Haggai 1:11 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Haggai 1:11
And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.
soil (from its general redness) · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
forth
תּוֹצִ֖יאto.Tzi'
H3318
to go (causatively · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
men
הָֽאָדָם֙ha.'a.Dam
H120
ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
cattle
הַבְּהֵמָ֔הha.be.he.Mah
H929
properly · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
labour
יְגִ֥יעַye.Gi.a'
H3018
toil · noun, common masculine singular construct
hands
כַּפָּֽיִםka.Pa.yim
H3709
the hollow hand or palm (so of the paw of an animal · noun, common feminine dual absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Haggai 2:17 I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the LORD.
Deuteronomy 28:22 The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, a…
1 Kings 17:1 And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there…
2 Kings 8:1 Then spake Elisha unto the woman, whose son he had restored to life, saying, Arise, and go thou and thine household, and sojourn wheresoever…
Job 34:29 When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? and when he hideth his face, who then can behold him? whether it be done against a nati…
Lamentations 1:21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: t…
Amos 5:8 Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that c…
Amos 7:4 Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and, behold, the Lord GOD called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Haggai 1:1-11
It was the complaint of the Jews in Babylon that they saw not their signs, and there was no more prophet (Psa 74:9), which was a just judgment upon them for mocking and misusing the prophets. We read of no prophets they had in their return, as they had in their coming out of Egypt, Hos 12:13. God stirred them up immediately by his Spirit to exert themselves in that escape (Ezr 1:5); for, though God makes use of prophets, he needs them not, he can do his work without them. But the lamp of Old Testament prophecy shall yet make some bright and glorious efforts before it expire; and Haggai is the first that appears under the character of a special messenger from heaven, when the word of the Lord…
I called--what the "heaven" and "earth," the second causes, were said to do (Hag 1:10), being the visible instruments, Jehovah, in this verse, the invisible first cause, declares to be His doing. He "calls for" famine, &c., as instruments of His wrath (Kg2 8:1; Psa 105:16). The contrast is striking between the prompt obedience of these material agencies, and the slothful disobedience of living men, His people.
drought--Hebrew, Choreb, like in sound to Chareeb, "waste" (Hag 1:4, Hag 1:9), said of God's house; implying the correspondence between the sin and its punishment. Ye have let My house be waste, and I will send on all that is yours a wasting drought. This would affect not merely the…
Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew - It appears from the following verse that God had sent a drought upon the land, which threatened them with scarcity and famine.
John Gill on Haggai 1:11
And I called for a drought upon the land,.... Upon the whole land of Judea; as he withheld the dew and rain from falling on it to moisten it, refresh it, and make it fruitful; so he ordered a vehement heat to dry and parch it; and directed the rays of the sun to strike with great force upon it, and cause the fruits of it to wither; and which is done by a word of his; when he calls, every creature obeys. There is an elegant play on words, which shows the justness of such a proceeding, that it was according to the law of retaliation; they suffered the house of God to lie "waste", and therefore he calls for a "wasting" drought, to come upon their land:
and upon the mountains; where herbage g…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 11.) And I called upon drought upon the earth, and upon the mountains, and upon the wheat, and upon the wine, and upon the oil, and upon whatever the earth brings forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon every labor of the hands. For drought, the Seventy translated as 'gladius', that is, sword: but I also found it written in Hebrew with three letters (), Heth, Res, Beth, which if we read as Hareb, it means sword; if Oreb, it means burning, which we have translated as drought, although it could be better translated as scorching wind. And truly, since the discourse is about the land, and about the sterility of the fields, it seems to me that the scorching wind should be understood in the present place, rather than a sword: although every plague that is inflicted on men because of their sins can also be understood as a sword. But drought, or a sword, has been called upon the land and the mountains, so that they do not produce wheat, and wine, and oil, and whatever the earth produces spontaneously. Moreover, preceding famine, death comes upon men, and upon beasts as a consequence. And the same sword or burning wind consumes everything that the hands of men have labored. It is called and introduced living speech of God, and effective, and sharp above every two-edged sword (Heb. IV), so that the neglectful soul (which is interpreted as a dry land, and desires to dwell more in hollows than to build the house of God) may be struck by its blade, and whatever fruits it thinks it has, may be scattered. The sword is also brought against the mountains that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, and against the wheat, and wine, and oil, with which they deceive the people who have been deceived by the assemblies of heretics, as if with food and drink and refreshment: One may rightly say that their bread is the bread of sorrow, and their wine is the fury of dragons, and the fury of unhealable asps. Also, the oil, the promise of heavenly things, with which they anoint their disciples, and promise rewards for their labors, which the prophet detests, saying: But the oil of the sinner shall not anoint my head (Psal. CXL). But the sword of God strikes also other things which they find and fabricate without authority and testimonies of the Scriptures, by their own tradition of the apostles; but we shall understand men and beasts, or reasonings and…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Drought — From the middle of May to about the middle of August the land of Palestine is dry. It is then the “drought of summer” (Gen. 31:40; Ps. 32:4), and the land suffers (Deut. 28:23: Ps. 102:4), vegetation…
B · Frequently suffered on account of the sins of men — Frequently suffered on account of the sins of men
Famine · Sent as a — Sent as a
Lukewarmness · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
Mountains · God: Parches, with draught — God: Parches, with draught
Oil · Failure of, a severe calamity — Failure of, a severe calamity
Parsimony (Stinginess) · Punishment of — Punishment of
Temple, The Second · The Jews punished for not persevering in building — The Jews punished for not persevering in building
Vineyards · In unfavourable seasons produced but little wine — In unfavourable seasons produced but little wine
Wine · New — New
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Haggai 1:10, 11
10. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.
10. Propterea prohibiti super vos sunt coeli a rore, et terra a proventu suo prohibita est.
11. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.
11. Et vocavi siccitatem super terram, et super montes, et super triticum, et super mustum (aut, vinium,) et super omne quod profert terra, et super hominem, et super animal, et super omnem laborem manuum.
He confirms what the last verse contains-…
"Ye looked out for much, and behold (it came) to little; and ye brought it home, and I blew into it. Why? is the saying of Jehovah of hosts. Because of my house, that it lies waste, whereas ye run every man for his house. Hag 1:10. Therefore the heaven has withheld its dew on your account, that no dew fell, and the earth has withheld her produce. Hag 1:11. And I called drought upon the earth, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon everything that the ground produces, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands." The meaning of Hag 1:9 is evident from the context. The inf. abs. pânōh stands in an address full of e…
I have called for a drought: The people failed to recognize their plight as a divine judgment on their misplaced priorities, so Haggai interpreted the situation in light of the curses attached to the covenant (Deut 28:15-68, especially vv 22-24, 38-40). • Drought (Hebrew khoreb) is a wordplay on “ruins” (Hag 1:4, 9; Hebrew khareb)—Judah’s experiences corresponded with the condition in which they had left the Lord’s Temple.
Rashi on Haggai 1:10
because of you the heavens have kept back Because of your sins.
