What Does Haggai 1:5 Mean?
Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts. Set your heart upon your ways.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.THE KEY
The verse’s “consider” is the embodied act of setting your heart upon the path your steps are making.
THE MEANING
The LORD of hosts meets you with a direct call to place your heart on the course your life is taking. Your actual way, made visible in repeated choices, can be brought into view now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that sincere intentions make it unnecessary to examine the direction of your choices.
THE ROOT
שִׂימוּ
simu
GROWS FROM
שׂים
sim
To put, place, or set.
The Hebrew verb means “set” or “place” in the phrase “set your heart upon your ways.” Consideration here is directed attention: the inner self is placed upon the course being taken.
ALSO GROWS
sim: To put, set, or place.
שִׂים
This basic action gives “consider” the sense of deliberately placing attention.
vayyasem: And he put or placed.
וַיָּשֶׂם
This form carries the same concrete action of placing something in a particular position.
לְבַבְכֶם
levavkhem
GROWS FROM
לבב
levav
The inner self: the center of thought, desire, and intention.
The heart is more than feeling; it is the inner center that attends, chooses, and intends. Set upon your ways, it brings your desires and decisions into the examination too.
ALSO GROWS
lev: Heart; the inner person.
לֵב
It names the inward center the verse directs toward the path.
levav: Heart; inner self.
לְבָב
This fuller form is the word used in the verse’s call to set the heart upon one’s ways.
דַּרְכֵיכֶם
darkheikhem
GROWS FROM
דָּרַךְ
darakh
To tread or step.
“ways” in this verse is darkheikhem. The word for a “way” grows from the verb “to tread”: a way is a track made and traveled. The course of your life becomes visible in where your steps repeatedly go.
ALSO GROWS
derekh: Way, path, or manner.
דֶּרֶךְ
This is the singular word behind “ways,” naming the course a person travels.
darakh: To tread or step.
דָּרַךְ
The verb makes the path concrete: it is formed by the steps that travel it.
THE PATTERN
A life’s direction becomes clear when it is examined by the steps it actually takes.
I reckon my ways, and I turn back my feet to your witnesses.Let us feel for our ways and search them out, and turn back to the LORD.But let each one test his own work, and then he has his boast in himself alone, and not in another.THE THREAD
I reckon my ways, and I turn back my feet to your witnesses.Both verses use forms of דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, way or path) for the course being examined. The psalm shows what happens when that path comes into view: attention reaches the feet, and the next steps turn.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us