James 5:7 to 11 · Passage · Patience
The Farmer Waits for the Rain
James tells suffering believers to be patient until the Lord comes, as a farmer waits for the fall and spring rains.
The command to be patient comes three verses after James tells rich landowners, "Look, the wages you withheld from the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you."
Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer awaits the precious fruit of the soil—how patient he is for the fall and spring rains.
- The passage
- James 5:7 to 11
- Book
- James
- Hold in memory
- James 5:8
Summary
James answers the wrongs done by the rich in James 5:1 to 6 with a call to wait. He commands patience twice, in verses 7 and 8, sets a farmer, the prophets and Job before the brothers, and forbids them to groan against one another because the Judge is standing at the door.
- The patience of verses 7, 8 and 10 is makrothymia and its verb makrothymeo, and the perseverance of Job in verse 11 is hypomone, endurance.
- The two rains James names were the LORD's promise to Israel, sent on the land in their season (Deuteronomy 11:14).
- The patience James asks for faces two ways, toward the Lord's coming and toward the brothers beside them.
- The prophets who spoke in the Lord's name are the example of patience in affliction, and Job endured and saw what the Lord did at the end.
- James grounds the waiting in the Lord's own character, the compassion and mercy of the God who is slow to anger.
Two Commands to Wait
Verses 7 to 9 hold the passage's two commands and its one warning.
In James 5:7 to 11 the patience of God's people is pictured by a farmer who has sown and waits for his crop. It asks the brothers to hold firm and to bear with one another until the Lord comes. It is one of the chief texts of patience, the slowness to anger and steady endurance that Scripture asks of God's people. Four of the New Testament's twenty-four uses of makrothymia and its verb stand in it.
The question the page answers is what James asks of believers who are wronged and must wait, and on what ground he asks it. The page sets out the five verses step by step, the three examples, the Greek words for patience and endurance, the setting in the letter, and the two readings of the coming James names.
You, too, be patient and strengthen your hearts, because the Lord’s coming is near.Verse 8 turns the command on the readers, adds a second command for the heart, and gives nearness as its reason.
Both commands are makrothymesate, an aorist imperative of makrothymeo, and in verse 7 the farmer is makrothymon, being patient, a present participle of the same verb. The command to strengthen your hearts in verse 8 is sterixate, another aorist imperative.
The farmer's other verb is ekdechetai, he awaits, which Hebrews 11:10 also uses of Abraham, who was looking forward to the city with foundations.
Do not complain about one another, brothers, so that you will not be judged. Look, the Judge is standing at the door!James forbids the brothers to turn their trouble against one another, and he gives the nearness of the Judge as the reason.
The verb the Berean text renders complain is stenazete, from stenazo, which the lexicon glosses to sigh, murmur or groan. In the Greek the Judge stands before the doors, plural, the word Jesus used when He said, "He is near, right at the door" (Matthew 24:33).
The Five Verses in Order
The five verses hold six movements, since verse 7 carries both the first command and the farmer.
James sets a warning against complaint between his two commands and his examples, and he ends the passage on the Lord's compassion.
A structure ladder of six numbered rungs, one row for each part of the passage, with its verse and what James does in it.
The first three rungs speak of time and the last two of people who suffered. The command to wait is followed at once by a command about how the brothers treat each other while they wait.
Three Examples of Patience
James gives the church one example from the field and two from Scripture, the prophets and Job.
The farmer of verse 7 cannot bring the rain himself. In the Greek James writes only proimon kai opsimon, early and latter, with no noun for rain, and the Berean text supplies the fall and spring rains.
then I will provide rain for your land in season, the autumn and spring rains, that you may gather your grain, new wine, and oil.The LORD Himself undertook to send both rains, so the farmer James describes waits on a promise.
The months of the two rains, their Hebrew names and the dispute over Joel 2:23 are taught on the page given to the rains.
Brothers, as an example of patience in affliction, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.James gives the prophets as the example of patience in affliction, so the waiting he asks for can include persecution.
Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.Jesus set His disciples in the line of the prophets, so the readers of James had been told to expect what the prophets met.
In the Greek the example is hypodeigma, which the lexicon glosses an exhibit for imitation, and the affliction is kakopatheia, hardship.
See how blessed we consider those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen the outcome from the Lord. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.James's last example is Job, whose story his readers had heard, and the verse turns from Job's endurance to what the Lord did for him.
In verse 11 James changes his word. Those who have persevered are hypomeinantas and Job's perseverance is hypomone, which the lexicon glosses cheerful or hopeful endurance, constancy. The American Standard Version renders the phrase the patience of Job, and the Berean text renders it Job's perseverance.
