You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.”
Parallel Translations
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You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.”
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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.
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Ye have sown much, and brought 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 for a bag with holes.
Cross-references (23)
Passages linked to Haggai 1:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Haggai 1:9 “You looked for much, and, behold, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says Yahweh of Armies, “Because of my house that lies waste, while each of you is busy with his own house.
- Deuteronomy 28:38-40 You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it. You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them. You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off.
- Hosea 4:10 They will eat, and not have enough. They will play the prostitute, and will not increase; because they have abandoned giving to Yahweh.
- Hosea 8:7 For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.
- Haggai 2:16 Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty.
- Malachi 3:9-11 You are cursed with the curse; for you rob me, even this whole nation. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this,” says Yahweh of Armies, “if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there will not be room enough for. I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before its time in the field,” says Yahweh of Armies.
- Malachi 2:2 If you will not listen, and if you will not take it to heart, to give glory to my name,” says Yahweh of Armies, “then I will send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have cursed them already, because you do not take it to heart.
- Isaiah 5:10 For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.”
- Zechariah 5:4 I will cause it to go out,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and it will enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him who swears falsely by my name; and it will remain in the middle of his house, and will destroy it with its timber and its stones.”
- Zechariah 8:10 For before those days there was no wages for man, nor any wages for an animal; neither was there any peace to him who went out or came in, because of the adversary. For I set all men everyone against his neighbor.
- Leviticus 26:26 When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.
- 2 Samuel 21:1 There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of Yahweh. Yahweh said, “It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.”
- Psalms 107:34 and a fruitful land into a salt waste, for the wickedness of those who dwell in it.
- Jeremiah 14:4 Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed. They cover their heads.
- Joel 1:10-13 The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes. Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men. Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.
- Leviticus 26:20 Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
- 1 Kings 17:12 She said, “As Yahweh your God lives, I don’t have a cake, but a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jar. Behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”
- Job 20:22 In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress will overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery will come on him.
- Job 20:28 The increase of his house will depart. They will rush away in the day of his wrath.
- Jeremiah 44:18 But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of the sky, and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
- Ezekiel 4:16-17 Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness. They will drink water by measure, and in dismay; that they may lack bread and water, be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.
- Micah 6:14-15 You shall eat, but not be satisfied. Your humiliation will be within you. You will store up, but not save; and that which you save I will give up to the sword. You will sow, but won’t reap. You will tread the olives, but won’t anoint yourself with oil; and crush grapes, but won’t drink the wine.
- Amos 4:6-9 “I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in every town; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh. “I also have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest; and I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain on another city. One place was rained on, and the piece where it didn’t rain withered. So two or three cities staggered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied: yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh. “I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; and the swarming locusts have devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (16 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain He says that they had sown much, and that…
He says that they had sown much, and that small was the produce. They who render the clause in the future tense, wrest the meaning of the Prophet: for why did he say, apply your heart to your ways, if he only denounced a future punishment? But, as I have already stated, he intimates, that they very thoughtlessly champed the bridle, for they perceived not that all their evils were inflicted by God’s hand, nor did they regard his judgement as righteous. Hence he says, that they had sowed much, and that the harvest had been small; and then, that they ate and were not satisfied; that they drank and had not their thirst quenched; that they clothed themselves and were not warmed. How much soever they applied those things which seemed necessary for the support of life, they yet availed them nothing. And God, we know, does punish men in these two ways either by withdrawing his blessings, by rendering the earth and and the heavens dry; or by making the abundant produce unsatisfying and even useless. It often happens that men gather what is sufficient for support, and yet they are always hungry. It is a kind of curse, which appears very evident when God takes away their nourishing power from bread and wine, so that they supply no support to man. When therefore fruit, and whatever the earth produces for the necessities of man, give no support, God proves, as it were by an outstretched arm, that he is an avenger. But the other curse is more frequent; that is, when God smites the earth with drought, so that it produces nothing. But our Prophet refers to both these kinds of evils. Behold, he says, Ye have sown much and ye gather little; and then he says, Though ye are supplied with the produce of wine and corn, yet with eating and drinking ye cannot satisfy yourselves; nay, your very clothes do not make you warm. They might have had a sure hope of the greatest abundance, had they not broken off the stream of God’s favor by their sins. Were they not then extremely blind this experience must have awakened them, according to what is said in the first chapter of Joel.
He says at the end of the verse, He who gains wages, gains then for a perforated bag. By these words he reminds them, that the vengeance of God could not only be seen in the sterility of the earth, and in the very hunger of men, who by eating were not satisfied; but also in their work, for they wearied themselves much without any profit, as even the money cast into the bag disappeared. Hence he says, even your work is in vain. It was indeed a most manifest proof of God’s wrath, when their money, though laid up, yet vanished away.
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We now see what the Prophet means: As his doctrine appeared frigid to the Jews and his warnings were despised, he treats them according to the perverseness of their disposition. Hence he shows, that though they disregarded God and his Prophets, they were yet sufficiently taught by his judgements, and that still they remained indifferent. He therefore goads them, as though they were asses, that they might at length acknowledge that God was justly displeased with them, and that his wrath was conspicuous in the sterility of the land, as well as in everything connected with their life; for whether they did eat or abstained from food, they were hungry; and when they diligently labored and gathered wages, their wages vanished, as though they had cast them into a perforated bag. It follows—
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Consider the plagues of God upon you for preferring…
Consider the plagues of God upon you for preferring your policies to his religion, and because ye seek not him first of all.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Hag 1:6 Ye have sown much, and bring in…
Hag 1:6 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.
