Haggai 2:16

16 what state were you in?[a] When someone came to a [grain] heap of 20 measures, it [only] amounted to 10; when one came to the winepress to dip 50 measures from the vat, it [only] amounted to 20.

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 is this people, and so is this nation before Me"-the Lord's declaration. "And so is every work of their hands; even what they offer there is defiled.
15 "Now, reflect back from this day: Before one stone was placed on another in the Lord's temple,
16 what state were you in? When someone came to a [grain] heap of 20 measures, it [only] amounted to 10; when one came to the winepress to dip 50 measures from the vat, it [only] amounted to 20.
17 I struck you-all the work of your hands-with blight, mildew, and hail, but you didn't turn to Me"-the Lord's declaration.
18 "Consider carefully from this day forward; from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid; consider it carefully.

Footnotes 1

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