Albert Barnes Commentary 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." — Haggai 1:6 (ASV)

Ye have sown much - The prophet expresses the habitual nature of these visitations by a vivid present. He marks no time and so expresses more vividly that it was at all times. It is one continually present evil.

Ye have sown much and there is a bringing in little; there is eating and not to satisfy; there is drinking and not to exhilarate; there is clothing and not to be warm. It is not for one year or another, as, for instance, since the first year of Darius Hystaspis; it is one continued visitation, coordinate with one continued negligence.

As long as the sin lasted, so long the punishment. The visitation itself was twofold: impoverished harvests, so as to supply less sustenance; and various ailments of the body, so that what would, by God’s appointment in nature, satisfy, gladden, and warm, failed of its effect.

And he that laboreth for hire, gaineth himself hire into a bag full of holes (literally “perforated”). The labor pictured is not only fruitless but also wearisome and vexing.

There is a seeming result of all the labor, something to allure hope; but immediately it is gone. The pagans assigned a similar baffling of hope as one of the punishments of hell.

“Better and wiser to seek to be blessed by God, Who bestows on us all things. And this will readily come to those who choose to be of the same mind with Him and prefer what is for His glory to their own. For so says the Savior Himself to us (Matthew 6:33), Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

“He loses good deeds by evil acts, who takes account of his good works, which he sets before his eyes, and forgets the faults which creep in between; or who, after what is good, returns to what is vain and evil.” “Money is seen in the pierced bag when it is cast in, but when it is lost, it is not seen. Then those who look at how much they give, but do not weigh how much they gain wrongly, cast their rewards into a pierced bag. Looking to the Hope of their confidence, they bring them together; not looking, they lose them.”

“They lose the fruit of their labor by not persevering to the end, or by seeking human praise, or by vainglory within, not keeping spiritual riches under the guardianship of humility. Such are vain and unprofitable men, of whom the Savior says (Matthew 6:2), ‘Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.’”