Jameschapter 4
17 verses · James, by tradition · AD 44 to 49 · The general letters
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Introduction
James, by tradition, The general letters, James Overview.
This chapter carries on the letter's teaching after the contrast of the two wisdoms. Its hearers were small congregations where everyone knew what everyone else had, and some of them were traders who worked the roads and the sea routes. The chapter speaks bluntly, with a harsh name for its hearers and a quotation from the Proverbs at its centre. Listen for the run of short commands that follows, one after another. Listen also for the business plan it quotes near the end, and for the one phrase it asks the traders to add. It reads like a prophet's call to come home.
Context
- Who
- Scattered Jewish believers, some of them traders working the caravan and shipping routes
- What
- A rebuke of quarrels and worldliness, a call to repent and humble oneself before God, and a warning against boasting about tomorrow.
- Where
- Congregations of scattered Jewish believers, some of them merchants working the caravan and shipping routes.
- When
- The earliest years of the church, about AD 45 to 48 on the traditional dating, with some placing the letter in the AD 60s.
- Why
- To show a divided church where its fights begin and to bring its members back to God in humility.
Historical context
The travel plan James quotes is a real business plan: go to such and such a city, spend a year there, trade, and make a profit. Jewish merchants worked exactly this way, moving along the trade routes and settling into a city long enough to work its market before moving on.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
A year was the standard unit because the sea and the caravan seasons ran that way. It also assumed a lot: that the traveler would live, that the city would still want his goods, and that the roads would stay safe. None of it was guaranteed, and everyone knew it.
The language of friendship with the world uses the strongest picture Israel's prophets had for unfaithfulness, a spouse who has gone after someone else. To a hearer raised on Hosea, calling the congregation adulterous was not an insult about sex but about betrayal.
The quarrels described are not theological. James traces them to wanting things and not getting them, the ordinary machinery of envy inside a group small enough that everyone knew what everyone else had.
Significance
The hearers were being told that the fights in their meetings began in their own appetites, not in the other man's stubbornness. That relocates every argument.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The correction to the merchants is not that planning is wrong but that planning as if tomorrow were owned is arrogance. Saying 'if the Lord wills' put a working man's calendar under someone else's authority.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Where Fights Come From: Wanting and Never Asking
James 4:1-3
conflicts and quarrels among you?: come from the passions at war within you. You crave what you do not have, and craving without asking turns to envy and worse. When you do ask, you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.
James 4:1
“From whence come wars and fightings among you? - Margin, “brawlings.” The reference is to strifes and contentions of all kinds; and the question, then, as it is now, was an important one, what was their source or origin? The answer is given in the succeeding part of the verse. Some have supposed that the apostle refers here to the contests and seditions existing among the Jews, which afterwards broke out in rebellion against the Roman authority, and which led to the overthrow of the Jewish nation.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
James 4:1
“Such examples, therefore, brethren, it is right that we should follow; since it is written, "Cleave to the holy, for those that cleave to them shall [themselves] be made holy." And again, in another place, [the Scripture] saith, "With a harmless man thou shalt prove thyself harmless, and with an elect man thou shalt be elect, and with a perverse man thou shalt show thyself perverse." Let us cleave, therefore, to the innocent and righteous, since these are the elect of God. Why are there strifes, and tumults, and divisions, and schisms, and wars among you?”
Clement of Rome · written before 99 · Clement's First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 46patristic
James 4:1
“Is it not from your pleasures - Your desires of earthly pleasures. Which war - Against your souls. In your members - Here is the first seat of the war.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
because you do not ask: Wesley reads the killing as murder in the heart, since Scripture counts hatred of a brother as murder. He adds that a heart full of envy cannot pray. The craving, the quarrels and the failure to ask all come from the passions at war within.
James 4:2
“Ye lust, and have not - Ye are ever covetous, and ever poor. Ye kill, and, desire to have - Ye are constantly engaged in insurrections and predatory wars, and never gain any advantage. Ye have not, because ye ask not - Ye get no especial blessing from God as your fathers did, because ye do not pray. Worldly good is your god; ye leave no stone unturned in order to get it; and as ye ask nothing from God but to consume it upon your evil desires and propensities, your prayers are not heard.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
James 4:2
“Ye kill - In your heart, for "he that hateth his brother is a murderer." Ye fight and war - That is, furiously strive and contend. Ye ask not - And no marvel; for a man full of evil desire, of envy or hatred, cannot pray.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
James 4:2
“Not probably in the case of professing Christians of that day in a literal sense, but "kill and envy" (as the Greek for "desire to have" should be translated), that is, harass and oppress through envy [DRUSIUS]. Compare Zec 11:5, "slay"; through envy, hate, and desire to get out of your way, and so are "murderers" in God's eyes [ESTIUS].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
you ask with wrong motives: Matthew Henry names two wrong ways to ask: for wrong ends, and without faith or fervency. Prayer for the pleasures at war within returns empty. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add that God often answers a believer best by opposing the desire.