Ver. 6. Ye have sown much and bring in little] This was visible to them; and they are called upon to consider it. The philosopher affirms that man is therefore the wisest of creatures, because he alone can compute and consider. And yet how little doth man respect this privilege, without which he were to be sorted with beasts or madmen! "God hearkened and heard, but no man spake advisedly, no man repented of his wickedness, saying, What have I done?" Jer 8:6; no man humbled himself under the mighty hand of God, though God thrust him down, as it were, with a thump upon the back. Most men’s minds are as ill set as their eyes are; neither of them look inwards. "Lord," saith the prophet, "when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see," &c., Isa 26:11. So, when God’s rod call for reformation they will not hear it and who hath appointed it, but they shall hear, Job 33:15. Conscience, their domestic chaplain, shall ring this peal in their ears, "Consider your ways: Ye have sowed much but brought in little," &c. Omnia fuistis et nihil profuit, you have tried all ways to live, and it will not be, laboured all night, and taken nothing, "laboured in the very fire, and wearied yourselves for your vanity," Hab 2:13; as those that seek after the philosopher’s stone, the most they can look for is their labour for their pains. Either vanity or violence hath exhausted you, as Zec 8:10, and God’s vengeance is visible enough in those secret issues and drains of expense at which your estates run out, because he puts not his holy finger on the hole in the bottom of the bag. For it is his blessing alone that maketh rich, Pro 10:22 "and except he build the house, they labour in vain that build it," Psa 127:1. There is a curse upon unlawful practices, though men be never so industrious, as in Jehoiakim, Jer 22:13-19 And all their policies, without dependence upon him for direction and success, are but arena sine calce, sand without lime; they will not hold together when we have most need of them, but fall asunder, like untempered mortar. Hence the Psalmist assureth us that "promotion comes neither from the east, nor from the west, nor yet from the south," where the warm sunshine is, "but from the Lord: he putteth down one, and setteth up another," Psa 75:6. So Hannah: "The Lord," saith she, "maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up," 1Sa 2:7. And albeit no man knows either love or hatred by all that is before them, because all things come alike to all, Ecc 9:1-2 (God maketh a scatter, as it were, of these outward commodities: good men gather them, bad men scramble for them), yet if he blow upon a man’s estate, and by losses and crosses so beat him down with his own bare hand (as here in the text) that either he hath not to eat, or dare not eat his fill for fear of wanting another day, or if he do eat, yet the staff of bread being broken, and for want of God’s concurrence, he eats and is not satisfied, &c., he hath but prisoners’ pittance, which will neither keep him alive nor yet suffer him to die; he is to be very sensible of it, to consider his ways, and looking upon his penury (as a piece of the curse for neglect of God’s service, Lev 26:14-20), to deprecate that last and worst of miseries, the judgment of pining away in their iniquities, Lev 26:39. This is worse than any scarcity, than any bulimy or doggish appetite, a disease common in times of famine. "The righteous eateth to the satisfying of his soul: but the belly of the wicked shall want," Pro 14:25. As his belly prepareth deceit, Job 15:35, so it suffers deceit; imposturam faciunt et patiuntur, as the emperor said of them that sold glass for pearls. Fumos vendidit, fumo pereat, he that sells vapours let him pass away as a vapour. as another. Ye looked for much, and lo it came to little, as it followeth, Hag 1:9; and why? but because they thought every little too much for God, and all well saved that was kept from him, Mal 3:9-11. {See Trapp on "Mal 3:9"} {See Trapp on "Mal 3:10"} {See Trapp on "Mal 3:11"} The Popish commentators upon this text call upon the people (if ever they mean to thrive) to keep holy days, to, hear masses, &c.; yea, some priests in Gerson’s time publicly preached to the people that whosoever would hear a mass he should not fall blind on that day, nor be taken away by sudden death, nor want sufficient sustenance, Non erit caecus, nec subito morietur, nec carebit sufficienti sustentatione. This was more than they had good warrant to promise; and yet they are believed. Shall not we learn to live by faith, to trust "in the Lord and do good? so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed," Psa 37:3. The wicked in the fulness of their sufficiency are in straits, Job 20:22. Contrarily, the godly, in the fulness of their straits are in a sufficiency; and this is the gain of godliness, 1Ti 6:6. Piety is never without a well-contenting sufficiency, it hath treasure that faileth not, bags that wax not old, Luk 12:33; and shall have hereafter riches without rust, wealth without want, store without sore, beauty without blemish, mirth without mixture.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The prophet doth help them, or directs them what…
The prophet doth help them, or directs them what in particular they ought to consider, and so debateth it with them: Your labour, care, and charge hath been great in ploughing and sowing, that you are sensible of; but what harvest have you had? O, your barns have been far from full, you have reaped and brought in little; this is evident to all.
