Haggai 2:14

Then answered Haggai, and said,.... To the priests, and before the people; and made an application of these things to them, which was the thing in view in putting the questions: So [is] this people,

In the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying, Sacrifices without obedience (in respect to God's command to

Now is the case applied. As common things touched by holy things are not sanctified, and as polluted persons touching what is clean pollute it; as holy things did not by touch and bodily application make him legally holy who was common, but a polluted person made all he touched and handled unclean; so unsanctified and polluted Jews polluted God’ s ordinances, while the outward performing of legal and ceremonial duties, such as bringing, offering, eating, dragging about their legal sacrifices, left them as unholy in themselves and as unacceptable to God as they were before. Somewhat more then is to be done. The soul is first to be purified, that they and we may offer up a pure offering. So is the people; the body of the Jews, or the most part of them. So is this nation: this ingeminateth the same thing, to intimate to us how God resenteth it, and how we should be affected with it. Before me; in God’ s account, or in his sight, who seeth indeed what men are, and what their actions are. So is every work of their hands; whatever they do in sacred or civil matters, they make a shift to pollute all by polluted hands, by leprous touches. That which they offer there, what they do bring to the altar with impure hearts and hands, is more polluted by them than sanctified by the altar. Is unclean; really impure; though it seem externally clean and holy, it is unsuitable to the purity of a holy God. In sanctified actions all is spoiled by unsanctified hearts. Thence it is that uncleanness is derived on their best works, and consecrated rites do not, cannot sanctify profane spirits.

Haggai 2:14 Then answered Haggai, and said, So [is] this people, and so [is] this nation before me, saith the LORD; and so [is] every work of their hands; and that which they offer there [is] unclean.Ver. 14. So is this people, and so is this nation before me] Though pure in their own eyes, Proverbs 30:12, and to the world-ward unrebukeable, as Paul the Pharisees, Philippians 2:14-15, and those self-justiciaries, Luke 16:14-15 "Ye are those that justify yourselves" (and have the world’ s good word for you), "but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." Sordet in conspectu iudicis quod fulget in conspectu operantis. Filthy in the sight of the judge who glisten in the sight of their works. Wicked men’ s services are but glistering sins ( splendida peccata), they rejoice in a thing of nought, as Amos hath it, Amos 6:13, like as Leah rejoiced in that whereof she had cause to repent, and said, "God hath given me my hire," when she had more cause to say, God, I fear, will give me my hire, my payment, "because I have given my maiden to my husband," Genesis 30:18. But she was in the common error of measuring and judging of things by the success; as if God were not many times angry with men, though they outwardly prosper; or as if there were not here one event to the clean and to the unclean, Ecclesiastes 9:2. Until the day that God shall separate the sheep from the goats, whom for the glory of his name and the good of his people he suffers for present to go one among another, to make his own to stick the faster together and to their principles. Shepherds say that it is wholesome for a flock of sheep to have some goats to feed among them; their bad scent being good medicine for the sheep, to keep them from the shakings. Only let God’ s sheep take heed that they contract no corruption by conversing with goats; which is soon done, for sin is catching, and ill company is contagious. Nemo errat sibi ipsi; sed dementiam spargit in proxiruos, saith Seneca, No man errs out of the right way alone, but draws others along. And multos sollicitat societas nefauda, saith Chrysostom, evil company soliciteth many to sin. Virtue is oft overcome by vice, saith Nazianzen, as a little wormwood sooner embittereth a great deal of honey than twice so much honey can sweeten a small deal of wormwood; or as one spoonful of vinegar will soon sour a great deal of sweet milk; but a great deal of milk will not so soon allay one spoonful of vinegar. Remove but one stone, and the whole river will rush downward; but you can hardly stop the stream again with a strong dam. Touch pitch and you shall presently be defiled, but touch soap and you shall not presently be made clean without much rubbing and rinsing.

(14) That which they offer there—i.e., probably, “on yon altar,” but the expression is singular. In Ezra 3:3 we read, “And they set the altar upon his bases. . . . and they offered burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening.”

Verse 14. Then answered Haggai - So is this people] As an unclean man communicates his uncleanness to every thing he touches, so are ye unclean; and whatever ye have hitherto done is polluted in the sight of God. For your neglect of my temple has made you unclean, as if you had contracted legal pollution by touching a dead body.

14. This verse contains the application to the present case of the Jews of the principles brought out by the foregoing questions. The second principle, as to the transmission of uncleanness, is first applied in the former clauses of the verse, while the first principle, as to the non-transmission of holiness, is referred to in the last clause. “So,” resembling the case just described, “is this people and this nation, before Me, saith the Lord.” It is polluted in itself, like the man who is “unclean by a dead body,” through its disobedience, and neglect of my Temple. “And so,” defiled through this act of disobedience, just as whatever he touches is defiled by the touch of him who has had contact with the dead, “is every work of their hands.” The blight that rests on all their industry and labour, that mars and withers every work in which their hands are engaged, is the punishment and the proof of the moral uncleanness, which residing in themselves extends to all that they put their hand to. “And that which they offer there,” (on the altar which they have built to My Name in Jerusalem,) so far from sanctifying their works, as they vainly think, is itself through the pervading influence of their sin “unclean.” The sanctifying influence of the altar on which they pride themselves would at best but have reached a little way. The prevailing power of their disobedience vitiates all such sanctifying influence, and renders the very offerings on the altar itself unclean. this people and so is this nation] See ch. Haggai 1:2. The addition of the word “nation,” the word commonly used for the heathen nations of the world, as distinguished from the Jews who were the “people” of God, has been thought to be a further sign of contempt and rejection. But the two words are used together of Israel in Zephaniah 2:9, where no such meaning can be intended. there] On the altar built on their return from Babylon. Ezra 3:3.

12, 13. Two questions are propounded to the priests: (1) Whether or not a garment made holy through contact with holy flesh (compare Leviticus 6:27) transmits this holiness to other articles which might come in contact with it.