Haggai 2:17

I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(17) I smote you with blasting and with mildew . . .—This is a reminiscence of Amos 4:9, “I have smitten you with blasting and mildew . . . yet have not ye returned unto me, saith the Lord.” “Blasting” and “mildew” are two diseases on corn enumerated by Moses (Deuteronomy 28:22) among the curses on disobedience. The “hail” is added by Haggai, perhaps as particularly destructive to the vines. On the peculiar phrase, êyn ethcem êlay, which here takes the place of the lô shabtem âday of Amos, see Ewald, Grammar, § 262 b.

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

I smote you with blasting and mildew, - two diseases of grain, which Moses had foretold Deuteronomy 28:27. as chastisements on disobedience and God's infliction, of which Amos had spoken in these self-same words. Amos 4:9. Haggai adds the hail, as destructive of the vines. Psalm 78:47. Yet (And) ye turned you not to Me literally "there were none" - your, (accusative i. e., who turned you unto Me. The words are elliptical, but express the entire absence of conversion, of any who turned to God.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

17. Appropriated from Am 4:9, whose canonicity is thus sealed by Haggai's inspired authority; in the last clause, "turned," however, has to be supplied, its omission marking by the elliptical abruptness ("yet ye not to Me!") God's displeasure. Compare "(let him come) unto Me!" Moses in excitement omitting the bracketed words (Ex 32:26). "Blasting" results from excessive drought; "mildew, from excessive moisture.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I smote; my hand was visible in your losses, scarcity, and disappointments.

You; the persons put for their labours, their corn, vines, and olives.

With blasting; burning and scorching winds, that blasted all.

With mildew; with too much clammy moisture, that like glue cleaves to fruits, and turns to a corrupting of them.

With hail; which in these colder countries many times by its violence destroys corn, fruits, and trees, but in those countries doth it oftener. Now here was in these somewhat more of the hand of God, and so the punishment was, as more grievous, so more visible.

All the labours; in your ploughing and sowing for harvest, in planting of olives and vines for a vintage.

You turned not to me; you did not see my hand, though you felt it, you did not repent of your sinful neglect of me, my worship, and temple, nor thought of building my house.

Saith the Lord; this attested with God’s own hand for witness hereto.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I smote you with blasting,.... That is, their fields and vineyards, with burning winds, which consumed them; with blights by east winds: this shows the reason of their disappointment, and that it was from the Lord, and for their sins, by way of chastisement and correction:

and with mildew; a kind of clammy dew, which corrupts and destroys the fruits of the earth; and is a kind of jaundice to them, as the word signifies; see Amos 4:9,

and with hail; which battered down the corn and the vines, and broke them to pieces; see Exodus 9:25,

in all the labours of your hands; in the corn they sowed, and in the vines they planted:

yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord; did not consider their evil ways as the cause of all this; nor repent of them, and turn from them to the Lord; to his worship, as the Targum; or to the building of his house, the thing chiefly complained of. Afflictions, unless sanctified, have no effect upon men to turn them from their sins to the Lord.

Geneva Study Bible

I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the LORD.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17. I smote you with blasting and with mildew] “Two diseases of the corn which Moses had foretold (Deuteronomy 28:22) as chastisements on disobedience, and God’s infliction of which Amos had spoken of in these selfsame words (Amos 4:9). Haggai adds the hail as destructive of the vines (Psalm 78:47).” Pusey.

labours] Rather, work. R. V.

yet ye turned not to me] Lit. yet not (no-such-thing-as) yourselves to me. The word “turning,” or a similar word, may be supplied from the parallel passage in Amos 4:9 : “yet there was no turning of yourselves to me.” The negation is a strong one, and denies any single instance of such turning.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 17. - I smote you with blasting and with mildew. It was God who inflicted these calamities upon them judicially, according to the threats in Deuteronomy 28:22 (comp. Amos 4:9, and note there). These two pests affected the corn; the vines were smitten with hail (Psalm 78:47). In all the labours (work) of your hands. All that you had cultivated with toil, corn, vines, fruit of every sort. Yet ye turned not to me. The clause is elliptical, "yet not ye to me." The LXX. and Syriac translate as the Authorized Version, supplying the verb from the parallel passage in Amos 4:9. The Vulgate (not according to precedent), Non fuit in vobis qui revertetur ad me. In spite of these visitations there was not one among them who shook off his idle inaction and worked for the Lord. Haggai 2:17

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.