What Does Haggai 1:6 Mean in the King James?
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.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
This verse shows how much can enter a life without ever reaching satiety.
THE MEANING
The verse names a life in which effort and supply keep arriving but do not settle into enough: the harvest is thin, appetite remains, the body stays cold, and earned money leaks away. Its truth speaks wherever abundant input still leaves a person without nourishment, warmth, or security.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that more effort automatically becomes enough: labor, food, drink, clothing, and pay can all be present while nourishment and security remain out of reach.
THE ROOT
לִשְׂבָעָה
lisva'ah
GROWS FROM
שׂבע
To be sated, to have one’s fill.
The Hebrew phrase points to satiety: the state of having had enough. Food and drink approach that fullness, but the verse keeps showing the reader short of it.
ALSO GROWS
śāvēaʿ: Sated, satisfied
שָׂבֵעַ
The verse names a failure to arrive at fullness, not simply a low quantity of food.
śōvaʿ: Satiety, fullness
שֹׂבַע
The same root names the state that the verse’s repeated lack withholds.
הַמִּשְׂתַּכֵּר מִשְׂתַּכֵּר
hamishtakker mishtakker
GROWS FROM
שכר
To hire or pay wages; to earn wages.
“earneth wages” in this verse is hamishtakker mishtakker. Hebrew repeats the same שכר verb for the wage earner and the earning itself: the return is present in the sentence, yet the very next image cannot hold it. The word family binds worker and wage together, while the pierced bag shows the failure between receiving and retaining.
ALSO GROWS
śākhār: Wages, hire, reward
שָׂכָר
This is the return the worker earns, which the verse immediately places in a leaking container.
śākhīr: Hired worker
שָׂכִיר
The worker’s name grows from the same root as his wages, joining labor and its return in one word family.
THE PATTERN
An abundance of inputs does not by itself produce a satisfying return.
Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.THE THREAD
He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.Haggai’s “enough” and Ecclesiastes’ “satisfied” share the Hebrew root שׂבע (ś-b-ʿ), to be sated or have one’s fill. The shared root reveals the same question beneath both verses: whether more provision or silver can actually reach satiety.
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