Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days.
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Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies. You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you.
Parallel Translations
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Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you.
Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten.
Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days.
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Goo to now ye ryche men. Wepe and howle on youre wretchednes that shall come apon you.
Youre ryches is corrupte youre garmentes are motheaten.
Youre golde and youre silver are cankred and the rust of them shalbe a witnes vnto you and shall eate youre flesshe as it were fyre. Ye have heaped treasure togedder in youre last dayes:
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Goe to nowe, ye rich men: weepe, and howle for your miseries that shall come vpon you.
Your riches are corrupt, and your garments are moth eaten.
Your gold and siluer is cankred, and the rust of them shalbe a witnesse against you, and shall eate your flesh, as it were fire. Ye haue heaped vp treasure for the last dayes.
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Cross-references (61)
- Proverbs 11:28 (v1) He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous shall flourish as the green leaf.
- 1 Timothy 6:9-10 (v1) But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation, a snare, and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and…
- Romans 2:5 (v3) But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the…
- Matthew 6:19-20 (v2) “Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for…
- Proverbs 11:4 (v1) Riches don’t profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.
Show all 61 cross-references
- Job 13:28 (v2) though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.
- Jeremiah 9:23 (v1) Yahweh says, “Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his…
- Luke 6:24-25 (v1) “But woe to you who are rich! For you have received your consolation. Woe to you, you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you…
- Luke 12:16-21 (v1) He spoke a parable to them, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man produced abundantly. He reasoned within himself, saying, ‘What will I…
- James 1:11 (v1) For the sun arises with the scorching wind and withers the grass, and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So…
- Luke 16:19-25 (v1) “Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. A certain beggar, named…
- Matthew 19:23-24 (v1) Jesus said to his disciples, “Most certainly I say to you, a rich man will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven with difficulty. Again I tell…
- Micah 6:12 (v1) Her rich men are full of violence, her inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their speech.
- Luke 12:33 (v2) Sell that which you have, and give gifts to the needy. Make for yourselves purses which don’t grow old, a treasure in the heavens that…
- Psalms 73:3-9 (v1) For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no struggles in their death, but their strength…
- Isaiah 50:9 (v2) Behold, the Lord Yahweh will help me! Who is he who will condemn me? Behold, they will all grow old like a garment. The moths will eat them…
- Isaiah 13:6 (v1) Wail, for Yahweh’s day is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.
- Isaiah 51:8 (v2) For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation…
- Zephaniah 1:18 (v1) Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh’s wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the…
- James 5:7-8 (v3) Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient…
- Deuteronomy 32:15 (v1) But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and…
- Nehemiah 9:25-26 (v1) They took fortified cities and a rich land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns dug out, vineyards, olive groves, and…
- Job 20:15-29 (v1) He has swallowed down riches, and he will vomit them up again. God will cast them out of his belly. He will suck cobra venom. The viper’s…
- Psalms 73:18-20 (v1) Surely you set them in slippery places. You throw them down to destruction. How they are suddenly destroyed! They are completely swept away…
- Joel 1:11 (v1) Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.
- James 2:6 (v1) But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts?
- James 4:13 (v1) Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.”
- 1 Peter 1:4 (v2) to an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance that doesn’t fade away, reserved in Heaven for you,
- Revelation 6:15-17 (v1) The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the…
- Revelation 21:8 (v3) But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in…
- Psalms 49:6-20 (v1) Those who trust in their wealth, and boast in the multitude of their riches— none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give God…
- Ecclesiastes 5:13-14 (v1) There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his harm. Those riches perish by misfortune, and if…
- Isaiah 2:2 (v3) It shall happen in the latter days, that the mountain of Yahweh’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be…
- Isaiah 22:12-13 (v1) In that day, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, called to weeping, to mourning, to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth; and behold, joy and…
- Jeremiah 4:8 (v1) For this, clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of Yahweh hasn’t turned back from us.
- Ezekiel 19:2 (v1) and say, ‘What was your mother? A lioness. She couched among lions, in the middle of the young lions she nourished her cubs.
- Joel 1:5 (v1) Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
- Amos 6:6-7 (v1) who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the best oils; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. Therefore they…
- Zechariah 11:2-3 (v1) Wail, cypress tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the stately ones are destroyed. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the strong forest has…
- Revelation 20:15 (v3) If anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.
- Genesis 31:52 (v3) May this heap be a witness, and the pillar be a witness, that I will not pass over this heap to you, and that you will not pass over this…
- Genesis 49:1 (v3) Jacob called to his sons, and said: “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which will happen to you in the days to come.
- Deuteronomy 8:12-14 (v1) lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built fine houses and lived in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and…
- Deuteronomy 32:33-34 (v3) Their wine is the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of asps. “Isn’t this laid up in store with me, sealed up among my treasures?
- Joshua 24:27 (v3) Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all Yahweh’s words which he spoke to us.…
- Job 14:16-17 (v3) But now you count my steps. Don’t you watch over my sin? My disobedience is sealed up in a bag. You fasten up my iniquity.
- Job 16:8 (v3) You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face.
- Psalms 17:14 (v1) from men by your hand, Yahweh, from men of the world, whose portion is in this life. You fill the belly of your cherished ones. Your sons…
- Psalms 39:11 (v2) When you rebuke and correct man for iniquity, you consume his wealth like a moth. Surely every man is but a breath.”
- Jeremiah 17:11 (v2) As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right. In the middle of his days, they will…
- Jeremiah 19:9 (v3) I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege…
- Joel 1:13 (v1) Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for…
- Micah 3:3 (v3) who also eat the flesh of my people, and peel their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and…
- Micah 4:1 (v3) But in the latter days, it will happen that the mountain of Yahweh’s temple will be established on the top of the mountains, and it will be…
- Luke 23:28-29 (v1) But Jesus, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold,…
- 2 Timothy 2:17 (v3) and those words will consume like gangrene, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus:
- James 4:9 (v1) Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
- 2 Peter 3:3 (v3) knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts
- Genesis 31:48 (v3) Laban said, “This heap is witness between me and you today.” Therefore it was named Galeed
- Hosea 5:12 (v2) Therefore I am to Ephraim like a moth, and to the house of Judah like rottenness.
