Haggai 2:15

And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward,.... This being their case, and they so polluted with sin, particularly through their neglect of building the temple; they are most earnestly

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

And now; furthermore consider. I pray you: he affectionately entreats them to observe. From this day; this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, . And upward, through past years; trace year after year, and your successes and disappointments in them, observe all years past before you would set upon the rebuilding of the temple after you had intermitted it; some years passed, ten, or fifteen, or twenty, or forty, (or more say some,) between your surceasing from the work and beginning to rebuild. Before a stone was laid upon a stone; the prophet meaneth either before they began to lay one stone upon another in the foundation laid in Cyrus’ s time, or before they began to lay the foundation of the walls of the courts and outward edifices. In the temple; either strictly taken for the house of God, or more largely for the rest of the buildings about the house: this tacitly reproves their sloth; it was the temple they neglected, which they did long for in Babylon. Of the Lord; so much the greater their sin, for that it was the Lord’ s temple was slighted.

Haggai 2:15 And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the LORD:Ver. 15. And now, I pray you, consider] Heb. Lay it upon your heart, as Haggai 1:5; The often repetition of this precept sets forth, 1. The necessity of the duty pressed. 2. Their singular stupidity, that were no more affected with such manifest marks of God’ s wrath upon them; no, though he had even snatched the meat out of their mouths, and kept them hunger-starved, which is the way of taming the most untameable creatures. From this day and upward] To the end that when I shall have blessed you with greater plenty, as Haggai 2:19, ye may recognize your sins, the cause of your calamities, and, remembering (as Jacob did his baculinam paupertatem, Genesis 32:10) your former penury, you may thankfully cry out with that noble Iphicrates; From how hungry to how plentiful an estate am I raised (εξοιωνειςοια)! Let a profane Demetrius attribute such a change as this to blind fortune, saying, Eυμεεφυσαςσυκαικαταθεινδοκεις. But let all saints sing with holy Hannah, "They that were full have hired themselves out for bread; and they that were hungry ceased. The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich; he bringeth low, and lifteth up," 1 Samuel 2:5; 1 Samuel 2:7. From before a stone was laid upon a stone] i.e. Before there was any hand set to the work of rebuilding the temple, which was interrupted for many years, after the return from Babylon. See Ezra 3:8; Ezra 5:2.

(15) From this day and upward—i.e., backward. Before a stone was laid . . .—Alluding to the recent resumption of building, not to the laying of the foundations fifteen years previously.

10–19. The Third Prophecy By a reference to the ceremonial law, as officially interpreted by the priests in answer to questions addressed to them, Haggai again impresses upon the people the truth, that the dearth and distress from which they had hitherto suffered was the consequence of their national sin in neglecting to rebuild the temple, and again promises that now that they had put away that sin, and were honestly giving themselves to the work of restoration, the blessing of God should rest upon them. The sanctifying influence of flesh, which by being offered to God in sacrifice had become holy, could only extend, so the priests on the authority of the law declared, to that with which it came into first and immediate contact. Beyond that limit its efficacy did not reach. The thing touched by it was itself made holy, but did not become in its turn a vehicle of holiness to anything beyond. Not so, however, was it with that which by contact with ceremonial uncleanness had become polluted. That which by touching a corpse had contracted defilement was not only unclean itself, but propagated uncleanness, and conveyed it to everything with which it came in contact. So was it with the Jewish nation in the sight of God, as represented by the returned captives. They might argue indeed that they had rebuilt the altar of Jehovah on their first return. But that good act, if it stood alone, even had there been no subsequent disobedience to vitiate it, would only, like the holy flesh making holy the garment in which it was wrapped, have extended its influence a little way. The altar would have sanctified the gift which was offered upon it. On the other hand the sin of the people in neglecting to rebuild the temple, like the touch of the corpse, not only contaminated themselves, but brought moral pollution and consequent blight and disaster upon all the works of their hands.

And now, I pray you - Observe his tenderness, in drawing their attention to it , “Consider from this day and upward.” He bids them look backward, “from before a stone was laid upon a stone,” i.

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.