James 4:3
“Let us remember this, that when we speed not in our prayers it is because we ask amiss; either we do not ask for right ends or not in a right manner, not with faith or not with fervency: unbelieving and cold desires beg denials; and this we may be sure of, that, when our prayers are rather the language of our lusts than of our graces, they will return empty.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
James 4:3
“Contrast Jas 1:5 with Mt 6:31, 32. If ye prayed aright, all your proper wants would be supplied; the improper cravings which produce "wars and fightings" would then cease. Even believers' prayers are often best answered when their desires are most opposed.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
You adulteresses!: names unfaithfulness in the covenant language the prophets used of Israel. For James, friendship with the world is hostility toward God. So whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God, the Lord's teaching on two masters in Matthew 6:24.
James 4:4
Compare 1Jo 2:15, "love . . . the world . . . the love of the Father." whosoever . . . will be--The Greek is emphatic, "shall be resolved to be." Whether he succeed or not, if his wish be to be the friend of the world, he renders himself, becomes (so the Greek for "is") by the very fact, "the enemy of God." Contrast "Abraham the friend of God."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3 more voices on this verse
James 4:4
“Ye adulterers and adulteresses - Who have broken your faith with God, your rightful spouse. Know ye not that the friendship or love of the world - The desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, and the pride of life, or courting the favour of worldly men, is enmity against God?”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
James 4:4
“Ye adulterers and adulteresses - The Jews, because of their covenant with God, are represented as being espoused to him; and hence their idolatry, and their iniquity in general, are represented under the notion of adultery. And although they had not since the Babylonish captivity been guilty of idolatry; according to the letter; yet what is intended by idolatry, having their hearts estranged from God, and seeking their portion in this life and out of God, is that of which the Jews were then notoriously guilty.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
James 4:4
“Covetousness is elsewhere called idolatry, and it is here called adultery; it is a forsaking of him to whom we are devoted and espoused, to cleave to other things; there is this brand put upon worldly-mindedness--that it is enmity to God.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
James 4:5-6
do you think the Scripture says without reason: The citation, that the Spirit He caused to dwell in us yearns with envy, matches no single Old Testament verse. Readers hear the human spirit's envy or God's jealous yearning. He gives us more grace, as Proverbs 3:34 says: God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
James 4:5
“Do you think that the scripture saith in vain - Without good ground. St. James seems to refer to many, not any one particular scripture. The spirit of love that dwelleth in all believers lusteth against envy - Gal. v, 17; is directly opposite to all those unloving tempers which necessarily flow from the friendship of the world.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
James 4:5
“Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain - Few passages of the New Testament have given expositors more perplexity than this. The difficulty has arisen from the fact that no such passage as that which seems here to be quoted is found in the Old Testament; and to meet this difficulty, expositors have resorted to various conjectures and solutions.”
James 4:5
“If so translated, "Does the (Holy) Spirit that God hath placed in us lust to (towards) envy" (namely, as ye do in your worldly "wars and fightings")? Certainly not; ye are therefore walking in the flesh, not in the Spirit, while ye thus lust towards, that is, with envy against one another.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Cross references
James 4:5
- Quoted inJames 4:5“Or do you think the Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to dwell in us yearns with envy?”
he graphe legei ('the scripture saith') introducing words matching no known OT text, a formula-marker crux; scholars debate whether it paraphrases or cites a lost source
He gives us more grace: Clarke reads the Greek verb antitassetai, opposes, as God setting Himself in battle array against the proud. The picture answers the wars of 4:1. Wesley calls pride the great root of all unkind affections and holds that the greater grace comes to all who shun those tempers.
James 4:6
“But he giveth more grace - Μειζονα χαριν, A greater benefit, than all the goods that the world can bestow; for he gives genuine happiness, and this the world cannot confer. May this be St. James’ meaning? God resisteth the proud - Αντιτασσεται· Sets himself in battle array against him. Giveth grace unto the humble - The sure way to please God is to submit to the dispensation of his grace and providence; and when a man acknowledges him in all his ways, he will direct all his steps. The covetous man grasps at the shadow, and loses the substance.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
James 4:6
“But he giveth greater grace - To all who shun those tempers. Therefore it - The scripture. Saith, God resisteth the proud - And pride is the great root of all unkind affections.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
James 4:6
“One who holds his head high in arrogance hates God.”