- Revelation 17:16 (v3) The ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the prostitute, will make her desolate, will strip her naked, will eat her…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (31 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1 Go to now. They are mistaken, as I…
1 Go to now. They are mistaken, as I think, who consider that James here exhorts the rich to repentance. It seems to me to be a simple denunciation of God’s judgment, by which he meant to terrify them without giving them any hope of pardon; for all that he says tends only to despair. He, therefore, does not address them in order to invite them to repentance; but, on the contrary, he has a regard to the faithful, that they, hearing of the miserable and of the rich, might not envy their fortune, and also that knowing that God would be the avenger of the wrongs they suffered, they might with a calm and resigned mind bear them.
But he does not speak of the rich indiscriminately, but of those who, being immersed in pleasures and inflated with pride, thought of nothing but of the world, and who, like inexhaustible gulfs, devoured everything; for they, by their tyranny, oppressed others, as it appears from the whole passage.
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Weep and howl, or, Lament, howling. Repentance has indeed its weeping, but being mixed with consolation, it does not proceed to howling. Then James intimates that the heaviness of God’s vengeance will be so horrible and severe on the rich, that they will be constrained to break forth into howling, as though he had said briefly to them, “Woe to you!” But it is a prophetic mode of speaking: the ungodly have the punishment which awaits them set before them, and they are represented as already enduring it. As, then, they were now flattering themselves, and promising to themselves that the prosperity in which they thought themselves happy would be perpetual, he declared that the most grievous miseries were nigh at hand.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v1 He denounceth utter destruction to the wicked and profane…
He denounceth utter destruction to the wicked and profane rich men, and such as are drowned in their riotousness, mocking at their foolish confidence when as there is nothing indeed more vain than such things.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and…
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
Ver. 1. Go to now, ye rich men] Those rich wretches mentioned Jas 2:6-7, that blasphemed God and oppressed men. Magna cognatio ut rei sic nominis, divitiis et vitiis.
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Weep and howl] Better weep here, where there are wiping handkerchiefs in the hand of Christ, than to have your eyes whipped out in hell. Better howl with men than yell with devils.
That shall come upon you] Gr. επερχομεναις, that are even now stealing upon you.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Go to now: see Jam 4:13.
Go to now: see Jam 4:13.
Ye rich men; he speaks to them not simply as rich, (for riches and grace sometimes may go together), but as wicked, not only wallowing in wealth, but abusing it to pride, luxury, oppression, and cruelty. Against these, either as looking on them as incurable, or upon supposition of their impenitency, he denounceth God’s judgments; and that whether they were unconverted Jews, vexing the believing Jews; or Gentiles, oppressing the Christian Jews; or Christians in profession and name, who yet were so vile in their practice, as to condemn and kill the just; and that they might more speciously do it, to draw them before the judgment-seats, &c.
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Weep and howl; to denote the extremity of the calamities coming upon them, in which they should not only weep like men, but howl like wild beasts: see Jer 4:8; Mic 1:8; Joe 1:10,13.
For your miseries that shall come upon you; or, are coming upon you, to signify the certainty and nearness of them. The miseries he means may be both temporal and eternal.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On v1 These words may be considered wither relatively or absolutely.
These words may be considered wither relatively or absolutely.
Consider them, 1. With relation to the Jews, to whom they were written immmediately, and they are a prediction or denuncitation of that judgment which was coming upon the right men in the Jewish nation; which prediction, Josephus assures us, was fulfilled by the slaughter and spoiling of the rich Jews throughout Galilee and Judea, the zealots sparing none but the poor and low. Thus did the vengeance of God, and does to this day, pursue and follow that wicked people, who killed the Lord of Life, and their own prophets, who brought judgment on themselves to the uttermost.
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Consider the words absolutely in themselves, and they are a severe and cutting reprehension to covetous rich men, for their sordid sparing of that wealth which God had given them for public service. And the apostle gives us,
1. A description of their sin. 2. A declaration of their punishment.
Observe, 1. A description of the sin of the covetous rich worldlings, they chose rather to have their goods to be corrupted and spoiled, than to be employed to good uses; their victuals might have refreshed the bowels of the hungry, but they rather suffered them to putrify and stink; the garments which lay useless in their wardrobes, might have clothed the backs of their naked brethren, but they had rather let them be moth eaten; their gold and silver might have been applied to many good uses, but they had rather it should be cankered, and rust in their chests.
Observe, 2. The punishment denounced against them for this their sin, the rust of their gold and silver shall witness against them; that is, their consciences shall at once convince them of their base covetousness, and torment them for it; and this corroding of their consciences shall have an impression upon their bodies, it shall eat their flesh as it were fire; and all that treasure which, with wrong to others, and violation of their own consciences, they had heaped together, was but heaped up for the spoiler, and the violence of the last days.
Learn from the whole, 1. That it is hard to possess riches without sin; a hard matter to have them, and not be hindered from heaven by them.
Learn, 2. That a covetous hoarding, and sordid sparing of wealth, which our suffering brethren want, brings a curse both upon our persons and estates.
3. That more miseries, and dreadful judgments, shall come upon wicked rich men, which, if believingly apprehended, would cause them now to weep and howl. We do not hurt with our wealth, say some; aye, but what good do you do with it? Where are the poor members of Christ, whom ye have relieved with the superfluities of your table? But can many say truly, they have done no harm with their estates?
Lord! what carelessness in religion, what contempt of God, what riot and excess is found amongst many that abound in wealth, who expend more upon a lust in one day, than would maintain a poor family many years.
Learn, 4. That in the day of judgment, not only our actions, but all the circumstances of our actions, shall be brought forth, and produced as arguments of conviction; the rusty iron, the cankered silver, the moth eaten clothes, shall be produced; the stones of the wall, built by oppression, shall cry, "Lord, we were built by oppression and violence;" and the beam out of the timber shall answer it, True, Lord, even so it is, Hab 2:11 The circumstances of men’s sins at the great day will be as so many memorials to put them in mind of guilt, and God in mind of vengeance: Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of it shall be witness against you.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 The apostle is here addressing first sinners and then…
The apostle is here addressing first sinners and then saints.
