📖 Biblical Definition
"Consider your ways" is the twice-repeated post-exilic command of Haggai to the returned community: "Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways" (Haggai 1:5, 7). The command is diagnostic, not abstract. Haggai forces honest inventory of how their life is actually going: "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" (1:6). The reason: the LORD’s house lay neglected while they paneled their own. Self-examination as honest accounting — sober, specific, comparative — is the start of every reformation.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Take honest diagnostic inventory of your life's actual fruit.
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The Hebrew simu levav-kem al darkei-kem — "set your heart upon your ways" — is Haggai's diagnostic command twice in chapter 1 (vv 5, 7). The post-exilic returnees had built their own paneled houses while the LORD's house lay in ruins; the result was sown-much-harvested-little, eaten-not-satisfied, wages-in-a-bag-with-holes. Consider your ways: examine the actual fruit of your priorities.
📖 Key Scripture
Haggai 1:5-6 — "Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. 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 1:7 — "Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways."
Lamentations 3:40 — "Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Self-examination has been replaced by self-affirmation; "don't be too hard on yourself" has displaced "consider your ways."
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Therapeutic culture trains us toward self-affirmation and away from self-examination. Haggai's command is diagnostic: look honestly at your life's fruit. Holes in the bag? Sown much for little? The diagnosis is the gift; the LORD calls because He is ready to fix it.
Recover the diagnostic: consider your ways. Honestly. The LORD doesn't condemn; He calls.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Hebrew simu lev al derek.
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['Hebrew', 'H7760', 'sim', 'to set, place']
['Hebrew', 'H3824', 'lebab', 'heart']
['Hebrew', 'H1870', 'derek', 'way']
Usage
"Consider your ways — the diagnostic."
"Sown much, harvested little? Bag with holes?"
"The diagnosis is the gift."