Jerome · written before 420 · SERMONS 15patristic
James 4:6
“The quotation here is probably from Pr 3:34; as probably Pr 21:10 was generally referred to in Jas 4:5. In Hebrew it is "scorneth the scorners," namely, those who think "Scripture speaketh in vain." resisteth--literally, "setteth Himself in array against"; even as they, like Pharaoh, set themselves against Him. God repays sinners in their own coin.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Cross references
James 4:6
- QuotingProverbs 3:34“He mocks the mockers, but gives grace to the humble.”
'God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble' ('the scripture saith')
James 4:7-8
Submit yourselves, then, to God: gives the command that resistance stands on. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you names a real adversary. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded: the verse pairs outward and inward reform, with dipsuchos from 1:8.
James 4:7
“Submit yourselves therefore to God - That is, in his arrangements for obtaining his favor. Yield to what he has judged necessary for your welfare in the life that is, and your salvation in the life to come. The duty here enjoined is that of entire acquiescence in the arrangements of God, whether in his providence or grace. All these are for our good, and submission to them is required by the spirit of true humility.”
1 more voice on this verse
James 4:7
“You can't resist until you've first surrendered. Obedience to God shuts the door to the enemy.”
Draw near to God: , and He will draw near to you pictures two parties setting out to meet on the road. Purify translates a word for making chaste, and the double-minded are divided between God and the world. The call reaches back to the adulteresses of 4:4.
James 4:8
“None but the clean-handed can ascend into the hill of the Lord (justified through Christ, who alone was perfectly so, and as such "ascended" thither). purify . . . hearts--literally "make chaste" of your spiritual adultery (Jas 4:4, that is, worldliness) "your hearts": the inward source of all impurity. double-minded--divided between God and the world.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
James 4:8
“Then draw nigh to God in prayer, and he will draw nigh unto you, will hear you; which that nothing may hinder, cleanse your hands - Cease from doing evil.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
James 4:8
“Draw nigh to God - Approach Him, in the name of Jesus, by faith and prayer, and he will draw nigh to you - he will meet you at your coming. When a soul sets out to seek God, God sets out to meet that soul; so that while we are drawing near to him, he is drawing near to us. The delicacy and beauty of these expressions are, I think, but seldom noted.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
James 4:9-10
Grieve, mourn, and weep: calls, in the prophets' tone, for grief to match the sins: Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you answers the grief with the reversal already named at 1:9.
James 4:9
“Flee laughter as a sin and change temporal joy into mourning so that you may be blessed, for those who mourn are blessed and shall be comforted.”
Leander of Seville · written before 601 · The Training of Nuns 21patristic
Humble yourselves before the Lord: Clarke recalls that mourners and penitents lay on the ground, so the Lord who will exalt the humble raises those who grieve, mourn and weep. He adds that to submit to God, as 4:7 commands, comes before the humbling of the soul. The Lord Himself does the lifting.
James 4:10
“Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord - In Jas 4:7 they were exhorted to submit to God; here they are exhorted to humble themselves in his sight. Submission to God’s authority will precede humiliation of soul, and genuine repentance is performed as in the sight of God; for when a sinner is truly awakened to a sense of his guilt and danger, he seems to see, whithersoever he turns, the face of a justly incensed God turned against him. He shall lift you up - Mourners and penitents lay on the ground, and rolled themselves in the dust.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
James 4:10
“The tree, to grow upwards, must strike its roots deep downwards; so man, to be exalted, must have his mind deep-rooted in humility. In 1Pe 5:6, it is, Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, namely, in His dealings of Providence: a distinct thought from that here. lift you up--in part in this world, fully in the world to come.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
One Lawgiver: Who Are You to Judge?
James 4:11-12
do not slander one another: Brothers, do not slander one another extends chapter 3 on the tongue. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it, setting himself above the royal law of 2:8. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, able to save and destroy.
James 4:11
“The law of Christ is, Judge not, that you be not judged, Matt. vii. The sum and substance of both is that men should love one another. A detracting tongue therefore condemns the law of God, and the commandment of Christ, when it is defaming its neighbour.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3 more voices on this verse
James 4:11
“ALFORD rightly takes the "law" to be the old moral law applied in its comprehensive spiritual fulness by Christ: "the law of liberty." if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer . . . but a judge--Setting aside the Christian brotherhood as all alike called to be doers of the law, in subjection to it, such a one arrogates the office of a judge.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
James 4:11
“Every wicked act dulls the sense of our thoughts and gives birth to arrogance. For although it is necessary for each one to examine himself and behave according to God's will, many people do not do this but prefer to mind the business of others. If they happen to see others suffering, it seems that they forget their own weaknesses and set about criticizing them and slandering them. They condemn them, not knowing that they suffer from the same things as the people they have criticized, and in so doing they condemn themselves.”
