Then answered Haggai, and said; then Haggai continued and said. He applies the principles just enunciated to the ease of the Jews, taking the communication of uncleanness first. So is this people. Not, my people, because by their acts they had disowned God (Haggai 1:2).
This people is defiled in my sight like one who has touched a corpse, and not only they themselves, but so is every work of their hands; all their labour, all that they put their hands to, is unclean, and can win no blessing.
Their pollution was their disobedience in not building the house of God. They had calmly contemplated the lifeless symbol of the theocracy, the ruined temple, and made no determined effort to resuscitate it, so a blight had rested on all their work.
That which they offer there (pointing to the altar which they had built when they first returned, Ezra 3:2) is unclean. They had fancied that the sanctifying influence of the altar and its sacrifices would extend to all their works, and cover all their shortcomings; but so far from this, their very offerings were unclean, because the offerers were polluted.
They who come before the Holy One should themselves be holy. Neither the altar nor the Holy Land imparted sanctity by any intrinsic virtue of their own, but entailed upon all an obligation to personal holiness (Wordsworth).
The LXX. has an addition at the end of the verse. ενεκεν τῶν λημμάτων αὐτῶν τῶν ὀρθρινῶν ὀδυνηθήσονται ἀπὸ προσώπου πόνων αὐτῶν καὶ ἐμισεῖτε ἐν πύλαις ἐλέγχοντας "On account of their morning gains [or, 'burdens'] they shall be pained in the presence of their labours, and ye hated those who reproved in the gates."
This is expounded by Theodoret thus: As soon as morning dawned ye employed yourselves in no good work, but sought only how to obtain sordid gain. And ye regarded with. hatred these who reproved, you, who sitting at the gate spake words of wisdom to all who passed by.
The passage is found in no other version.