HEBREW WORD STUDY – SOWN – זרע  Zayin Resh Ayin

Haggai 1:6: “You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but you have not enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe you but there is none warm; and he that earns wages earns wages to put it into a bag with holes.”

Throughout my life, I have heard the book of Haggai quoted during church building programs where the building of a church is likened to the rebuilding of the temple and if one does not tithe the result is seen in verse 1:6.  Be that as it may but  I would like to consider this verse in its context.

Haggai and Zechariah were among the first to return to the land of Israel after the captivity.  The Jews usually date the captivity from the destruction of the temple in 586 BC to the rebuilding of the temple in 515 BC.   Actually, the first deportation of the Jews started in 605 almost 19 years before the temple was destroyed and the first return of the Jews under the Persian King Cyrus led by Shesbazzar and later Zerubbabel in 538BC.  It is interesting that Christian scholars date the captivity from the first captive to the return and the Jewish scholars date the captivity from the date of the destruction of the temple to the rebuilding of the temple.

The emphasis I believe is very important. The temple was the central place of worship. Without the temple and the altar, true Levitical worship could not take place. In fact, in that time a nation was identified by their religion and built their culture around their religion.  This was the problem with the Tower of Babel, it was built to make a name for the people not for God.   The real captivity was when the Jews could not properly worship God. The temple was the dwelling place on earth for God and it was the center of worship.   In captivity, the Jews established synagogues to discuss the law and would pray every day toward Jerusalem, as a substitute for worship, but not true worship. To compare our local church building to the temple would not be accurate because the Apostle Paul made a statement in I Corinthians 3:16 that shows the distinction between the temple in Jerusalem and our local church buildings.  “Know ye not that  you  are the temple of God and the Spirit dwells in you.”   Hence if there is any building program to compare to the temple it is in us.  If we are to make a comparison of the church building it would be to the synagogue which served the purpose of a central meeting place to discuss the Word of God with other believers.

During the years or the return, there were many conflicts with neighboring people such that they abandoned building the wall for 18 years to focus on their defense and economy.

Haggai challenged the world view that a good economy was based on good business practices, management, and skilled workers.  The Jews had that and yet they had runaway inflation as seen in 1:6, they had a great harvest but got little in payment, as raiders, pestilence, and weather destroyed their crops.  They had food, but not enough; water to drink, but not enough; clothes to wear but not warm enough and all their wages were spent before they could put it in the bank.

Haggai said: “You have sown much and bring in little. The word sown in Hebrew is zara’ which is a word for becoming pregnant. The word for bringing in little is habe’ me’ at which expresses the idea of lack in maturing. This is a picture of a pregnant woman not taking care of her body to make sure her unborn child develops properly. A woman who smokes, drinks or is a drug addict will produce an unhealthy baby.  She is putting her resources into serving herself and not the unborn child.

Let’s make a personal application from the context. When I was teaching I had a student whose parents paid all his college fees and an allowance to live on so he could have more time to study.  The best I could give this guy was a “C” in my class. Over the summer he got married and decided that he would no longer depend upon his parents but his wife would work and he would work a part-time job.  This old boy easily made an “A” in my class. I asked him why the difference and he said: “It is a whole lot easier to explain a bad grade to a mother than it is to a wife.” In other words, when he put his wife and future family first, his grades greatly improved.

The message here is that when you consider God before yourself as a pregnant woman considers her child before her own wants and desires, you will have a healthy outcome.  If you put yourself before God expect to be very wasteful with your time and resources getting a “C” rather than an “A.”

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