I. Let us consider the address to sinners; and here we find James seconding what his great Master had said: Woe unto you that are rich; for you have received your consolation, Luk 6:24. The rich people to whom this word of warning was sent were not such as professed the Christian religion, but the worldly and unbelieving Jews, such as are here said to condemn and kill the just, which the Christians had no power to do; and though this epistle was written for the sake of the faithful, and was sent principally to them, yet, by an apostrophe, the infidel Jews may be well supposed here spoken to. They would not hear the word, and therefore it is written, that they might read it. It is observable, in the very first inscription of this epistle, that it is not directed, as Paul's epistles were, to the brethren in Christ, but, in general, to the twelve tribes; and the salutation is not, grace and peace from Christ, but, in general, greeting, Jam 1:1. The poor among the Jews received the gospel, and many of them believed; but the generality of the rich rejected Christianity, and were hardened in their unbelief, and hated and persecuted those who believed on Christ. To these oppressing, unbelieving, persecuting, rich people, the apostle addresses himself in the first six verses.
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1. He foretels the judgments of God that should come upon them, Jam 5:1-3. they should have miseries come upon them, and such dreadful miseries that the very apprehension of them was enough to make them weep and howl - misery that should arise from the very things in which they placed their happiness, and misery that should be completed by these things witnessing against them at the last, to their utter destruction; and they are now called to reason upon and thoroughly to weigh the matter, and to think how they will stand before God in judgment: Go to now, you rich men. (1.) "You may be assured of this that very dreadful calamities are coming upon you, calamities that shall carry nothing of support nor comfort in them, but all misery, misery in time, misery to eternity, misery in your outward afflictions, misery in your inward frame and temper of mind, misery in this world, misery in hell. You have not a single instance of misery only coming upon you, but miseries. The ruin of your church and nation is at hand; and there will come a day of wrath, when riches shall not profit men, but all the wicked shall be destroyed." (2.) The very apprehension of such miseries as were coming upon them is enough to make them weep and howl. Rich men are apt to say to themselves (and others are ready to say to them), Eat, drink, and be merry; but God says, Weep and howl. It is not said, Weep and repent, for this the apostle does not expect from them (he speaks in a way of denouncing rather than admonishing); but, "Weep and howl, for when your doom comes there will be nothing but weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth." Those who live like beasts are called howl like such. Public calamities are most grievous to rich people, who live in pleasure, and are secure and sensual; and therefore they shall weep and howl more than other people for the miseries that shall come upon them. (3.) Their misery shall arise from the very things in which they placed their happiness. "Corruption, decay, rust, and ruin, will come upon all your goodly things: Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten, Jam 5:2. Those things which you now inordinately affect will hereafter insupportably wound you: they will be of no worth, of no use to you, but, on the contrary, will pierce you through with many sorrows; for," (4.) "They will witness against you, and they will eat your flesh as it were fire," Jam 5:3. Things inanimate are frequently represented in scripture as witnessing against wicked men. Heaven, earth, the stones of the field, the production of the ground, and here the very rust and canker of ill-gotten and ill-kept treasures, are said to witness against impious rich men. They think to heap up treasure for their latter days, to live plentifully upon when they come to be old; but, alas! they are only heaping up treasures to become a prey to others (as the Jews had all taken from them by the Romans), and treasures that will prove at last to be only treasures of wrath, in the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Then shall their iniquities, in the punishment of them, eat their flesh as it were with fire. In the ruin of Jerusalem, many thousands perished by fire; in the last judgment the wicked shall be condemned to everlasting burnings, prepared for the devil and his angels. The Lord deliver us from the portion of wicked rich men! and, in order to this, let us take care that we do not fall into their sins, which we are next to consider.
2. The apostle shows what those sins are which should bring such miseries. To be in so deplorable a condition must doubtless be owing to some very heinous crimes. (1.) Covetousness is laid to the charge of this people; they laid by their garments till they bred moths and were eaten; they hoarded up their gold and silver till they were rusty and cankered. It is a very great disgrace to these things that they carry in them the principles of their own corruption and consumption - the garment breeds the moth that frets it, the gold and silver breeds the canker that eats it; but the disgrace falls most heavily upon those who hoard and lay up these things till they come to be thus corrupted, and cankered, and eaten. God gives us our worldly possessions that we may honour him and do good with them; but if, instead of this, we sinfully hoard them up, thorough and undue affection towards them, or a distrust of the providence of God for the future, this is a very heinous crime, and will be witnessed against by the very rust and corruption of the treasure thus heaped together. (2.) Another sin charged upon those against whom James writes is oppression: Behold, the hire of the labourers, who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth, etc., Jam 5:4. Those who have wealth in their hands get power into their hands, and then they are tempted to abuse that power to oppress such as are under them. The rich we here find employing the poor in their labours, and the rich have as much need of the labours of the poor as the poor have of wages from the rich, and could as ill be without them; but yet, not considering this, they kept back the hire of the labourers; having power in their hands, it is probable that they made as hard bargains with the poor as they could, and even after that would not make good their bargains as they should have done. This is a crying sin, an iniquity that cries so as to reach the ears of God; and, in this case, God is to be considered as the Lord of sabaoth, or the Lord of hosts, Kuriou sabaōth, a phrase often used in the Old Testament, when the people of God were defenseless and wanted protection, and when their enemies were numerous and powerful. The Lord of hosts, who has all ranks of beings and creatures at his disposal, and who sets all in their several places, hears the oppressed when they cry by reason of the cruelty or injustice of the oppressor, and he will give orders to some of those hosts that are under him (angels, devils, storms, distempers, or the like) to avenge the wrongs done to those who are dealt with unrighteously and unmercifully. Take heed of this sin of defrauding and oppressing, and avoid the very appearances of it. (3.) Another sin here mentioned is sensuality and voluptuousness. You have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton, Jam 5:5. God does not forbid us to use pleasure; but to live in them as if we lived for nothing else is a very provoking sin; and to do this on the earth, where we are but strangers and pilgrims, where we are but to continue for a while, and where we ought to be preparing for eternity - this, this is a grievous aggravation of the sin of voluptuousness. Luxury makes people wanton, as in Hos 13:6, According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me. Wantonness and luxury are commonly the effects of great plenty and abundance; it is hard for people to have great plenty and abundance; it is hard for people to have great estates, and not too much indulge themselves in carnal, sensual pleasures: "You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter: you live as if it were every day a day of sacrifices, a festival; and hereby your hearts are fattened and nourished to stupidity, dulness, pride, and an insensibility to the wants and afflictions of others." Some may say, "What harm is there in good cheer, provided people do not spend above what they have?" What! Is it no harm for people to make gods of their bellies, and to give all to these, instead of abounding in acts of charity and piety? Is it no harm for people to unfit themselves for minding the concerns of their souls, by indulging the appetites of their bodies? Surely that which brought flames upon Sodom, and would bring these miseries for which rich men are here called to weep and howl, must be a heinous evil! Pride, and idleness, and fullness of bread, mean the same thing with living in pleasure, and being wanton, and nourishing the heart as in a day of slaughter. (4.) Another sin here charged on the rich is persecution: You have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you, Jam 5:6. This fills up the measure of their iniquity. They oppressed and acted very unjustly, to get estates; when they had them, they gave way to luxury and sensuality, till they had lost all sense and feeling of the wants or afflictions of others; and then they persecute and kill without remorse. They pretend to act legally indeed, they condemn before they kill; but unjust prosecutions, whatever colour of law they may carry in them, will come into the reckoning when God shall make inquisition for blood, as well as massacres and downright murders. Observe here, The just may be condemned and killed: but then again observe, When such do suffer, and yield without resistance to the unjust sentence of oppressors, this is marked by God, to the honour of the sufferers and the infamy of their persecutors; this commonly shows that judgments are at the door, and we may certainly conclude that a reckoning-day will come, to reward the patience of the oppressed and to break to pieces the oppressor. Thus far the address to sinners goes.
