Text -- Haggai 2:18 (NET)

2:18 ‘Think carefully about the past: from today, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, to the day work on the temple of the Lord was resumed, think about it.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Hag 2:18

¹ tn Heb “set your heart.” A similar expression occurs in v. 15.

² sn The twenty-fourth day of the ninth month was Kislev 24 or December 18, 520. See v. 10. Here the reference is to “today,” the day the oracle is being delivered.

³ sn The day work…was resumed. This does not refer to the initial founding of the Jerusalem temple in 536 b.c. but to the renewal of construction three months earlier (see 1:15). This is clear from the situation described in v. 19 which accords with the food scarcities of that time already detailed in Hag 1:10-11.

⁴ tn Heb “set your heart.” A similar expression occurs in v. 15 and at the beginning of this verse.