“A bag pierced through”
You earn wages to put into a bag pierced through. (Haggai 1:6 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A literal note about happening to use a torn money-bag.
The cultural key
The image is a vivid picture of economic futility. In a coin economy, people carried their silver in a cloth or leather purse tied at the belt; a purse 'pierced through' with holes lets the coins slip out and scatter as you walk, so that you reach the market with an empty bag. Haggai uses it to describe a people whose labor never seems to get ahead: they plant much and harvest little, eat but are never full, earn wages that somehow evaporate, because, the prophet says, they have neglected God's house while paneling their own, and God has withdrawn His blessing from their toil. 'Wages into a bag with holes' becomes a proverb for effort that yields nothing, income devoured by inflation, waste, or unseen loss. A modern reader pictures a torn wallet; the point is the maddening experience of working hard and watching it all leak away.
Recovered meaning
'A bag pierced through' is an idiom for wages that vanish as fast as they are earned, leaking away to leave you with nothing. Haggai blames a people who neglected God's house while their own labor mysteriously came to nothing.