Ye eat, you feed on the fruit of your labour and product of the earth,
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but ye have not enough; but what you eat doth not nourish you, it doth not suffice; you are hungry and meagre still.
Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; the like emptiness and unprofitableness in your drink; your water quencheth not your thirst, your wine does not refresh your heart or revive your spirit; or you dare not eat or drink sufficiently for fear you should not have enough, lest your store should fail you.
Ye clothe you, but there is none warm; your wool and flax is not what it used to be, sufficient to defend you from the cold, it will not warm you.
He that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes; who labours or trades to gain and lay up loseth all his labour, it runs from him as money put into a purse or pocket that hath no bottom, that cannot hold it. This fruitless labour you will soon discern, if you consider your ways: and what think you may be the cause of this?
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Ye have sown much, and bring in little,.... Contrary…
Ye have sown much, and bring in little,.... Contrary to what is usually done; the seed that is sown is but little, in, comparison of what springs up, is reaped, and gathered into the barn; which commonly affords seed again to the sower, and bread to the eater; but here much land was tilled, and a great deal of seed was sown in it; but a thin crop was produced, little was gathered into the barn; a blessing being withheld from the earth, and from their labours, because of their sins, which they would do well to think of, and the cause of it:
ye eat, but ye have not enough; what the earth did yield, and which they gathered in, they made food of, and ate of it; yet it was not sufficient to satisfy their hunger; or it was not blessed for their nourishment; or they had a canine appetite in judgment given them, so that they were never satisfied: or, it was "not for fulness" (q); they were not filled with it to satisfaction, but still craved more; and yet, it may be, durst not eat more, if they had it, lest they should want the next day:
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ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; or, "not to inebriation" (r); it was not sufficient to quench their thirst, much less to make them merry and; cheerful: the vines produced such a small quantity of grapes, and those so little wine, that they had not enough to drink, at least could not drink freely, but sparingly, lest it should be all spent before another vintage came:
ye clothe you, but there is none warm; or, "but" it is "not for heat to him" (s); to anyone; so rigorous the season, so extreme the cold, that his clothes will not keep him warm, even though the climate was, naturally and usually hot:
and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes; or, "pierced through" (t); if a man is hired as a labourer, and gets much wages, and brings it home, and lays it up; or if he trades and merchandises, and has great gains by it, and thinks to amass great riches; yet, what through losses, and the dreariness of provisions, and the many ways he has for the spending of his money, it is as if he put it into a bag full of holes, and it ran through as fast as put into it; signifying hereby that all his pains and labour were in vain.
(q) "ad satietatem", Calvin, De Dieu; "ad saturitatem", Munster. (r) "ad ebrietatem", Tigurine version, Vatablus, Calvin, De Dieu. (s) "et non est ad calorem ei", De Dieu; "sed nemo ita ut sit calor ipsi", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "ut calefiat ei", Burkius. (t) "pertusum", V. L. Munster, Tigurine version, Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "perforatum", Munster, Varenius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Have not enough - But what you eat doth…
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.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 6. Ye have sown much] God will not…
Verse 6. Ye have sown much] God will not bless you in any labour 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.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Ye have sown much - The prophet expresses the…
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.”
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“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. ‘“
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Filled. Literally, "inebriated," (Haydock) so as to become cheerful.…
Filled. Literally, "inebriated," (Haydock) so as to become cheerful. (St. Jerome)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Nothing has prospered with you while you neglected your…
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].
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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.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 6. Ye have sown much, &c.] The expostulation is…
6. Ye have sown much, &c.] The expostulation is very abrupt and forcible in the Hebrew, “Ye sowed much, but to bring in little! To eat, but not to satiety! To drink, but not to exhilaration! To clothe (oneself), but not for warmth, to him (the wearer)!” The description refers not to one year, but to many. It coincides with the whole period of their sloth and neglect in the matter of the Temple. It points to a double judgment, dearth and scarcity in the fruits of the ground, and (what often accompanies this, for the same adverse influences which blight the earth are injurious to the human frame) want of power in the body of man, to assimilate and benefit by food and drink and clothing.
he that earneth wages] The judgment is not confined to the fruits of the earth, but extends to all branches of human industry. Disappointment and loss mar all alike. “The labour pictured is not only fruitless, but wearisome and vexing. There is a seeming result of all the labour, something to allure hopes; but forthwith it is gone. The heathen assigned a like baffling of hope as one of the punishments of hell.” Pusey.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (6) Ye have sown much . . .—Literally, Ye…
(6) Ye have sown much . . .—Literally, Ye have been sowing much and bringing in little; eating, and it was not to satisfaction; drinking, and it was not to fulness; clothing yourselves, and it was not for any one’s being warm, &c. This description of course merely implies that, notwithstanding all their labours, there was not much to eat, drink, or put on. Compare the use of the phrase “ye shall eat and not be satisfied,” in Lev_26:26.
