From This Day On, I Will Bless (Haggai 2:10-19) Series

And why have the people been unclean? Because they haven't been "holy." They haven't been truly dedicated to God. And this was obviously the case, because they live in paneled houses, while Yahweh's house is in ruins.

What will Yahweh do about this? Verse 15:

(15) and so then, set, please, your hearts, from this day and forward/beyond.

From before the placing of stone upon stone in the temple of Yahweh,

(16) from their being, he came to a heap of twenty measures,

and it was ten.

He came to a vat to draw out 50 measures of wine,

and there were 20.

(17) I struck you with blight and with mildew and with the hail-- all the work of your hands--,

and you didn't return to me. --utterance of Yahweh.

------------------------------------

DBL, on "blight": 8730 ?????????? (šid•da•p¯ôn): n.masc.; = Str 7711; TWOT 2335a—LN 79.78–79.83 blight, i.e., a plant disease which cause the injuring and shriveling of plants (without rotting) as a figurative extension of scorching, shriveling heat (Dt 28:22; 1Ki 8:37; 2Ch 6:28; Am 4:9; Hag 2:17+), note: some sources translate “scorching,” and so relate to intense heat and not organic disease

----------------------------------------------

What Yahweh most wants, is to bless his people. He wants to shower kindness, and grace, and favor, on them, and be good to them. But He will only do this for a people who are dedicated to him. And what He's been doing instead, is striking all of their works with some of humans' worst enemies. When your crops become diseased, what can you do? When your house gets mold and mildew, how do you fight it? And hail? A few years ago, farmers had started harvesting their crops, and we had a terrible storm. There was a 5 mile stretch of crops just south of 94, where the corn was snapped off just below the ear. Entire fields looked great. They were ready for the combine. And just like that, they were gone.

When these things happen to you, you maybe feel snake bit. Unlucky. Even today, with 2,000 years of science and technology, there are no good or easy solutions for these things. But it's not that the people here have been unlucky. God says, "I did this."

And if the people knew how the covenant worked, they should've realized that these bad things were a sign of God's curses. Let's read just part of them, in Deut. 28:15-48 (read them).

So God says, "When these bad things started happening to you, you should've realized that this was Me." Blight, and mildew, and hail are signs of God's punishment. Of his curse. And these things are designed to call you to repentance, and to renewed dedication/holiness toward God."

And when they didn't realize it, and they didn't "return" to Yahweh, what did God do? He sent Haggai.

Now, nothing so far this more has been very encouraging, right? God expects obedience, and when He doesn't get it, what does He do? Bad things.

But there is a larger point that Yahweh/Haggai is working toward. And we know that God's people have been working hard on his house for three months now. The encouragement starts here, in verse 18: