Scripture Daily

Context No. 4078 of 4322 · Haggai

Context · Reflection

Haggai 1:1-6: in context

1In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, the LORD’s word came by Haggai the prophet, to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying, 2“This is what the LORD of Armies says: These people say, ‘The time hasn’t yet come, the time for the LORD’s house to be built.’” 3Then the LORD’s word came by Haggai the prophet, saying, 4“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies waste? 5Now therefore this is what the LORD of Armies says: ‘Consider your ways. 6You 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.’

Through the prophet Haggai, God confronts his people, who had let the rebuilding of the temple stall while they busied themselves with their own comfortable homes. Is it a time for you to dwell in your paneled houses, God asks, while this house lies in ruins? And he tells them to consider their ways, pointing to a strange emptiness in their lives.

You have sown much and harvested little; you eat but are never filled; you earn wages only to put them in a bag with holes. They were working hard but never satisfied, and God connects this to their misplaced priorities. Having put their own comfort ahead of God's honor and work, they found that their efforts yielded a strange dissatisfaction. We can pour our energy into building comfortable lives for ourselves while neglecting the things of God, and find, to our surprise, that all our striving leaves us oddly unsatisfied, our wages slipping through a bag with holes. God's call is to consider our ways, and to reorder our priorities. When God is honored first, the rest finds its proper place.

Have I put my own comfort first and God's work and honor last, and do I find, like Haggai's hearers, a strange dissatisfaction in all my striving, so that I need to consider my ways and reorder my priorities?

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