To put it into a bag with holes.—The last clause expresses in a bold metaphor the general prevalence of poverty. Scarcity necessitated high prices, so that money “ran away” as fast as it was earned.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Their labours for years past had lacked the Divine…
Their labours for years past had lacked the Divine blessing. Though they had fine houses to dwell in, they had been visited with scanty harvests and weak bodily health. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; but to bring in little (Hebrew). And this infinitive absolute is continued in the following clauses, giving remarkable force to the words, and expressing a habitual result. We see from Hag_2:15-17 that these unfruitful seasons had visited them during all the continuance of their negligence. (Deu_28:38) But ye have not enough. The food which they ate did not satisfy them; their bodies were sickly and derived no strength from the food which they took (Lev_26:26; Hos_4:10) or from the wine which they drank (see note on. (Mic_6:14) But there is none warm. Perhaps the winters were unusually rigorous, or their infirm health made their usual clothing insufficient to maintain their bodily heat. To put it into a bag with holes. A proverbial saying. The money gained by the hired labourer vanished as if he had never had it, and left no trace of benefit. Comp. Plaut.,"Pseudol." 1, 3, 150
In pertusum ingerimus dicta dolium; operam ludimus.
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Vers. 6-11Hard times.
I A FREQUENT OCCURRENCE. Poor harvests and profitless trade, famine and idleness, lack of bread and want of employment, nothing to eat, and nothing to do. The two commonly go together. Examples of famines were in ancient times those which occurred in Canaan, (Gen_12:10) in Egypt, (Gen_41:54) in Samaria (1Ki_17:2; 2Ki_6:25) in Jerusalem; (Jer_52:6) in modern times those which have taken place in India, China, and other parts of Asia.
II A SORROWFUL EXPERIENCE. When the husbandman has laboured, and, perhaps through long continued drought, has obtained an altogether insufficient return for his labours. When through deficient harvests the people of a country are reduced to a state of semi-starvation. When through this failure in the sources of wealth the wheels of a nation"s industry are stopped. When strong men who would willingly work can find no work to do. When wages already scanty are eaten up by exorbitant prices.
III A PROVIDENTIAL JUDGMENT. Hard times:
1. Are of God"s sending. To say that bad harvests and dull trade are the results of natural (physical and social) laws does not show them to be disconnected with God. The Almighty is behind both nature and society, Jehovah claimed that the state of matters in Judah after the exile was his doing.
2. Have their occasions, if not their causes, in sin. Haggai"s countrymen had been made to suffer because of their indifference to religion and devotion to self-interest (ver. 9). Were modern nations to reflect more deeply, they might discover connections between their characters and their conditions, their sins and their sufferings.
IV A SALUTARY DISCIPLINE. Intended as all chastisement is:
1. To arrest attention. Inconsiderateness a principal sin of men and nations.
2. To convince of sin. A remarkable proof of depravity that moral perceptions require to be awakened by physical corrections.
3. To excite repentance. Though confessions under the lash are not the same thing as penitence, yet they may and should be, and often are, accompanied by penitence.
4. To promote amendment. Though punishment is not exclusively reformatory in its character, yet it is mostly (on earth at least) inflicted with design to benefit the sufferer.
LESSONS.
1. Religion in individuals and nations the best defence against hardtimes.
2. Repentance and prayer the best resort in bad times.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain He that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it…
Hag_1:6
He that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
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The bag with holes
The prophet lifted his warning voice, and entreated his sinful brethren to consider their ways, to solve for themselves the curious and alarming fact, that while toiling for their temporal gratification, and sowing broadcast with liberal hand, the return for such labours was so meagre and unsatisfactory, even as if one had been shortsighted enough to deposit his hard-earned wages in a bag with holes. The history of nations, like that of individuals, is ever repeating itself.
1. Those persons come under this description who pride them, selves on the accumulation and possession, of wealth.
2. That man is dropping his money into a bag with holes, who is spending any large proportion of it in things which minister chiefly to pride and vain glory. Ruskin says, A tenth part of the expense which is sacrificed in domestic vanities, if not absolutely and meaningly lost in domestic comforts and incumbrances would, if wisely employed, build a marble church for every town in England.
3. Those persons are putting their wealth into a bag with holes, who are robbing Gods Church of her lawful tithes, that they may have the more to leave to their children. Inherited wealth is as often a curse as a blessing. Idleness is a source of misery, and there is no deadlier bane of character. The wise father will give his son the education which will fit him for the trade or the profession which he may prefer, and then allow him the privilege of pushing his own fortune in the world. Bishop Doane said of the men who should make a State, that they are made by self-denial. Instead of the selfish question of the votary of the world, How much can I get out of this life in the way of dress, high-living, envy, admiration, amusement? may our endeavour be this, How much shall this life of mine (so short and so uncertain) get out of me in loving devoted service to my Lord? (John N. Norton, D. D.)
A bag with holes
(a talk with children):--In olden times folk kept their money in bags, and still people keep it in little bags which we call purses. What is the good of a money-bag if it is full of holes? Yet the prophet says that the people of his day put their money into suck bags. He means that they tried to keep something far more precious than money in this reckless fashion. He speaks of their wages. We are always sorry to lose anything valuable. Yet the way to lose anything is to put it in a bag with holes. What disappointment therefore is expressed here by the prophet! The feeling of loss is all the keener when we lose something that we have earned. There are some people who have what we call windfalls. Such a windfall has generally, like fallen apples, a bruise about it. It is not half so good as when we earn it ourselves. Now these people in the text had earned what they lost. The word here used for wages denotes hard earnings. I hope you children will learn in life to earn wages of your own, The best thing in life is to work for what we get. They are few who know how to use money without first knowing how to earn it. These people knew how to earn money, but they did not know how to take care of it. Half the battle of life is to earn; and the other half is to know where to place and how to use what we earn. But I have seen people who worked very hard, and yet at the close of life entered eternity as paupers. They took care of what we call money: they did not put their wealth into a bag with holes. But they never remembered that the money of this world does not pass current in the next. There is another kind of coin necessary for the next world. To die rich in the things of the world very often means to die poor with regard to the world to come. (David Davies.)
