... interprets it on the basis of the meaning of a related word in Arabic meaning “abundance.” “Like a desert wind” is qadimah, which usually means “eastwards.” 1:11 Guilty men is weʾashem, lit. “and guilty.” Both the grammar and the train of thought are jerky and it may be that the text should read a form of the verb sim (put) or of shamam (desolate, devastate), but no particular proposal has carried conviction. The NRSV takes the verb ʿabar (NIV “go on”) to mean “transgress” and then ...
... beginning. The opening of this new section compares particularly with 1:5. Here, as there (1:2–4), the new section continues on from a question Yahweh has raised, begins with the particle “now,” and goes on to urge the people to give careful thought. The topic of the careful thought from this day on is also to be the same (cf. 1:6): how things were before the rebuilding of the temple began. To refer to the temple, Haggai here for the first time uses the word hekal, the word for a palace, instead of ...