Is the seed yet in the barn? i.e. Is it any longer in the barn? Is it not all exhausted and used up? The meagre yield of the blighted corn was soon consumed and the granary left empty. Some have thought that by "the seed" is here meant what would be required to sow the land for another year, and that the dearth and distress are heightened by the fact that there is not even corn enough left to sow. But as the word is frequently used, not of seed corn, but of produce (e.g. 1 Samuel 8:15; Isaiah 23:3; Job 39:12), and as the remainder of the verse refers to produce, it is better taken in that sense here.

yea, as yet There is no reason to depart from the usual meaning of the Hebrew word here rendered "as yet," viz. "unto," or "as regards," "And unto or as regards (extending our notice from the corn to) the vine, etc. it (i.e. each one of these trees) hath not brought forth (fruit)." It would then best accord with the English idiom to leave the word untranslated, as in R. V. The rendering of A. V. is however thought by some to be supported by Job 1:18; 1 Samuel 14:19.

from this day will I bless you It might be asked, why not from the day three months earlier than this (ch. Haggai 1:14-15), when they first resumed the building of the temple? It has been suggested in explanation that up to this time, though they had indeed begun again to build, they had been slack and remiss in their efforts, but that from this day, instigated by this fresh appeal of Haggai, they had taken a new departure of zeal and earnestness, and that consequently from this day the blessing was to begin. But there is no proof whatever that this was so, and it is therefore better to suppose that up to this day the effects of the failure of the last harvest were still apparent, and no outward change had yet taken place in their prospects. "He would then say, that even in these last months, since they had begun the work, there were as yet no signs for the better. There was yet no seed in the barn, the harvest having been blighted, and the fruit-trees stripped by the hail before the close of the sixth month, when they resumed the work. Yet though there were as yet no signs of change, no earnest that the promise should be fulfilled, God pledges His word, from this day I will bless you." Pusey.

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