The worst foe of labour
The most persistent, most overpowering enemy of the working-classes is intoxicating liquor. It is to labour a worse foe than monopoly, and worse than associated capital It annually swindles industry out of a large percentage of its earnings. I proclaim s strike universal against strong drink, which, if kept up, will be the relief of the working-classes and the salvation of the nation. When you deplete a workmans physical energy, you deplete his capital. The stimulated workman gives out before the unstimulated workman. When an army goes out to the battle, the soldier who has water or coffee in his canteen marches easier and fights better than the soldier who has whisky in his canteen. God only knows what the drunkard suffers, in his body, in his home, and above all, in the loss of his soul. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
National improvidence
Objection may be urged against introducing social and political questions into Christian pulpits. Objection cannot, however, fairly be made against the pulpit treatment of that branch of social politics national improvidence. Here, in Haggais time, the means of life were abundant, and yet men were dissatisfied. The national improvidence of the Jews was a punishment of their neglect of God, while our national improvidence is a hindrance to our true approach to Him as a nation. See the enormous waste of means and comfort caused by our national self-indulgence, and the absolute want, and almost starvation, resulting thence to millions of our fellow-men; or, when we think of the growing passion for destructive drink, must we not see a wonderful description of our present state in this other thing which God tells us to consider, Ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but are not satisfied with drink. It is a common but mistaken notion that Bible teaching generally is opposed to worldly notions of prudence. Men quote our Saviours words, Take no thought for the morrow, without our Saviours context. His object was to prevent their letting care for providing earthly things cause them to neglect providing heavenly things. The possession of competence is not a crime. Our Saviour shows waste to be wicked, and wilful destitution a sin, not merely as being an offence and trouble to social politics, but as an iniquity against the honour of God, who, in ordaining that man should eat bread at the sweat of his brow, has laid on every man the duty of self-provision. The apostles point to the sin of improvidence in no measured terms. They never contemplate a state of things in which men shall expect fellow men in every case of need to supply all their necessities. They teach, as our Saviour did, dependence on God, but not on man. Consider the prevalence of this sin of improvidence. National improvidence exists in England without a parallel in all creation. (W. L. Blackley, M. A.)
A bad investment
I. With respect to much of the money men gain we may say it is put into a bag with holes. Look at one man who is a type of those who put earnings into a bag with holes. He works hard. With the dawn he arises. He eats the bread of carefulness. He is ever on the watch for the main chance, that is, for increasing the accumulations of No.
1. He does not trouble always as to the methods by which he gains. He cares only to see his balance increase. He is never known to be taken with a fit of generosity. He stints himself, and it may be his family, of all pleasures that he may increase his savings. Thus grubbing and grasping, puffing and lying, he makes the mickle into muckle. He finds the pennies become pounds, the tens grow to hundreds, and the hundreds to thousands. He gets respect, is favoured with applications for help. But he has been putting his gain into a bag with holes, if he has wrongly gained his wealth, and if he has bowed down to that, worshipping it alone. Remember that he cannot take it with him at death. It were useless if he could. There are many who, even without gaining much, make themselves slaves to their particular line of work. They give no thought to the higher concerns of life. But all their Life they toil without content; they have murmured and fretted, envied others, even misrepresented them. Into a bag with holes they have placed all they have so hardly gained. Then there are many who really could earn and do earn much, but they waste it. They know not where the money has gone, and if they knew where it has gone they would not confess it to themselves or to others.
II. With respect to many of the pleasures men seek, the truth of the text is manifested. We say many, because all pleasure is not sinful, and seeking it at times may be a strong duty. Alas! some spoil lawful and sufficient recreation by taking unlawful pleasure. They are certainly putting their efforts into a bag with holes. Thus also with stolen, secret pleasures. Souls yield to the desires of the heart, the lusts of the flesh, and because the thing is hidden up they rub their hands and say I have done no wrong. In no sinful indulgence can we find a gratification that shall be enduring. That deed, the memory of which causes the face to crimson, has no quality in it that can be really satisfactory.
III. With respect to our unaided efforts at reform of life, the truth of the text applies. We find out that the devil is a bad master, that the wages of sin is death. We begin to see that this life has been wasted, that we have lived for self. We then begin to struggle, in our own strength, to improve character and conquer sins. Perhaps we do make some little progress for a time. Soon we discover that it has been only for a time, and that the root of sin is still in our soul. Then the fact begins to stare us in the face, that if we could avoid all sin in the future, if we could conquer all tendency to sin in our hearts, we have yet a great account of sin which is unforgiven. Law must not be violated and dishonoured. Hence He takes up, in the Person of Christ, our sins and bears them. He magnifies the law. He then freely forgives us for Christs sake. The whole past can be as though it had not been. All sin can be fully expunged. God in Christ has provided a way of dealing with sin such as we cannot understand, but which we can accept. Confucius said, A blemish may be taken out of a diamond by carefully polishing it, but if your words have the least blemish there is no way to efface them. This is true of the sinful dispositions of the soul. Only Christ can efface them. Our self-righteousness, which is effort to atone in our own strength, is like wages put into a bag with holes.
