Haggai 2:16

16 from that time, when one came expecting a heap of twenty ephahs of grain, ^[a] there were but ten. When one came to the winepress to draw out fifty baths, ^[b] there were but twenty.

Haggai 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.

Haggai 2:16 In-Context

14 Then Haggai replied, “So it is with this people and this nation before Me, declares the LORD, and so it is with every work of their hands; whatever they offer there is defiled.

15 Now consider carefully from this day forward: Before one stone was placed on another in the temple of the LORD,

16 from that time, when one came expecting a heap of twenty ephahs of grain, there were but ten. When one came to the winepress to draw out fifty baths, there were but twenty.

17 I struck you—all the work of your hands—with blight, mildew, and hail, but you did not turn to Me, declares the LORD.

18 Consider carefully from this day forward—from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, the day the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid—consider carefully:

Footnotes

• [a] Literally a heap of twenty
• [b] Literally to draw out fifty from the winepress