Cyril of Alexandria · written before 444 · CATENApatristic
James 4:11
“Speak not evil one of another - This is a grand hindrance of peace. O who is sufficiently aware of it! He that speaketh evil of another does in effect speak evil of the law, which so strongly prohibits it.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
only one Lawgiver and Judge: Bede reads the question as a rebuke to anyone who delights to judge a neighbor and forgets his frailty and the uncertainty of his life. The next verses give that life its measure, a mist that vanishes. Only the one Lawgiver is able to save and destroy.
James 4:12
“There is one lawgiver - Και κριτης, And judge, is added here by AB, about thirty others, with both the Syriac, Erpen’s Arabic, the Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Slavonic, Vulgate, two copies of the Itala, Cyril of Antioch, Euthalius, Theophylact, and Cassiodorus. On this evidence Griesbach has received it into the text. The man who breaks the law, and teaches others so to do, thus in effect set himself up as a lawgiver and judge.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
James 4:12
“Since there is one Lawgiver, we may infer that it is not for any man or company of men in the world to pretend to give laws immediately to bind conscience; for that is God's prerogative, which must not be invaded.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Tomorrow Is a Vapor: If the Lord Will
James 4:13-14
Come now, you who say: , Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, portrays the merchant planning a year without the Lord. He cannot know what will happen tomorrow, and his life is a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
James 4:13
“Others read, "To-day and to-morrow." such a city--literally, "this the city" (namely, the one present to the mind of the speaker). This city here. continue . . . a year--rather, "spend one year." Their language implies that when this one year is out, they purpose similarly settling plans for to come [BENGEL]. buy and sell--Their plans for the future are all worldly.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
James 4:13
“Some people go on endless journeys for the sake of business and the profits which they can make thereby, enduring even sea travel for their sake. Some fight in order to get some advantage over others by increasing their power. Still others fatten their purses by cheating and by extortion, bringing down fire and brimstone on their heads.”
Cyril of Alexandria · written before 444 · CATENApatristic
James 4:13
“How much of worldly happiness lies in the promises men make to themselves beforehand. Their heads are full of fine visions, as to what they shall do, and be, and enjoy, in some future time, when they can neither be sure of time nor of any of the advantages they promise themselves; therefore observe, 3.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
What is your life?: Clarke reads this verse as a parenthesis inside the business plan of 4:13, and he renders the word for mist, atmis, as smoke. Matthew Henry adds that a man may know what he intends, yet a thousand things may happen to prevent him. Tomorrow belongs to the Lord.
James 4:14
“We know not what shall be on the morrow; we may know what we intend to do and to be, but a thousand things may happen to prevent us. We are not sure of life itself, since it is but as a vapour, something in appearance, but nothing solid nor certain, easily scattered and gone.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
James 4:14
“Whereas ye know not - This verse should be read in a parenthesis. It is not only impious, but grossly absurd, to speak thus concerning futurity, when ye know not what a day may bring forth. Life is utterly precarious; and God has not put it within the power of all the creatures he has made to command one moment of what is future. It is even a vapour - Ατμις γαρ εστιν· It is a smoke, always fleeting, uncertain, evanescent, and obscured with various trials and afflictions.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
James 4:15-16
you ought to say: Instead, you ought to say, If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that, a submission of plans to providence. As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil, so the sin is the boast and the planning stands.
James 4:15
“For that ye ought to say - Instead of what you do say, “we will go into such a city,” you ought rather to recognise your absolute dependence on God, and feel that life and success are subject to his will. The meaning is not that we ought always to be saying that in so many words, for this might become a mere ostentatious form, offensive by constant unmeaning repetition; but we are, in the proper way, to recognise our dependence on him, and to form all our plans with reference to his will.”
1 more voice on this verse
James 4:15
“It is good to express ourselves thus when we have to do with others, but it is indispensably requisite that we should say this to ourselves in all that we go about. Syn Theo -- with the leave and blessing of God, was used by the Greeks in the beginning of every undertaking.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
you boast in your proud intentions: Matthew Henry observes that worldly people boast of their plans before they know whether any will succeed. Clarke glosses the word for evil, ponera, as impious. Such boasting treats life as independent of God Almighty, the reverse of saying, as 4:15 teaches, that the Lord is willing.
