Haggai 1:10

10 Therefore, on account of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth has withheld its crops.

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, so that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified, says the LORD.

9 You expected much, but behold, it amounted to little. And what you brought home, I blew away. Why? declares the LORD of Hosts. Because My house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house.

10 Therefore, on account of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth has withheld its crops.

11 I have summoned a drought on the fields and on the mountains, on the grain, new wine, and oil, and on whatever the ground yields, on man and beast, and on all the labor of your hands.”

12 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, as well as all the 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.