Haggai 1:15 - Exposition

In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month. The first admonition had been made on the first day of this month; the three intervening weeks had doubtless been spent in planning and preparing materials, and obtaining workmen from the neighbouring villages. The note of time is introduced to show how prompt was their obedience, and the exact time when "they came and did work in the house of the Lord" ( Haggai 1:14 ). Some, on insufficient grounds, consider this clause to be an interpolation from Haggai 2:10 , Haggai 2:18 , with a change of "ninth" to "sixth month." In the Latin Vulgate, in Tischendorf's Septuagint, and in many editions of the Hebrew Bible, the whole of this verse is wrongly annexed to the following chapter. St. Jerome arranges it as in the Authorized Version. It is possible that, as St. Cyril takes it, the words, in the second year of Darius the king, ought to begin Haggai 2:1-23 . The king's reign has been already notified in Haggai 2:1 , and it seems natural to affix the date at the commencement of the second address.