What Does Haggai 1:9 Mean in the King James?
Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.
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
The verb translated “I did blow” shares a root with the verb translated “breathed” when God forms the first human, joining life’s beginning and the harvest’s diminishment under one word.
THE MEANING
You look for much, but what reaches home can still become little under the LORD’s action. The verse places this loss beside two houses: the LORD’s lies desolate while each person runs to his own, and names that imbalance as its cause.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A large harvest does not make abundance secure through private effort alone; what you bring home remains under the LORD’s power while his house lies desolate.
THE ROOT
וְנָפַחְתִּי
wə-nāfaḥtî
GROWS FROM
נפח
To blow, puff, or inflate.
The verb translated “blew” shares its root with the verb translated “breathed” in Genesis 2:7, and with the word for bellows in Jeremiah 6:29. The root describes a directed force that brings the human to life in Genesis and passes over the gathered yield here, where it leaves little.
ALSO GROWS
wayyippaḥ: He blew into; rendered “breathed” in Genesis 2:7.
וַיִּפַּח
Genesis uses this form for God’s action toward the human; Haggai uses the same root for the force directed at the harvest.
mappuach: Bellows (Jeremiah 6:29).
מַפֻּחַ
A bellows channels a blast, showing the root’s concrete sense of directed blowing.
THE PATTERN
What people gather never becomes independent of the LORD, who gives life and the capacity to produce.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.Genesis uses the same root, נפח (n-p-ḥ; naphach, to blow), for God’s action that brings the human to life; Haggai uses it for the force directed at gathered produce. The shared verb makes the verse’s stark turn visible: the action that animates can also diminish what has been gathered.
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