Haggai 1:12

Haggai 1:12-15. The Effects of the Prophecy

12. the remnant of the people i.e. not the rest or remainder of the people beside Zerubbabel and Joshua, who had been mentioned by name, but "the remnant" in what came to be a technical use of the word, that part of the nation, a remnant only in comparison of the whole, which returned from the captivity in Babylon.

and the words some would render according to the words, but the A. V. gives a satisfactory sense, and the construction is borne out by Jeremiah 26:5; Jeremiah 35:15.

did fear The word is used in its usual O. T. sense to denote the spirit of true religion. There was genuine conversion on the part of the people, they yielded, not the unwilling obedience of terror, but the hearty service of godly fear.