Haggai 1:10

10 So on your account,^[a] the skies have withheld the dew and the land its crops.^[b]

Haggai 1:10 Meaning and Commentary

Haggai 1:10

Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew
Or, "therefore over", or "upon you" ^F1; where should be a stop; that is, because, of your neglect of the house of God; therefore upon you, and upon you only, and not upon other nations, the heaven is restrained from letting down the dew: or, "therefore I am against you" ^F2; for the above reason, and which the following things show; and sad it is to have God to be an enemy, and against a people! or, "for your sake"; so the Syriac version, to which sense is the Targum,

``therefore for your sins;''

and so Jarchi, "the heaven is stayed from dew"; none descends from it; the Lord, who has the ordering of it, will not suffer it: to have the dew fall upon the earth in the night season is a great blessing; it makes the earth fruitful, revives the corn, plants, and herbs, and causes them to flourish and increase; and to have it restrained is a judgment: and the earth is stayed [from] her fruit;
from bringing forth its increase, which is the consequence of the dew being withheld.

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FOOTNOTES:

F1 (Mkyle Nk-le) "propterea super vos", Varenius, Reinbeck, Burkius.
F2 "Idcirco contra vos", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Haggai 1:10 In-Context

8 Go up into the hills, bring down lumber, and build the house. Then I will be pleased with it and be glorified," says the Lord.

9 "You expected much, but then it amounted to little. When you brought [the harvest] to your house, I ruined it. Why?" [This is] the declaration of the Lord of Hosts. "Because My house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house.

10 So on your account, the skies have withheld the dew and the land its crops.

11 I have summoned a drought on the fields and the hills, on the grain, new wine, olive oil, and whatever the ground yields, on the people and animals, and on all that your hands produce."

12 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak, and the entire remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him. So the people feared the Lord.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or So above you
• [b]. Lv 26:20; Dt 11:17; 1 Kg 17:1