Haggai 2:15

Now therefore reflect carefully on the recent past, ¹  before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple. ² 

Ezr 3:10; Ezr 4:24; Ps 107:43; Isa 5:12; Ho 14:9; Hag 1:5,7; Hag 2:18; Mal 3:8-11; Ro 6:21; 1Co 11:31

¹ tn Heb “and now set your heart from this day and upward.” The juxtaposition of מָעְלָה (ma’lah, “upward”) with the following מִטֶּרֶם (mitterem, “before”) demands a look to the past. Cf. ASV “consider from this day and backward.”

² sn Before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple is best taken as referring to the laying of the present temple’s foundation, sixteen years earlier (536 b.c.; see Ezra 3:8). Cf. NCV “before you started laying stones”; TEV “before you started to rebuild”; NLT “before you began to lay (started laying CEV) the foundation.”