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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

4 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

a fountain send forth

on James 3:11-12

Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter turns from the body's members to nature itself, a single source expected to produce one kind of water only. The fig tree, the vine, and the fountain each keep to their own kind, a fig tree bearing olive berries as unthinkable as salt water turning fresh. Nature's consistency is the standard the double-tongued believer of verses 9 and 10 fails to meet, blessing and cursing from a source that should yield only one.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
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.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
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.

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

On this page

Studies3

On this verse

On this chapter

About James

The Feeding of the Multitude — Gustave Doré (engraving, public domain)
The Feeding of the Multitude — Gustave Doré (engraving, 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; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament and John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748).

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