IV. With respect to attempts of many to gain various kinds of knowledge we may assert the principle of the text. There are those who are incessantly inquiring, reading, and yet who know but very little. They go about, but although seeing much, they retain little. Many hear abundance of lectures, of sermons, but seem to know little more. They read their Bibles, but they increase little in knowledge of it. Now, just look back and see how much you have read and heard and known. What has been the effect on the character, the heart, the life? Has it not been put into a bag with holes T How often have you heard of the sacrifice of Christ and the infinite love of God. Has it had any effect? Has there been any effect on the life? Bitter was the wail of the mother who after ten years of care of an imbecile child said to me, After all my love she never seems to notice me more readily than she would a stranger. Ah! that is just what Jesus has to say of us. His love has been thrown away upon us, it has been put in a bag with holes. (Homiletic Magazine.)
The bag with holes
To apply this figure of the prophets to our own times-and circumstances, in a word to ourselves, let us see what is the bag with the holes into which honest earnings are too often put.
I. extravagance is such a bag. I mean the spending more on a thing than our income justifies. Bishop Patrick begins a chapter with a notable warning, Consider thine own sufficiency. Weigh well what you are equal to, and this may as well apply to our income as anything else. If we allow ourselves in any instance an expenditure, no matter what be the subject of it, which is unsuitable to our circumstances and inconsistent with our means, there is no other name for this that I know of than extravagance; i.e (to trace the word to its derivation) a wandering beyond the just limits within which our course should lie. There is a certain suitableness between our position and circumstances on the one hand, and our expenses on the other, which good taste will discern instinctively; any squandering in one direction must involve poverty in the other: I do not say a bag with holes, but a bag with one hole will let out all the money, that which is for necessary wants, as well as that which is spent upon the luxury. Is not extravagance the fault of the age? Do not men of all classes live so near to their income that it is hardly possible to avoid going beyond it? There are but two ways of meeting that difficulty: we must earn more or spend less.
II. There is another bag with holes--waste. This, though it resembles extravagance in some respects, is a different thing, for extravagance is in superfluities; waste may be of things necessary. I fear this is an increasing fault. I see it wherever I go: waste of fuel and of food, waste of money, waste of land, waste of its produce. Yet He who, by a miracle twice repeated, made bread enough and to spare for thousands in the wilderness, had an eye to what was over; and left us a memorable lesson: Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Young people hardly know how much can be done simply by wasting nothing. I have an honest shepherd near me who once offered me a loan of £200. I know another who has saved enough to buy him a little farm. What was their secret? They wasted nothing. They have had enough for livelihood, enough for health, for comfort, and this to spare when the day of feebleness and dearth shall come. Their bag was not one with holes.
III. Akin to extravagance and waste is excess. This does, indeed, partake of the character of the other two; but it has this element in addition, that it is extravagance and it is waste, both employed on self, and both to the detriment of self. If you will just call to mind some of the calculations which are now familiar to us all you will see what a bag with holes this is for the earnings of the nation at large. More than 100 millions are spent in the kingdom every year on drink! This is the great bag with holes into which skilful earnings, hard earnings, costly earnings, are too apt to be put. That dreadful, that pitiable habit of intemperance is a solvent which will melt down a fortune however great, and a man however strong. No matter what is put into the bag, through that one hole it disappears, and leaves the owner of it like the tattered bag itself. (A. C. Bishop, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Haggai
VAIN TOIL
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Hag 1:6.
A large emigration had taken place from the land of captivity to Jerusalem. The great purpose which the returning exiles had in view was the rebuilding of the Temple, as the centre-point of the restored nation. With true heroism, and much noble and unselfish enthusiasm, they began the work, postponing to it all considerations of personal convenience. But the usual fate of all great national enthusiasms attended this. Political difficulties, hard practical realities, came in the way, and the task was suspended for a time. A handful remained true to the original ideas; the rest fell away. Personal comfort, love of ease, the claims of domestic life, the greed of gain, all the ignoble motives which, like gravitation and friction, check such movements after the first impulse is exhausted, came into play. Like every great cause, this one was launched amidst high hopes and honest zeal: but by degrees the hopes faded and became nothing better than ‘godly imaginations.’ The exiles took to building their own ceiled houses, and let the House of God lie waste. They began to think more of settling on the land than of building the Temple. No doubt they said all the things with which men are wont to hide their selfishness under the mask of duty:-Men must live; we must take care of ourselves; it is mad enthusiasm to build a temple when we have not homes; we mean to build it some time, but we are practical men and must provide for our wants first.’
