Haggai 2:17

17 I struck you with blight, and with plant mildew, and hail, all the work of your hands. But {you did not come back to me},' {declares} Yahweh.

Haggai 2:17 Meaning and Commentary

Haggai 2:17

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.

Haggai 2:17 In-Context

15 But now, please {consider} from this day forward, before one stone was placed on another in the temple of Yahweh,

16 {from that time when} one came to a heap of twenty [measures], there were [only] ten, and [when] one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty measures, there were [only] twenty.

17 I struck you with blight, and with plant mildew, and hail, all the work of your hands. But {you did not come back to me},' {declares} Yahweh.

18 '{Please consider} from this day forward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth [month], from the day that the foundation of Yahweh's temple was laid, {consider}:

19 [Is there] still seed in the store chamber? Do the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree still produce nothing? From this day [forward] I will bless [you].'"

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "there were none of you to me"
• [b]. Literally "a declaration of"