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James 3:11

in James 3

Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

Doth the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter?

KJV

Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?

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This verse in James 3

Commentary

7 notes on this verse

A commentator

Hilary of Arles

INTRODUCTORY TRACTATE ON THE LETTER OF JAMES · Written before 449.

The spring is the heart of man, the flowing stream of water is his speech, and the opening through which it pours is his mouth. The sweet water is sound doctrine, while the bitter water is just the opposite.

This site's exposition

fresh water and salt water

on James 3:11-12

Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring turns from the body to nature. Nor can a fig tree grow olives or a grapevine bear figs, since each keeps to its kind. The tongue that blesses and curses in verses 9 and 10 fails that consistency.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices

Doth a fountain send forth at the same place,.... "Or hole"; for at divers places, and at different times, as Pliny (m) observes, it may send forth sweet water and bitter: and it is reported (n), there is a lake with the Trogloditae, a people in Ethiopia, which becomes thrice a day bitter, and then as often sweet; but then it does not yield sweet water and bitter at the same time: this simile is used to show how unnatural it is that blessing and cursing should proceed out of the same mouth. (m) Nat. Hist. l. 2. c.

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

quarantine:scripture (2026-07-29) — verbatim-scripture

The Nineteenth Century3 voices

Doth a fountain send forth at the same place - Margin, “hole.” The Greek word means “opening, fissure,” such as there is in the earth, or in rocks from which a fountain gushes. Sweet water and bitter - Fresh water and salt, Jas 3:12. Such things do not occur in the works of nature, and they should not be found in man.

A commentator

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

1802–1910

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)

proposed

fountain--an image of the heart: as the aperture (so the Greek for "place" is literally) of the fountain is an image of man's mouth. The image here is appropriate to the scene of the Epistle, Palestine, wherein salt and bitter springs are found.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase

A commentator

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible · Written before 1832.

proposed

Doth a fountain send forth - sweet water and bitter? - In many things nature is a sure guide to man; but no such inconsistency is found in the natural world as this blessing and cursing in man. No fountain, at the same opening, sends forth sweet water and bitter; no fig tree can bear olive berries; no vine can bear figs; nor can the sea produce salt water and fresh from the same place. These are all contradictions, and indeed impossibilities, in nature. And it is depraved man alone that can act the monstrous part already referred to.

The words behind it

13 Greek words

Every Greek word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Where this verse is studied

About James

Saint James the Younger, El Greco, 1600. Public domain.
Saint James the Younger, El Greco, 1600. Public domain.
James: the study guide →Read James 3 →

This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Hilary of Arles, INTRODUCTORY TRACTATE ON THE LETTER OF JAMES; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.

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