This wisdom of theirs turned out folly, as it generally does. There came, as we learn from this prophet, a season of distress, in which the harvest, for which they had sacrificed their duties and their calling, failed: and in spite of their prudent diligence, or rather, just because of their misplaced and selfish attention to their worldly well-being, they were poor and hungry. ‘The heaven over them was stayed from dew, and the earth from her fruit.’ Haggai was sent by God to interpret the calamity, and to urge to the fulfilment of their earlier purposes.
His words apply to a supernatural condition of things with which he is dealing, but they contain truths illustrated by it and true for ever. For us all, as truly as for those Jews, the first thing, the primary, all-embracing duty, is to serve God, to obey, love, and live with Him. The same selfish and worldly excuses have force with us: ‘We have business to look after; men must live; we have no time to think about religion; I have built a new mill that occupies my thoughts; I have found a new plaything, and I must try it; I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So God and His claims, Christ and His love, are hustled into a corner to be attended to when opportunity serves, but to be neglected in the meantime. And the same result follows, not by miracle, but by natural necessity. Haggai puts these results in our text with bitter, indignant amplification. His words are all the working out of one idea-the unprofitableness, on the whole and in the long-run, of a godless life. He illustrates this in the clauses of our text in various forms, and my purpose now is simply to apply each of these to the realities of a godless life.
I. It is a life of fruitless toil.
The Prophet pictures the sowing, the abundant seed thrown broadcast, the long waiting, and then, finally, a wretched harvest-a few prematurely yellow ears and short stalks. I remember a friend telling me that when he was a boy he went out reaping with his father in one of our years of great drought; and after a day’s work threshed out all that he had cut, and carried it home with him in his handkerchief. That is what Haggai saw realised in fact, because the sowing had been without God. It is what we may see in others and feel in ourselves. It is the very law and curse of godless toil with its unproductive harvest. The builders set out to build a tower whose top shall reach to heaven, and they never get higher than a story or two. There is nothing more tragic than the contrast between what a man actually accomplishes in his life and what he planned when he began it. Many and many of our lives are like the half-built houses in Pompeii, where the stones are lying that had been all squared and polished, and have never been lifted to their place in the unfinished walls. Much of the seed never comes up at all; and what we gather is always less than what we expected. The prize gleams before us; when we get it, is it as good as it looked when it hung tempting at the unreached goal? A fox-brush is scarcely sufficient payment for riding over half a county. Ah! but you say, there is the enthusiasm and stir of the pursuit. Well, yes; it is something if it is training you for something, and if you can say that faculties worth the cultivating are developed in that way: and whether that is so depends on what you think a man is made for, and on whether these are faculties which will last and find their scope as long as you last. Consider what you are, what you seek; and then say whether the most fruitful harvest from which God and His love are left out is not little.
This fruitlessness of toil is inevitable unless it springs from a motive which in itself is sufficient, pursues a purpose which will surely be accomplished, and is done in hope of the world where ‘our works do follow us.’ If we are allied to Christ, then whether our work be great or small, apparently successful or frustrated, it will be all right. Though we do not see our fruit, we know that He will bless the springing thereof, and that no least deed done for Him but shall in the harvest-day be found waving a nodding head of multiplied results. ‘God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him’; and ‘he that goeth forth weeping shall doubtless return, bringing his sheaves with him.’ ‘Your labour is not in vain to the Lord.’
II. A godless life is one of unsatisfied hunger and thirst.
The poor results of the exiles’ toil did not avail to stay gnawing hunger nor slake burning thirst, and the same result applies only too sadly to lives lived apart from God. There are a multitude of desires proper to the human soul besides those which belong to the bodily frame, and these have their proper objects. Is it true that the objects are sufficient to satisfy the desires? Does any one of the things for which we toil feed us full when we have it? Do we not always want just a little more? And is not that want accompanied with a real and sharp sense of hunger? Is it not true the appetite GROWS with what it feeds on? And even if a man schools himself to something like content, it comes not because the desire is satisfied, but because it is somehow bridled. Cerberus often breaks his chain, in spite of honied cakes that have been tossed into the wide mouths of his tripled heads. What do wealth and ambition do for their votaries? And even he who thirsts for nobler occupations and lives for higher aims is often obliged to admit, in weariness, that ‘this also is vanity.’
But even when the desire is satisfied, the man desiring is not. To feed their bodies men starve their souls. How many longings are crushed or neglected by him who pushes eagerly after any one longing! We have either to race from one course to another, splitting life into intolerable distractions, or we have to circumscribe and limit ourselves in order to devote all our power to securing one; and if we secure it, then a hundred others will bark like a kennel of hounds.
And if you say, ‘I know nothing about all this; I have my aims, and on the whole I secure a tolerable satisfaction for them,’ do you not know a nameless unrest? If you do not, then you are so much the poorer and the lower, and you have murdered part of yourself. Some one single tyrannous desire sits solitary in your heart. He has slain all his brethren that he may rule, as sultans used to do in Constantinople. One big fish in the aquarium has eaten up all the others.
God only satisfies the soul. It is only the ‘bread which came down from Heaven,’ of which if we eat our souls shall live, and be filled as with marrow and fatness. That One is all-sufficient in His Oneness. Possessing Him, we know no satiety; possessing Him, we do not need to maim any part of our nature; possessing Him, we shall not covet divers multifarious objects. The loftiest powers of the soul find in Him their adequate, inexhaustible, eternal object. The lowest desires may, like the beasts of the forest, seek their meat from God. If we take Him for our own and live on Him by faith, our blessed experience will be, ‘I am full: I have all and abound.’
