Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell…?: This verse in Hebrew has the form of a rhetorical question which expects the answer “no.” In languages that do not use rhetorical questions in this way, it could be restructured as a negative statement: “This is not the time for you to live….” The repetition of the word time in this verse takes up its previous occurrence in verse 2, and makes Haggai’s response very appropriate to the statement in that verse. Translators may be able to keep this link by saying something like “Is this the right time then…?” or “Is it not too soon then…?” Yourselves emphasizes the contrast between the state of the people’s own houses and the house of the LORD. Translators should try to reflect the contrast, as Good News Translation does by saying, “you … while my….”

In your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins: The people Haggai was speaking to were able to dwell in … paneled houses. The Hebrew term translated paneled means having wooden panels on the walls and perhaps even the ceiling. Good News Translation drops the details of the house construction, and states only that it is costly by saying “well-built.” This paneled style was expensive, and had been used by the rich in the days before the exile (Jer 22.14), and especially in the Temple built by Solomon (1 Kgs 6.9, 18). Other ways of expressing this phrase are “houses built with costly materials,” “expensive houses” (Contemporary English Version), or even “richly decorated houses,” as in the French common language version (Bible en français courant) and Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente. When Haggai compares the homes of the people of his time with the Temple of Solomon, he is cleverly pointing out the contrast between the past and the present, in which this house [that is, the Temple] lies in ruins. Another possibility is that the word translated paneled means “having a roof” (“well-roofed” in The New English Bible [New English Bible] and Revised English Bible). If this is the case, the contrast would then be between the houses of the people, completely roofed for warmth and protection, and the Temple, having no roof and probably little in the way of walls. This interpretation seems to fit the known circumstances better, and is probably to be preferred, though most translations take the same interpretation as Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. In reality, conditions in Haggai’s day were difficult ones, and relatively few people would have been able to afford expensive homes. But if anyone could do so, it showed that the people as a whole could have made more effort to get the Temple completely rebuilt. Haggai is here trying to shame them into a renewed effort.

Lies in ruins: The Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The returned exiles had apparently cleared the site and set up an altar, but actual building had not proceeded further than that (Ezra 3). In Haggai’s day, therefore, the site was probably clear of rubble, but without any complete walls, and could fairly be described as in ruins. See the comments on 2.15. In certain languages in ruins will be translated as something like “broken in pieces.”

Alternative models for this verse are:

• This is not the right time for you to live in your expensive houses while my house lies in ruins.

• Is this then the time for you to live in houses that are completed, when my Temple is all broken down?

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Haggai. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2002. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .