Click
here to show/hide instructions.
Instructions on how to use the page:
The commentary for the selected verse is is displayed below.
All commentary was produced against the King James, so the same verse from that translation may appear as well. Hovering your mouse over a commentary's scripture reference attempts to show those verses.
Use the browser's back button to return to the previous page.
Or you can also select a feature from the Just Verses menu appearing at the top of the page.
Selected Verse: Haggi 1:6 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Hag 1:6 |
King James |
Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
Nothing has prospered with you while you neglected your duty to God. The punishment corresponds to the sin. They thought to escape poverty by not building, but keeping their money to themselves; God brought it on them for not building (Pro 13:7; Pro 11:24; Mat 6:33). Instead of cheating God, they had been only cheating themselves.
ye clothe . . . but . . . none warm--through insufficiency of clothing; as ye are unable through poverty from failure of your crops to purchase sufficient clothing. The verbs are infinitive, implying a continued state: "Ye have sown, and been bringing in but little; ye have been eating, but not to being satisfied; ye have been drinking, but not to being filled; ye have been putting on clothes, but not to being warmed" [MOORE]. Careful consideration of God's dealings with us will indicate God's will regarding us. The events of life are the hieroglyphics in which God records His feelings towards us, the key to which is found in the Bible [MOORE].
wages . . . put . . . into a bag with holes--proverbial for labor and money spent profitlessly (Zac 8:10; compare Isa 55:2; Jer 2:13). Contrast, spiritually, the "bags that wax not old, the treasure in heaven that faileth not" (Luk 12:33). Through the high cost of necessaries, those who wrought for a day's wages parted with them at once, as if they had put them into a bag with holes. |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
Ye have sown much - The prophet expresses the habitualness of these visitations by a vivid present. He marks no time and so expresses the more vividly that it was at all times. It is one continually present evil. "Ye have sown much and there is a bringing in little; there is eating and not to satisfy; there is drinking and not to exhilarate; there is clothing and not to be warm It is not for the one or the other years, as, since the first year of Darius Hystaspis; it is one continued visitation, coordinate with one continued negligence. As long as the sin lasted, so long the punishment. The visitation itself was twofold; impoverished harvests, so as to supply less sustenance; and various indisposition of the frame, so that what would, by God's appointment in nature, satisfy, gladden, warm, failed of its effect. "And he that laboreth for hire, gaineth himself hire into a bag full of holes" (literally "perforated.") The labor pictured is not only fruitless, but wearisome and vexing. There is a seeming result of all the labor, something to allure hopes; but immediately it is gone. The pagan assigned a like baffling of hope as one of the punishments of hell , "Better and wiser to seek to be blessed by God, Who bestoweth on us all things. And this will readily come to those who choose to be of the same mind with Him and prefer what is for His glory to their own. For so saith the Saviour Himself to us Mat 6:33, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."
"He loses good deeds by evil acts, who takes account of his good works, which he hits before his eyes, and forgets the faults which creep in between; or who, after what is good, returns to what is vain and evil" . "Money is seen in the pierced bag, when it is cast in, but when it is lost, it is not seen. They then who look how much they give, but do not weigh how much they gain wrongly, cast their rewards into a pierced bag. Looking to the Hope of their confidence they bring them together; not looking, they lose them."
"They lose the fruit of their labor, by not persevering to the end, or by seeking human praise, or by vain glory within, not keeping spiritual riches under the guardianship of humility. Such are vain and unprofitable men, of whom the Saviour saith, Mat 6:2. 'Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. '" |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| Have not enough - But what you eat doth not nourish or satisfy you. Are not filled - Your water quenches not your thirst, your wine does not revive your spirit. None warm - You have no comfort therein. With holes - Loses all his labour. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
| Ye have sown much - God will not bless you in any labor of your hands, unless you rebuild his temple and restore his worship. This verse contains a series of proverbs, no less than five in the compass of a few lines. |
33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.
13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.
10 For before these days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast; neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in because of the affliction: for I set all men every one against his neighbour.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
24 There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.
7 There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.
2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.