning may be - looking at the crop of grapes, they expected to draw out, i.e. empty (chasaph), the press fifty times, but were egregiously deceived. Haggai 2:16

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The prophet explains these words in Haggai 2:15-19 by representing the failure of the crops, and the curse that has hitherto prevailed, as a punishment from God for having been wanting in faithfulness to the Lord (Haggai 2:15-17), and promises that from that time forward the blessing of God shall rest upon them again (Haggai 2:18, Haggai 2:19). Haggai 2:15. "And now, direct your heart from this day and onward, before stone was laid to stone at the temple of Jehovah. Haggai 2:16. Before this was, did one come to the heap of sheaves of twenty-(in measure), there were ten: did he come to the vat to draw fifty buckets, there were twenty. Haggai 2:17. I have smitten you with blasting, and with mildew, and with hail, all the work of your hands; and not one of you (turned) to me, is the saying of Jehovah." The object to which they are to direct their heart, i.e., to give heed, is not to be supplied from Haggai 1:5, Haggai 1:7, "to your ways" (Ros. and others), but is contained substantially in Haggai 2:16 and Haggai 2:17, and is first of all indicated in the words "from this day," etc. They are to notice what has taken place from this day onwards. נמעלה, lit., upwards, then further on. Here it is used not in the sense of forwards into the future, but, as the explanatory clause which follows (from before, etc.) clearly shows, in that of backwards into the past. Mitterem, 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; in reality, therefore, the time before the resuming of the building of the temple: for min and mitterem cannot be taken in any other sense than in the parallel מיּום which precedes it, and מהיותם which follows in Haggai 2:16. The objection which Koehler raises to this cannot be sustained. מהיותם, from their existence (backwards). Most of the modern commentators take the suffix as referring to a noun, yâmı̄m (days), to be supplied from Haggai 2:15; but it appears much simpler to take it as a neuter, as Mark and others do, in the sense of "before these things were or were done, viz., this day, and this work of laying stone upon stone," etc. The meaning is not doubtful, viz., looking backwards from the time when the building of the temple was resumed, in other words, before the point of time. בּא commences a new sentence, in which facts that they had experienced are cited, the verb בּא being used conditionally, and forming the protasis, the apodosis to which is given in והיתה. If one came to a heap of sheaves of twenty measures (se'âh is probably to be supplied: lxx σάτα), they became ten. A heap of sheaves (‛ărēmâh as in Ruth 3:7), from which they promised themselves twenty measures, yielded, when threshed, no more than ten, i.e., only the half of what they expected. They experienced just the same at the pressing of the grapes. Instead of fifty buckets, which they expected, they obtained only twenty. Yeqebh was the vat into which the juice flowed when pressed out of the grapes. Châsaph, lit., to lay bare, here to draw out, as in Isaiah 30:14; and pūrâh, in Isaiah 63:3, the pressing-trough, here a measure, probably the measure which was generally obtained from one filling of the wine-press with grapes (lxx μετρητής). Haggai 2:17 gives the reason why so small a result was yielded by the threshing-floor and wine-press. Jehovah smote you with blasting and mildew. These words are a reminiscence of Amos 4:9, to which passage the last words of the verse also refer. To the disease of the corn there is also added the hail which smote the vines, as in Psalm 78:47. 'Eth kol-ma‛ăsēh, all the labour of the hands, i.e., all that they had cultivated with great toil, is a second accusative, "which mentions the portion smitten" (Hitzig). The perfectly unusual construction אין־אתכם אלי does not stand for אין בּכם א, non fuit in vobis qui (Vulg.), nor is אתכם used for אתּכם, "with you;" but אין־אתכם either stands for אינכם, the suffix which was taken as a verbal suffix used as an accusative being resolved into the accusative (cf. Ewald, 262, d); or it is the accusative used in the place of the subject, that is to say, את is to be taken in the sense of "as regards," quoad (Ewald, 277, p. 683): "as far as you are concerned, there was not (one) turning himself to me." אלי, to me, sc. turning himself or being converted; though there is no necessity to supply שׁבים, as the idea is implied in the word אל, as in Hosea 3:3 and 2 Kings 6:11.