II. We have next subjoined an address to saints. Some have been ready to despise or to condemn this way of preaching, when ministers, in their application, have brought a word to sinners, and a word to saints; but, from the apostle's here taking this method, we may conclude that this is the best way rightly to divide the word of truth. From what has been said concerning wicked and oppressing rich men, occasion is given to administer comfort to God's afflicted people: "Be patient therefore; since God will send such miseries on the wicked, you may see what is your duty, and where your greatest encouragement lies."
1. Attend to your duty: Be patient (Jam 5:7), establish your hearts (Jam 5:8), grudge not one against another, brethren, Jam 5:9. Consider well the meaning of these three expressions: - (1.) "Be patient - bear your afflictions without murmuring, your injuries without revenge; and, though God should not in any signal manner appear for you immediately, wait for him. The vision is for an appointed time; at the end it will speak, and will not lie; therefore wait for it. It is but a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Let your patience be lengthened out to long suffering;" so the word here used, makrothumēsate, signifies. When we have done our work, we have need of patience to stay for our reward. This Christian patience is not a mere yielding to necessity, as the moral patience taught by some philosophers was, but it is a humble acquiescence in the wisdom and will of God, with an eye to a future glorious recompense: Be patient to the coming of the Lord. And because this is a lesson Christians must learn, though ever so hard or difficult to the, it is repeated in Jam 5:8, Be you also patient. (2.) "Establish your hearts - let your faith be firm, without wavering, your practice of what is good constant and continued, without tiring, and your resolutions for God and heaven fixed, in spite of all sufferings or temptations." The prosperity of the wicked and the affliction of the righteous have in all ages been a very great trial to the faith of the people of God. David tells us that his feet were almost gone, when he saw the prosperity of the wicked, Psa 73:2, Psa 73:3. Some of those Christians to whom St. James wrote might probably be in the same tottering condition; and therefore they are called upon to establish their hearts; faith and patience will establish the heart. (3.) Grudge not one against another; the words mē stenazete signify, Groan not one against another, that is, "Do not make one another uneasy by your murmuring groans at what befalls you, nor by your distrustful groans as to what may further come upon you, nor by your revengeful groans against the instruments of your sufferings, nor by your envious groans at those who may be free from your calamities: do not make yourselves uneasy and make one another uneasy by thus groaning to and grieving one another." "The apostle seemeth to me" (says Dr. Manton) "to be here taxing those mutual injuries and animosities wherewith the Christians of those times, having banded under the names of circumcision and uncircumcision, did grieve one another, and give each other cause to groan; so that they did not only sigh under the oppressions of the rich persecutors, but under the injuries which they sustained from many of the brethren who, together with them, did profess the holy faith." Those who are in the midst of common enemies, and in any suffering circumstances, should be more especially careful not to grieve nor to groan against one another, otherwise judgments will come upon them as well as others; and the more such grudgings prevail the nearer do they show judgment to be.
2. Consider what encouragement here is for Christians to be patient, to establish their hearts, and not to grudge one against another. And, (1.) "Look to the example of the husbandman: He waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. When you sow your corn in the ground, you wait many months for the former and latter rain, and are willing to stay till harvest for the fruit of your labour; and shall not this teach you to bear a few storms, and to be patient for a season, when you are looking for a kingdom and everlasting felicity? Consider him that waits for a crop of corn; and will not you wait for a crown of glory? If you should be called to wait a little longer than the husbandman does, is it not something proportionably greater and infinitely more worth your waiting for? But," (2.) "Think how short your waiting time may possibly be: The coming of the Lord draweth nigh, Jam 5:8; behold, the Judge standeth before the door, Jam 5:9. Do not be impatient, do not quarrel with one another; the great Judge, who will set all to rights, who will punish the wicked and reward the good, is at hand: he should be conceived by you to stand as near as one who is just knocking at the door." The coming of the Lord to punish the wicked Jews was then very nigh, when James wrote this epistle; and, whenever the patience and other graces of his people are tried in an extraordinary manner, the certainty of Christ's coming as Judge, and the nearness of it, should establish their hearts. The Judge is now a great deal nearer, in his coming to judge the world, than when this epistle was written, nearer by above seventeen hundred years; and therefore this should have the greater effect upon us. (3.) The danger of our being condemned when the Judge appears should excite us to mind our duty as before laid down: Grudge not, lest you be condemned. Fretfulness and discontent expose us to the just judgment of God, and we bring more calamities upon ourselves by our murmuring, distrustful, envious groans and grudgings against one another, than we are aware of. If we avoid these evils, and be patient under our trials, God will not condemn us. Let us encourage ourselves with this. (4.) We are encouraged to be patient by the example of the prophets (Jam 5:10): Take the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Observe here, The prophets, on whom God put the greatest honour, and for whom he had the greatest favour, were most afflicted: and, when we think that the best men have had the hardest usage in this world, we should hereby be reconciled to affliction. Observe further, Those who were the greatest examples of suffering affliction were also the best and greatest examples of patience: tribulation worketh patience. Hereupon James gives it to us as the common sense of the faithful (Jam 5:11): We count those happy who endure: we look upon righteous and patient sufferers as the happiest people. See Jam 1:2-12. (5.) Job also is proposed as an example for the encouragement of the afflicted. You have hard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, etc., v. 11. In the case of Job you have an instance of a variety of miseries, and of such as were very grievous, but under all he could bless God, and, as to the general bent of his spirit, he was patient and humble: and what came to him in the end? Why, truly, God accomplished and brought about those things for him which plainly prove that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. The best way to bear afflictions is to look to the end of them; and the pity of God is such that he will not delay the bringing of them to an end when his purposes are once answered; and the tender mercy of God is such that he will make his people an abundant amends for all their sufferings and afflictions. His bowels are moved for them while suffering, his bounty is manifested afterwards. Let us serve our God, and endure our trials, as those who believe the end will crown all.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Go to now, ye rich men,.... All rich men…
