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God is never content with confounding His enemies. He does not confound to destroy; He confounds in order that He may save. The courses by which He brings this purpose to pass are various. One of the commonest is the one set before us in the text. Seeing that the motive why we forsake His service is that we may give ourselves up to our own service, — seeing that self is the mask which Satan puts on, to lure us away from God, and that the baits with which he tempts us are the pleasures of sin and the charms of self-indulgence, God mercifully shows us the vanity of those pleasures, the misery and deceitfulness of that self-indulgence. He sends some heavy affliction to humble our pride, to prove to us that, in leaning on earthly things, we lean on a broken reed. Then, at the height of our distresses, He sends His messengers to explain their meaning and purpose. He sharpens the stings of conscience; He brings out the letters of the law, like the letters which the hand wrote on the wall of the palace of King Belteshazzar. These people regarded the earth as their servant, spread out beneath their feet for no other purpose than to do their bidding, to feed their wants, and to pamper their lusts. Wherefore God vouchsafed to show them that the earth was not their servant, but His; that it was not spread out beneath their wings to do their bidding, but His. If the sun and rain were locked up in heaven, the earth would yield no increase, notwithstanding all that man could do to make it. God's prophet bids the people "consider their ways," and that all God's dealings were designed to prove to them how, in the ways in which they were walking, although they were to sow much, they would reap little, — although they ate, they would not have enough, — although they drank, they would not be filled with drink, — that they might clothe themselves, but none would be warm, — and that the wages which they earned would be put into a bag with holes. All this God did, not in order to leave them in their confusion, but in order to raise them out of it. If they will arise and work, and build the house of the Lord, He will still take pleasure in it, and will be glorified in the house they shall build for Him. This message is also sent to us. It is a message of misery; but it is also a message full of warnings, a message of mercy following upon warnings, to the end that the warnings may not be misunderstood, but may be seen in their true light, and may produce the effect they were intended to produce. But the message is not merely sent to nations, it is sent also to individuals. No one ever gave himself up to the work of building the Lord's house, without allowing his heart to be distracted by the desire to build some house or other for himself. The message applies to us in all its parts. We, like them, have been delivered out of captivity. We have been called to the work of building up the house of the Lord who delivered us, — of building it up outwardly, whenever an occasion for doing so comes across us, — of building it up continually by joining with our neighbours in His worship, — and of building it up daily in our own souls. As we are like the Israelites in having this duty, so we are like them in neglecting it. Instead of doing the Lord's work, we do what we regard as our own work. But if self is the lord of the house we build, whatever the materials may seem to be, when the gilding is rubbed off, they are found to be cares, and jealousies, and disquietudes. Every house in which self is set up as master, is a house of death. It may seem full of life; but it is the house of death, of moral death, which is the first death, and always brings the other in its train. This must be the condition of those who neglect their duty of building up the house of the Lord. Whatever they do will be empty and unprofitable. Those who build up the house of the Lord always have enough.

(Julius C. Hare, M. A.)

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KJV: Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying,

WEB: Then the Word of Yahweh came by Haggai, the prophet, saying,