Haggai 1:2
“Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD’s house should be built.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →The Lord of hosts quotes the people's own excuse back to them: they keep saying the time has not yet come to rebuild His house.
What Does Haggai 1:2 Mean?
The returned community had laid the temple's foundation years before, but opposition and discouragement had stalled the work (see Ezra 4). Now the delay had hardened into a settled saying among them—‘the time is not come.’ What began as caution had become a convenient creed, a way of postponing obedience indefinitely while life went on.
There is a quiet danger in turning a season of difficulty into a permanent excuse. ‘Not yet’ can become a way of never. The Lord hears not only what His people do but what they tell themselves, and He names the story they have been repeating. He invites us to examine the phrases we use to justify delay, and to ask whether ‘someday’ has quietly become our way of refusing today's call to put Him first.
In the Original Language
tseva'oth (צְבָאוֹת), “hosts” — the armies of heaven; the title pictures God as commander of every power, lending weight to His summons.