Go to now, ye rich men,.... All rich men are not here designed; there are some rich men who are good men, and make a good use of their riches, and do not abuse them, as these here are represented; and yet wicked rich men, or those that were the openly profane, are not here intended neither; for the apostle only writes to such who were within the church, and not without, who were professors of religion; and such rich men are addressed here, who, notwithstanding their profession, were not rich towards God, but laid up treasure for themselves, and trusted in their riches, and boasted of the multitude of their wealth; and did not trust in God, and make use of their substance to his glory, and the good of his interest, as they should have done:
weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you; meaning, not temporal calamities that should come upon them at the destruction of Jerusalem, in which the rich greatly suffered by the robbers among themselves, as well as by the Roman soldiers; for the apostle is not writing to the Jews in Judea, and at Jerusalem; but to the Christians of the twelve tribes scattered in the several parts of the world, and who were not distressed by that calamity; but eternal miseries, or the torments of hell are intended, which, unless they repented of their sins, would shortly, suddenly, and unavoidably come upon them, when their present joy and laughter would be turned into howling and weeping.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Come now, ye rich - The apostle does not…
Come now, ye rich - The apostle does not speak this so much for the sake of the rich themselves, as of the poor children of God, who were then groaning under their cruel oppression. Weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you - Quickly and unexpectedly. This was written not long before the siege of Jerusalem; during which, as well as after it, huge calamities came on the Jewish nation, not only in Judea, but through distant countries. And as these were an awful prelude of that wrath which was to fall upon them in the world to come, so this may likewise refer to the final vengeance which will then be executed on the impenitent.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–3 The profligate rich are in danger of God's judgments,…
CHAPTER V.
The profligate rich are in danger of God's judgments, because
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of their pride, fraudulent dealings, riotous living, and
cruelty, 1-6.
The oppressed followers of God should be patient, for the
Lord's coming is nigh; and should not grudge against each
other, 7-9.
They should take encouragement from the example of the
prophets, and of Job, 10, 11.
Swearing forbidden, 12.
Directions to the afflicted, 13-16.
They should confess their faults to each other, 16.
The great prevalence of prayer instanced in Elijah, 17, 18.
The blessedness of converting a sinner from the error of his
way, 19, 20.
NOTES ON CHAP. V.
Verse 1. Go to now] See Clarke on Jas 4:13.
Weep and howl for your miseries] St. James seems to refer here, in the spirit of prophecy, to the destruction that was coming upon the Jews, not only in Judea, but in all the provinces where they sojourned. He seems here to assume the very air and character of a prophet; and in the most dignified language and peculiarly expressive and energetic images, foretells the desolations that were coming upon this bad people.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1–2 Jas 5:1. The unbelieving Jews, being exceedingly addicted to…
Jas 5:1. The unbelieving Jews, being exceedingly addicted to sensual pleasure, and very covetous, were of course grievous oppressors of the poor. Wherefore, to alarm these wicked men, and, if possible, to bring them to repentance, St. James, in the first paragraph of this chapter, sets before them, in the most lively colours, the miseries which the Romans, the instruments of the divine vengeance, were about to bring on the Jewish people, both in Judea and everywhere else, now deserted of God for their crimes, and particularly for the great crime of murdering the Just One, Jesus of Nazareth, their long-expected Messiah. So that, being soon to lose their possessions and goods, it was not only criminal, but foolish, by injustice and oppression to amass wealth, of which they were soon to be stripped. In this part of his letter the apostle hath introduced figures and expressions which, for boldness, vivacity, and energy, might have been used by the greatest tragic poet. See Macknight. Go to now — Or, come now, ye rich men — The apostle does not speak this so much for the sake of the rich themselves, as of the poor children of God, who were then groaning under their cruel oppression. Weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you — Quickly and unexpectedly. The miseries of which he speaks were those which our Lord had pointed out in his prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, and in which this apostle foresaw they would soon be involved; miseries arising from famine, pestilence, and the sword. These fell heaviest on the Jews in Judea. But they extended also to the Jews in the provinces. The reader who desires to see a particular account of these calamities, may read Josephus’s history of the Jewish war, where he will find scenes of misery laid open not to be paralleled in the annals of any nation. And as these were an awful prelude of that wrath which was to fall upon them in the world to come, so this passage may likewise refer to the final vengeance which will then be executed on the impenitent.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Go to now - Notes, Jam 4:13.
Go to now - Notes, Jam 4:13.
Ye rich men - Not all rich men, but only that class of them who are specified as unjust and oppressive. There is no sin in merely being rich; where sin exists peculiarly among the rich, it arises from the manner in which wealth is acquired, the spirit which it tends to engender in the heart, and the way in which it is used. Compare the Luk 6:24 note; 1Ti 6:9 note.
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Weep and howl - Greek: “Weep howling.” This would be expressive of very deep distress. The language is intensive in a high degree, showing that the calamities which were coming upon them were not only such as would produce tears, but tears accompanied with loud lamentations. In the East, it is customary to give expression to deep sorrow by loud outcries. Compare Isa 13:6; Isa 14:31; Isa 15:2; Isa 16:7; Jer 4:8; Jer 47:2; Joe 1:5.