III. The godless life is one of futile defences.
‘Ye clothe you, but there is none warm.’ The clothing was to guard against the nipping air that blew shrewdly on their hills, and it failed to keep them from the weather. We may be indulging in fancy in this application of our text, but still raiment is as needful as food, and its failure to answer its purpose points to a real sorrow and insufficiency of a life lived without God. In it there is no real defence against the manifold evils which storm upon all of us. When the bitter, biting weather comes, what have you to shelter you from the cold blast? Some rags of stoical resignation or proverbial commonplaces? ‘What is done cannot be helped’; ‘What cannot be cured must be endured’; ‘It is a long lane that has no turning,’ and the like. But what are these? You may have other occupations to interest you, but these will not heal, though they may divert your attention from, your gaping wounds. You have friends, and the like, but though you have all these and much beside, these will not avail. ‘The covering is shorter than that a man can wrap himself in it.’ Naked and shivering, exposed to the pelting and the pitiless storm, with rags soaked through, and chilled to the bone, what is there but death before the man in the wild weather on some trackless moor? And what is there for us if we have to bear the storms and cold of life without God? No doubt most of us struggle through somehow. Time heals much; work does a great deal; to live is so much, that no living being can be wholly miserable. Other cares and other occupations blossom and grow, and the brown mounds get covered with sweet springing grass. But how many lie down and die? How many for the rest of their lives go crushed and broken-spirited? How many carry about with them, deep in their hearts, a sleepless sorrow? How many have to bear passionate paroxysms of agony and bursts of angry grief, all of which might have been softened and soothed and made to gleam with the mellow light of hope as from a hidden sun, if only, instead of defiantly and weakly fronting the world alone, they had found in the man Christ the refuge from the storm and the covert from the tempest. How can a man face all the awful possibilities and the solemn certainties of life without God and not go mad? It is impossible to work without Him; it is impossible to rejoice without Him; but more impossible still, if that could be, is it to endure without Him. It is in union with Jesus Christ, and with Him alone, that we shall receive ‘the pure linen, clean and white,’ which is a surer defence than the warrior’s mail, and ‘being clothed we shall not be found naked.’
IV. A godless life is one of fleeting riches.
In Haggai’s strong metaphor, the poor day-labourer earns his small wage and puts it into a ragged bag, or as we should say, a pocket with a hole in it; and when he comes to look for it, it is gone, and all his toil is for nothing. What a picture this is of the very experience that befalls all men who work for less wages than God’s ‘Well done.’ Take an instance or two: here is a man who works hard for a long time, and puts his money into some bank, and one morning he gets a letter to tell him the bank’s doors are closed, and his savings gone-a bag with holes. Here is a man who climbs by slow degrees to the head of his profession and lives in popular admiration, and some day he sees a younger competitor shooting ahead of him, and all is lost-a bag with holes. Here is a man who has, by some great discovery, established his fame or his fortune, and a new man, standing on his shoulders, makes a greater, and his fame dwarfs and his trade runs into other channels-a bag with holes. Here is a man who has conquered a world, and dies on the rock of St. Helena, with his pompous titles stripped off him, and instead of kingdoms a rood or two of garden, and instead of his legions, half a dozen soldiers, a doctor, and a jailer-a bag with holes. Here is a man who, having amassed his riches and kept them without loss all his life, is dying. They cannot go with him. That would not matter; but unfortunately he has to live yonder, and he will have ‘nothing of all his labour that he can carry away in his hands’-a bag with holes.
Such loss and final separation befall us all; but he who loves God loses none of his real treasure when he parts from earthly treasures. Fortune may turn her wheel as she pleases, his wealth cannot be taken from him. His riches are laid up in a sure storehouse, ‘where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.’ We each live for ever. Should we not have for our object in life that which is eternal as ourselves? Why should we fix our hopes on that which is not abiding-on things that can perish, on things that we must lose? Let us not run this awful risk. Do not impoverish or darken life here; do not condemn yourselves to unfruitful toil, to unsatisfied desires, to unguarded calamities, to unstable possessions; but come, as sinful men ought to come, to Jesus Christ for pardon and for life. Then, in due season, you will reap if you faint not; and the harvest will not be little, but ‘some sixty-fold and some an hundred-fold’; then you will ‘hunger no more, neither thirst any more,’ but ‘He that hath mercy on you will lead you to living fountains of water’; then you will not have to draw your poor rags round you for warmth, but shall be clothed with the robe of righteousness and the garment of praise; then you will never need to fear the loss of your riches, but bear with you whilst you live your treasures beyond the reach of change, and will find them multiplied a thousand-fold when you die and go to God, your portion and your joy for ever.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 1:6 eat . . . drink . . .…
1:6 eat . . . drink . . . put on clothes: Each of these conveys continuous action (i.e., you keep filling your plates . . . you keep drinking and drinking . . . you put on layer after layer of clothes), heightening the sense of futility. • pockets filled with holes (literally a pierced bag): The image depicts the loss of wages. Many families faced poverty despite their steady labors.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.