Haggai 1:10

the heaven over you, &c. Lit. upon you are stayed the heavens. Some understand by "upon" or "against" you, "on your account," on account of, or in punishment of your sins (for your sake, R. V. text). But there would be something of tautology in this, because the same thing has been said in the first word of the verse, "therefore" (on account of what has been mentioned in the preceding verses) has this judgment come upon you. It is better therefore to take it, as in A. V., and R. V. margin, "the heaven over you." Compare the terms in which the judgment had been threatened by Moses, "thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass," Deuteronomy 28:23.

from dew not rain only, but even dew had been withholden. "Coeli non solum pluviam non dederunt, sed ne rorem quidem, quo arentes agri saltem humore modico temperarentur." Hieron. We must not forget how copious, and therefore how important to the husbandman, especially in the absence of rain, was the dew in Palestine. "In a latitude so high as ours, and which yet has a mean temperature higher than its degrees should give it, the chill of the night serves only to shed fog or mist upon the lower stratum of air; but in warmer climates and in no country is it more so than in Syria the vast burden of the watery element, which the fervour of day has raised aloft, becomes, quickly after sunset, a prodigious dew, breaking down upon the earth, as a mighty yet noiseless deluge." Isaac Taylor, Spirit of Heb. Poetry, c. IV. pp. 85, 86.