For your miseries that shall come upon you - Many expositors, as Benson, Whitby, Macknight, and others, suppose that this refers to the approaching destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and to the miseries which would be brought in the siege upon the Jewish people, in which the rich would be the peculiar objects of cupidity and vengeance. They refer to passages in Josephus, which describe particularly the sufferings to which the rich were exposed; the searching of their houses by the zealots, and the heavy calamities which came upon them and their families. But there is no reason to suppose that the apostle referred particularly to those events. The poor as well as the rich suffered in that siege, and there were no such special judgments then brought upon the rich as to show that they were the marked objects of the divine displeasure. It is much more natural to suppose that the apostle means to say that such men as he here refers to exposed themselves always to the wrath of God, and that they had great reason to weep in the anticipation of his vengeance. The sentiments here expressed by the apostle are not applicable merely to the Jews of his time. If there is any class of men which has special reason to dread the wrath of God at all times, it is just the class of men here referred to.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On v1 Go now rich men, &c. In the first six…
Go now rich men, &c. In the first six verses, he gives admonitions to those among the Christians who were rich, not to rely on riches, nor value themselves on this account. You must look upon your riches and treasures as if they were already putrefied and corrupted, your gold and silver eaten and consumed with rust: and their rust shall rise in testimony and judgment against you, for not making better use of them. As your coin is eaten with rust, so shall your bodies be hereafter as it were eaten and consumed by fire. You heap up to yourselves a treasure in the day of wrath, while through covetousness, and hard heartedness, you defraud labourers of their hire, living at the same time in feasting and luxury, as in the day of slaughter. That is, feasting as men are accustomed to do, on the days when victims are slaughtered, offered, and eaten with great rejoicing. Others expound it, as if you were feeding, and making yourselves fit sacrifices and victims for God’s anger and indignation. (Witham) --- You have feasted, &c. The Greek is, "you have lived in delicacies and debaucheries, and have feasted upon your hearts as for the day of sacrifice:" Greek: Etruphesate, kai espatalesate ethrepsate tas kardias umon os en emera sphages. That is, you have fattened yourselves with good cheer and sensual pleasures, like victims prepared for solemn sacrifice. (Calmet) --- Others among you have unjustly oppressed, accused, and brought to condemnation the just one, by which seems to be understood just and innocent men, who are divers times deprived of their fortunes, and even of their lives, by the unjust contrivances of powerful wicked men. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 James Chapter 5
James Chapter 5
The two classes in Israel are distinctly marked here in contrast with one another, with the addition of the walk which the Christian ought to pursue when chastised by the Lord.
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The apostle gives the coming of the Lord as the term of their condition, both to the unbelieving rich oppressors in Israel, and to the poor believing remnant. The rich have heaped up treasures for the last days; the oppressed poor are to be patient until the Lord Himself shall come to deliver them. Moreover, he says, deliverance would not be delayed. The husbandman waits for the rain and the times of harvest; the Christina for his Master’s coming. This patience characterizes, as we have seen, the walk of faith. It had been witnessed in the prophets; and in the case of others we count them happy which endure afflictions for the Lord’s sake. Job shews us the ways of the Lord: he needed to have patience, but the end of the Lord was blessing and tender mercy towards him.
This expectation of the coming of the Lord was a solemn warning, and at the same time the strongest encouragement, but one which maintained the true character of the Christian’s practical life. It shewed also what the selfishness of man’s will would end in, and it restrained all action of that will in believers. The feelings of brethren towards each other were placed under the safeguard of this same truth. They were not to have a spirit of discontent, or to murmur against others who were perhaps more favoured in their outward circumstances: “the judge stood before the door.”
Oaths displayed still more the forgetfulness of God, and the actings consequently of the self-will of nature. “Yea,” ought to be yea, and “Nay,” nay. The actings of the divine nature in the consciousness of the presence of God, and the repression of all human will and of sinful nature, is what the writer of this epistle desires.
Now there were resources in Christianity both for joy and sorrow. If any were afflicted, let them pray (God was ready to hear); if happy, let them sing; if sick, send for the elders of the assembly, who would pray for the sufferer and anoint him, and the chastisement would be removed, and the sins for which, according to God’s government, he was thus chastised, would be forgiven as regards that government; for it is that only which is here spoken of.
The imputation of sin for condemnation has no place here. The efficacy of the prayer of faith is set before us; but it is in connection with the maintenance of sincerity of heart. The government of God is exercised with regard to His people. He chastises them by sickness; and it is important that truth in the inner man should be maintained. Men hide their faults; theydesire to walk as if all were going on well; but God judges His people. He tries the heart and the reins. They are held in bonds of affliction. God shews them their faults, or their unbroken self-will. Man “is chastened also with pain upon his bed and the multitude of his bones with strong pain.” (Job 33:19) And now the church of God intervenes in charity, and according to its own order, by means of the elders; the sick man commits himself to God, confessing his state of need; the charity of the church acts and brings him who is chastised, according to this relationship, before God-for that is where the church is. Faith pleads this relationship of grace; the sick man is healed. If sins-and not merely the need of discipline-were the cause of his chastisement, those sins will not hinder his being healed, they shall be forgiven him.
The apostle then presents the principle in general as the course for all, namely , to open their hearts to each other, in order to maintain truth in the inner man as to oneself; and to pray for each other in order that charity should be in full exercise with regard to the faults of others; grace and truth being thus spiritually formed in the church, and a perfect union of heart among Christians, so that even their faults are an occasion for the exercise of charity (as in God towards us), and entire confidence in each other, according to that charity, such as is felt towards a restoring and pardoning God. What a beautiful picture is presented of divine principles animating men and causing them to act according to the nature of God Himself, and the influence of His love upon the heart.
We may remark, that it is not confession to the elders that is spoken of. That would have been confidence in men-official confidence. God desires the operation of divine charity in all. Confession to one another shews the condition of the church, and God would have the church to be in such a state, that love should so reign in it, that they should be so near to God, as to be able to treat the transgressor according to the grace they know in Him: and that this love should be so realised, that perfect inward sincerity should be produced by the confidence and operation of grace. Official confession destroys all this-is contrary to it. How divine the wisdom which omitted confession when speaking of the elders, but which commands it as the living and voluntary impression of the heart!