James 4:16
But now ye rejoice in your boastings - Ye glory in your proud and self-sufficient conduct, exulting that ye are free from the trammels of superstition, and that ye can live independently of God Almighty. All such boasting is wicked, πονηρα εστιν, is impious. In an old English work, entitled, The godly man’s picture drawn by a Scripture pencil, there are these words: “Some of those who despise religion say, Thank God we are not of this holy number! They who thank God for their unholiness had best go ring the bells for joy that they shall never see God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
James 4:16
“Such is the joy of worldly people, to boast of all their successes, yea, often to boast of their very projects before they know what success they shall have. How common is it for men to boast of things which they have no other title to than what arises from their own vanity and presumption! Such rejoicing (says the apostle) is evil; it is foolish and it is hurtful.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do: , yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin closes on the sin of omission. It gathers the chapter's failures, the quarrels, the prayers, the worldliness, the slander and the boasting. Knowing without doing is the charge of 1:22.
James 4:17
“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not - That knows what is right, and does not practice it. To him it is sin - This knowledge does not prevent, but increase, his condemnation.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
James 4:17
“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin - That is, he is guilty of sin if he does not do it. Cotton Mather adopted it as a principle of action, “that the ability to do good in any case imposes an obligation to do it.” The proposition in the verse before us is of a general character, but probably the apostle meant that it should refer to the point specified in the previous verses - the forming of plans respecting the future.”
James 4:17
“The general principle illustrated by the particular example just discussed is here stated: knowledge without practice is imputed to a man as great and presumptuous sin.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
How this psalm is built
The form: A rebuke in the manner of the prophets, calling an unfaithful people back to God, as Clarke classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Ten commands in a row | Verses 7 to 10 give ten commands with almost nothing between them: submit, resist, draw near, cleanse, purify, grieve, mourn, weep, turn and humble. The run begins and ends on the same act, submitting to God in verse 7 and humbling oneself before Him in verse 10. The promise of verse 6 stands in front of all ten.the site's count of the Berean text, the verses of James 4 in the store, translation id 3, the Berean Standard Bible. | James 4:7, James 4:8, James 4:9, James 4:10 |
| The mist | Verse 14 answers the traders' year of plans with one question and one picture, a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Matthew Henry reads it as something that has an appearance and nothing solid, easily scattered and gone. Adam Clarke renders the Greek word as smoke, always fleeting.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on James 4:14. | James 4:13, James 4:14 |
| Come now | The words come now open the address to the traders at verse 13 and open the address to the rich at 5:1. The repeated call joins the two warnings, so the planner who leaves God out of tomorrow and the landowner who holds back wages stand side by side.the site's count of the Berean text, the verses of James 4 and 5 in the store, translation id 3, the Berean Standard Bible. | James 4:13, James 5:1 |
How the chapter is built
7 more paragraphs on the patterns
Verses 1 to 3 ask where fights come from and answer that they come from desires at war within. Verses 4 and 5 name the fault as unfaithfulness to God. Verse 6 is the turning point, with its promise of more grace and its quotation from Proverbs. Verses 7 to 10 give the call to repent. Verses 11 and 12 forbid slander and judging a brother, since there is one Lawgiver and Judge. Verses 13 to 17 address the traders and close on a sin of omission, knowing the right thing to do and failing to do it.
The debate: the Scripture of verse 5
Verse 5 says the Scripture speaks of the spirit He caused to dwell in us yearning with envy. Albert Barnes notes that few lines of the New Testament have given readers more trouble, because no such sentence stands in the Old Testament. John Wesley reads the spirit as the Spirit of love in every believer, which strives against envy. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown weigh a reading of the Holy Spirit in us and hold that He cannot be said to lust toward envy. Bede takes the Scripture meant as Moses's command to make no covenant with the peoples of the land. The readings stand side by side here, each with its holder.
Where it draws on the Old Testament and on Jesus
Verse 6 quotes Proverbs 3:34, the same line 1 Peter 5:5 quotes. The call of verse 4 draws on the prophets' picture of Israel as an unfaithful wife, above all in Hosea 1 to 3. Verse 10 repeats the teaching of Jesus in Luke 14:11 that the one who humbles himself will be exalted. The warning of verses 13 and 14 stands beside Proverbs 27:1 on boasting about tomorrow and beside the rich fool of Luke 12:16 to 21. Theophylact of Ohrid hears David's line from Psalm 39:6 on man walking about like a shadow.
Where to go deeper
Jesus' parable of the man who planned for years and died that night has its own page at /featured/the-rich-fool. The line of verse 6 on the proud and the humble, and the Scripture of verse 5, are listed as owed feature pages.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on James 4:4; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on James 4:4 and Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on James, on James 4:14.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament; Bede, Commentary on the Catholic Epistles; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.