09/23/2026
Sept. 23 – Haggai 2:10-19 (24th day, 9th month – so 16 weeks after first word)
10 On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 11 Thus says the LORD of hosts: Ask the priests for a ruling: 12 If one carries consecrated meat in the fold of one’s garment, and with the fold touches bread, or stew, or w**e, or oil, or any kind of food, does it become holy? The priests answered, ‘No.’ 13 Then Haggai said, ‘If one who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?’ The priests answered, ‘Yes, it becomes unclean.’ 14 Haggai then said, So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, says the LORD; and so with every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean. 15 But now, consider what will come to pass from this day on. Before a stone was placed upon a stone in the LORD’s temple, 16 how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten; when one came to the w**e vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. 17 I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and mildew and hail; yet you did not return to me, says the LORD. 18 Consider from this day on, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid, consider: 19 Is there any seed left in the barn? Do the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree still yield nothing? From this day on I will bless you.
This feels like a confusing text. The question in vs. 11-13 is this: If a holy thing touches something does the holy thing make the thing it touches holy? The answer is “No.” The follow up is this, if someone touches a dead body would they under Old Testament law be unclean, the answer is “Yes”. And being unclean, if the person touched something would the thing they touched become unclean, again the answer is “Yes”.
Now here is the twist. The people of Israel even as they are working hard on rebuilding the temple, are people who have been in contact with the deadness of being in exile, the deadness of a ruined city, the deadness of discouragement and despair, and their work appears to be producing little. They are being faithful to the task, but there is little life to their hard work, there are few results. Vs. 15-17, God points to the lack of fruitfulness, the lack of production, the lack of life.
That is about to change – God is about to step in a bring fruitfulness to the work. He will bring life where there was deadness. He will transform the ways of despair into trust and hope as he begins to bring fruit, crop, produce from the work of their hands. No longer will it feel like they are striving in their own strength, they will be carried by the work and power of God.
In our lives there are times when it feels like we are working and working for God and there are few results. We strive and strive but little happens. The work feels lifeless, joyless. In those moments the double invitation is 1. To remain faithful to the work, and 2. Trust the day is coming when God will step in and bring fruit from our work. Fruit, production that will come not because of our hard work, but because God has acted.
PRAYER:
O Lord, often our hard work produces little. And we become discouraged, there is a deadness, joylessness to our efforts because we are accomplishing little. Help us to trust that you will bring about a rich harvest by your hand and by your plan. Make us faithful as we labour hoping in your coming kingdom. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