The outcome is to telos in the Greek, the end to which the Lord brought Job's trial. The book of Job tells it in its last chapter, where the LORD restored Job's prosperity after Job had prayed for his friends (Job 42:10).
Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.James had already called the man who perseveres under trial blessed, and in 5:11 he counts the persevering blessed again.
The word hypomone stands three times in the letter, at James 1:3, 1:4 and 5:11, so the letter that opens by asking for endurance under trial closes its examples with the endurance of Job.
Matthew 5:12, James 5:11, James 1:12
The Rich Who Withheld the Wages
The letter goes to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion, and its fifth chapter speaks first to the rich and then to the brothers.
James 5:1 to 6 is a charge against the rich, who had hoarded treasure in the last days and lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. It ends with the worst of their wrongs.
You have condemned and murdered the righteous, who did not resist you.This verse stands here because the patience James asks for in verse 7 is patience under wrongs of this weight.
The word then joins the command to that charge, so the brothers who suffer such wrongs are told to wait for the Lord to judge them.
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes of the Dispersion: Greetings.This verse names the letter's readers, and the brothers of chapter 5 are among them.
The Lord Who Is Full of Compassion
James ends the passage on the Lord's character, and the rest of Scripture names the same Lord slow to anger and patient with sinners.
The last sentence of the passage gives the ground of the waiting. Its word polysplanchnos, full of compassion, occurs once in the New Testament, and oiktirmon, merciful, stands beside it.
Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,At Sinai the LORD proclaimed His own name as compassionate and gracious, so the Lord James names is the God of Israel's covenant.
The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance.Peter explains the delay of the end by God's wish that no one perish, so the church's waiting matches His.
“If God delays the punishment of sinners, waiting for them to repent, it is not because his character has changed, so that now he loves sin. Rather he is giving them time to repent.”
Cyril of Alexandria · CATENA · on James 5:7Patristic
How Teachers Have Read the Passage
Two commentaries of the nineteenth century read the farmer and the Lord's compassion as lessons for those who wait.
Adam Clarke read the farmer as a picture of the church's hopeCommentary on the Bible (1832)
Clarke writes, "The seed of your deliverance is already sown, and by and by the harvest of your salvation will take place. God’s counsels will ripen in due time."
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the Lord's pity as a limit on trialsCommentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
The commentary of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown (1871) says of the Lord's pity in verse 11 that it "is shown in not laying on the patient endurer more trials than he is able to bear".
Which Coming James Means
Readers have taken the Lord's coming in verses 7 and 8 as His judgment on Jerusalem or as Christ's return at the end.
James calls it the parousia of the Lord, a word the New Testament uses 24 times, among them of Christ's coming in 1 Corinthians 15:23 and 1 Thessalonians 4:15. Its entry in Strong's lexicon names two special senses, Christ's coming to punish Jerusalem and His coming at the last to punish the wicked.
The Lord's judgment on JerusalemAdam Clarke
Adam Clarke writes of verse 7, "He seems here to refer to the coming of the Lord to execute judgment on the Jewish nation, which shortly afterwards took place."
The objection: Paul uses the same word for the coming of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians 4:15, where believers still alive will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. James gives no sign that he means another coming.
Christ's return at the endMatthew Henry; Bede
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), calls this patience "a humble acquiescence in the wisdom and will of God, with an eye to a future glorious recompense". Bede, in his Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, says of the Judge at the door, "He will return to you the rewards of patience, and to your adversaries the punishment they deserve."
The objection: verse 8 says the coming has drawn near, and Clarke's reading meets that nearness with a judgment he says took place shortly afterwards.
Waiting for the Harvest
James asks the wronged to wait as a farmer waits, to keep their hearts firm, to keep peace among themselves, and to look for the outcome the Lord gives, as Job saw it. The same counsel stands near the end of the tenth chapter of Hebrews.
You need to persevere, so that after you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. For, “In just a little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.The letter to the Hebrews rests its call to persevere on the promise of His return.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- The Holy Bible, American Standard Version.
- The tagged Greek text of James 1:3, 1:4, 1:12 and 5:7 to 11, Hebrews 11:10, 1 Thessalonians 4:15 and Matthew 24:33, with Strong's numbers and morphology.
- STEP Bible TBESG, the brief lexicon based on Abbott-Smith (1922), with the Strong's definitions, entries g1551, g2552, g3114, g3115, g3629, g3952, g4184, g4727, g5262, g5278 and g5281 (Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0)
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on James 5:7.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on James 5:9.
- Bede, Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, on James 5:9.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on James 5:11.
- Cyril of Alexandria, in the catena on James 5:7.
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