Haggai 1:6
“Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.”
King James Version (KJV)
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Read Full Chapter →God describes a life of diminishing returns: much sown but little reaped, eating and drinking without satisfaction, wages that seem to vanish as if put in a bag full of holes.
What Does Haggai 1:6 Mean?
In vivid, everyday images the Lord paints the people's experience back to them. Their labor yields less than expected; food does not fill; clothing does not warm; earnings slip away unaccountably. These are the felt frustrations of the post-exilic community, and Haggai links them directly to a deeper misalignment of priorities.
The picture is timeless. A life organized around self-provision, with God left out, can leave a person always reaching and never filled. The bag with holes captures the futility of pouring effort into things that cannot finally hold us. Yet the Lord names this not to mock but to awaken—to show that lasting satisfaction is not found in the harvest itself but in the One who gives it, and to turn His people from striving to seeking Him.
In the Original Language
mistakker (מִשְׂתַּכֵּר), “wages” — hired earnings; the word frames honest labor whose reward mysteriously leaks away.