This leads us also to the value of the energetic prayers of the righteous man. It is his nearness to God, the sense that he has consequently of that which God is, which (through grace and the operation of the Spirit) gives him this power. God takes account of men, and that according to the infinitude of His love. He takes account of the trust in Himself, the faith in His word, shewn by one who thinks and acts according to a just appreciation of what He is. That is always faith, which makes sensible to us that which se do not see-God Himself, who acts in accordance with the revelation that He has given of Himself. Now the man who in the practical sense is righteous through grace, is near to God; as being righteous, he has not to do with God for himself with regard to sin, which would keep his heart a t a distance; his heart is thus free to draw nigh to God, according to His holy nature on behalf of others; and, moved by the divine nature, which animates him and which enables him to appreciate God, he seeks, according to the activity of that nature, that his prayers may prevail with God whether for the good of others or for the glory of God Himself in His service. And God answers, according to that same nature, by blessing this trust and responding to it, in order to manifest what He is for faith, to encourage it by sanctioning its activity, putting His seal on the man who walks by faith.[2]
The Spirit of God acts we know in all this; but the apostle does not here speak of Him, being occupied with the practical effect, and presenting the man as he is seen, acting under the influence of this nature in its positive energy with regard to God, and near to Him, so that it acts in all its intensity, moved by the power of that nearness. But if we consider the action of the Spirit, these thoughts are confirmed. The righteous man does not grieve the Holy Ghost, and the Spirit works in him according to His own power, but acting in the man according to the poser of his communion.
Finally, we have the assurance that the ardent and energetic prayer of the righteous man has great efficacy: it is the prayer of faith, which knows God and counts upon Him and draws near Him. The case of Elijah is interesting, as shewing us (and there are other examples of the same king) how the Holy Ghost acts inwardly in a man where we see the outward manifestation of poser. In the history we have Elijah’s declaration: “Jehovah liveth, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.” This is the authority, the power, exercised in the name of Jehovah. In our epistle the secret operation, that which passes between the soul and God, is set forth. He prayed, and God heard him. We have the same testimony on the part of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. Only that in the latter case we have the two together, except that the prayer itself is not given-unless in the unutterable groan of Christ’s spirit.
Comparing Gal 2:1-21 with the history in Act 15:1-41, we find a revelation from God which determined Paul’s conduct, whatever outward motives there may have been which were known to all. By such cases as those which the apostle proposes to the church, and those of Elijah and the Lord Jesus, a God, living acting, and interesting Himself in all that happens among His people, is revealed to us.
There is also the activity of love towards those who err. If any one departs from the truth, and they bring him back by grace, let it be known that to bring back a sinner form the error of his ways is the exercise-simple as our action in it may be-of power that delivers a soul from death; accordingly all those sins which spread themselves in their odious nature before the eyes of God, and offended His glory and His heart by their presence in His universe, are covered. The soul being brought to God by grace, all its sins are pardoned, appear no more, are blotted out form before the face of God. The apostle (as throughout) does not speak of the power that acts in this work of love, but of the fact. He applies it to cases that had happened among them; but he establishes a universal principle with regard to the activity of grace in the heart that is animated by it. The erring soul is saved; the sin put away from before God.
Charity in the assembly suppresses, so to speak, the sins which otherwise would destroy union and overcome that charity in the assembly, and appear in all their deformity and all their malignancy before God. Whereas, being met by love in the assembly, they go no farther, are, as it were (as regards the state of things before God in this world). dissolved and put away by the charity which they could not vanquish. The sin is vanquished by the love which dealt with it, disappears, is swallowed up by it. Thus love covers a multitude of sins. Here it is its action in the conversion of a sinner.
Footnotes for James Chapter 5
2: It is well to remember that this is carried out in respect of the governing ways of God, and thus under the title of Lord-a place which Christ specially holds, though here the term is used generally. Compare Jas 5:11, and the general Jewish reference of the passage. To us we have one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ. He is become Lord and Christ, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1
IX. SEVENTH ADMONITION
DENUNCIATION AND ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE IMPENDING JUDGMENT ON THE RICH I. E., THE JUDAISTS PROPER COUCHED IN PROPHETIC STYLE. EXHORTATION TO REPENTANCE OR TO THE PRESENTIMENT OF THE JUDGMENT
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Jam_5:1-6
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.1 2Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver Isaiah 3 cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh2 as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. 4Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud,3 crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 5Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as4 in a day of slaughter.5 6Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Analysis: The Judaists exhorted to repentance or to realize a presentiment of the judgment, Jam_5:1.—Their condition: spiritual self-delusion, the corruptness and self-consumption of their supposed riches, Jam_5:2-3.—Their positive sins resulting from such spiritual self-delusion. Their sins against the reapers of the harvest in Israel.—Their unsuspecting assurance of their life of indulgence in the very day of -their judgment. The crime of the murder of the Just One, Jam_5:4-6.
The Judaists exhorted to repentance or to realize a presentiment of the judgment.
Jam_5:1. Well then, ye rich.—Concerning the rich see Introduction, Jam_1:10; Jam_2:6-7. That the reference is not to the outwardly rich but to the rich in the sense of Old Testament (Psalms 73; Isaiah 5), Gospel (Mat_19:24; Rev_3:17) and symbolical usage may be expected from an Apostolical man, to say nothing of an Apostle. The ordinary construction put on this term would lead us to expect either that the Epistle ought to have driven the outwardly rich from the Church or that they would have excluded the Epistle from the Canon. But just as the Jewish Christians themselves have ceased to be known so also the Gentile Christian Church has suffered the majestic prophetical penitential discourse of the faithful Christian Apostle to the Jews to be reduced to the conception of a severe moral lecture. The repetition of ἄγε νῦν does not prove that the reference here is to the same persons who are addressed in 4:18 (as Huther supposes). Nor is the reference at all to individuals as such; the persons addressed there are Judaists in a most perilous condition, while those addressed here are those who according to the last warning harden themselves by the self-delusion of their being theocratically rich. The entire prophetical lamentation must be judged according to its analogies in the Old Testament (Isa_2:22; Isa_3:9; Isa_3:19 etc.) the words of Christ (Matthew 23) and the Apocalypse (Revelation 18).
