Aggaeus 2:16

16 And now consider, I pray you, from this day and beforetime, before they laid a stone on a stone in the temple of the Lord, what manner of men ye were.

Aggaeus 2:16 Meaning and Commentary

Haggai 2:16

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.

Aggaeus 2:16 In-Context

14 And Aggaeus said, If a defiled person who is unclean by reason of a dead body, touch any of these, shall it be defiled? And the priests answered and said, It shall be defiled.
15 And Aggaeus answered and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord; and so are all the works of their hands: and whosoever shall approach them, shall be defiled .
16 And now consider, I pray you, from this day and beforetime, before they laid a stone on a stone in the temple of the Lord, what manner of men ye were.
17 When ye cast into the corn-bin twenty measures of barley, and there were ten measures of barley: and ye went to the vat to draw out fifty measures, and there were twenty.
18 I smote you with barrenness, and with blasting, and all the works of your hands with hail; yet ye returned not to me, saith the Lord.

The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.