Weep unto howling.—De Wette and al. take this as an exhortation to shed the tears of repentance; Huther agrees with Calvin who denies that there is any reference to repentance and considers the passage to be “simplex denunciatio judicii dei, qua eos terrere voluit ab spe veniæ.” Wiesinger takes a middle position: that the design of James, as in the case of the prophets of the Old Testament, is nevertheless none other than that of moving them, if possible, to turn from their perverse course. Huther, who objects that James nowhere intimates such design, overlooks 1, that also the strongest menaces of judgment in the Old Testament are at any rate hypothetical (see the Book of Jonah, Jer_28:7 etc.), 2, that the most assured foreseeing of the inevitability of the judgment as a whole still involves the possibility of individuals being wakened and saved in virtue of such menace, 3, that the Divine fore-announcement of such a judgment is at the same time made as a testimony of the truth for the future and designed to serve other generations as a warning and to conduce to their salvation. The strict construction of Huther is still more striking because he disputes Selmer’s exposition of the Imperative, viz. “stilo prophetico imperat, ut rem certiss mam demonstret,” and maintains that the proper force of the Imperative ought to be retained. This would therefore be a command to weep without any hope of salvation. The Participle ὀλολύζοντες(ὀλολύζειν used often to describe howling with reference to the near approach of the judgment, Isa_13:6; Isa_14:31 etc.) denotes weeping accompanied by constant howling, i.e. increasing unto howling.
Over your miseries.—The impending judgments, not specified by the Apostle, but further alluded to only with respect to their premonitory symptoms.
Which are drawing near on you.—There is hardly room to doubt that James refers primarily to the Jewish war and the destruction of Jerusalem; so Thomas Aquinas, Grotius, Michaelis and al. understand it. Huther cannot substantiate by any proof the remark that “they (Thomas Aquinas, etc.) are not wrong in this respect, because in the Apostle’s mind the destruction of Jerusalem and the last judgment had not yet been distinguished.” The ταλαιπωρίαι are rather said to be ἐπερχόμεναι, already approaching; whereas a very patient waiting is necessary with respect to the coming of the Lord, Jam_5:7, etc., although in the light of Christian hope (not of chiliastic calculation) it is near at hand. On you, by which Luther and others further define the approaching judgments, follows not from the literal expression but from the connection; ἐπί also contains an allusion, favouring the construction. [See Appar. Crit. Note 1.—M.].
Their condition: spiritual self-delusion, the corruptness and self-consumption of their supposed riches. Jam_5:2-3.
Jam_5:2. Your riches are corrupted.—The verb σήπω (ἅπαξ λεγ. in N. T.), to make rotten or putrid, destroy by rottenness, signifies in 2 Perf. Pass. (as here) to rot, moulder, to be rotten or also to be in a state of rotting fermentation. But it has also the more general sense, to corrupt, to consume oneself (Sir_14:19). [σέσηπα is Perf. Middle.—M.]. The verb therefore does not necessitate us to understand with Gebser and al. πλοῦτος=frumenta. The main question here is to determine whether this and the next expression denote the natural immanent judgment of sin as portents of the positive judgments, or the latter (Grotius, Bengel), so that future events are prophetically described as having already taken place (de Wette, Wiesinger, Huther and al.). But the reference is evidently to the former; the corrupting of riches and the moth-eaten garments denote immanent, natural corruptions. But here, as in the prophets (Isa_28:1-2; Isa_33:11-12; Jeremiah 7 etc.) and in our Lord’s eschatological discourse (Mat_24:28) these natural corruptions, as the judgment of the self-dissolution (—consumption) of sin, are in their products the tokens of positive judgment. But the riches must be taken figuratively, not literally as is generally done. The prophetical idea of the rich corresponds to the prophetical idea of the riches. It denotes therefore externalized Judaistic righteousness with all its national prerogatives, of course connected with that outward worldly prosperity and ease which are the outward complements of such self-righteousness. It is matter of historical record that at the time when James wrote this Epistle, Jewish affairs had the appearance of spiritual prosperity (in point of orthodoxy and world-holiness), as well as of worldly flourishing in the reign (in part at least) of Herod Agrippa II. (See my Apost. Age. I. pp. 307, 312, 324).
And your garments.—Doubtless in the sense of the splendid garment Jam_2:2.
Are become moth-eaten, σητόβρωτος, Job_13:28 : not found in Classic Greek and not elsewhere in the New Testament.
Jam_5:3. Your gold and your silver are eaten up with rust.—κατιόω is ἅπαξ λεγ. in the New Testament. Gold and silver do not contract rust, hence Hornejus observes that it is populariter dictum, which is approved by Huther. Pott interprets the striking expression of the dimness of their burnish, others otherwise. According to Huther James did not anxiously calculate the difference of metals in his vivid concrete depiction; but this would be an intensely popular mode of expression. The words Isa_1:22, “Thy silver is become dross” are not a merely popular expression; on the contrary they are designed to bring out the unnatural fact that the princes of Israel are become rebellious and companions of thieves. It is then an unnatural phenomenon to which James adverts, of course in figurative language. It is as unnatural for gold and silver to be eaten up with rust as for the glory of Israel to be as corrupted as the glory of other nations corrupts, which may be compared to base metals.
And their rust shall be a testimony against you.—Wiesinger, with whom Huther agrees, proposes the following interpretation: in the consuming of their treasures, to be brought about by an outward judgment, they see depicted their own. But the loss of outward wealth under the influence of outward corruption is by mo means evidence of the inward corruption of the losers. Oecumenius supposes that the rust on their gold and silver shall testify against the hardness of their heart, because they did not use them in doing good. This is correct as far as the reference is doubtless to a corruption inherent in their circumstances, but it lacks the due appreciation of the figurative sense: the rusting of your gold and silver, of your glory, represented by your leading men (see Isa_1:22-23), shall be a token that the nation is corrupted in its rich men in general. And this was actually the case. The leading men who in the spiritual life ought to have shone like tarnished silver and gold were rusted in legalism and dragged the majority of the self-righteous people into their own corruption.
And shall consume your flesh.—The Plural σάρκες is differently explained. The word stands simply for ὑμᾶς (Baumgarten), it denotes their well-fed bodies (Augusti), the fleshy parts of the body as contrasted with the bones (Huther who refers to 2Ki_9:36; and particularly to Mic_3:2-3). But these passages contain no allusion to a consuming fire; fire consumes bones as well as flesh. We therefore assume that the term flesh is here used in a bad sense as in Gen_6:3; Jer_17:5 and Joh_3:6, and that the Plural describes the life of the rich as exhibited in the carnalities or externals of religious, civil or individual life, in which they take delight. That consuming rust of the decayed, defunct and deadly legalism beginning at the gold and silver with which they decorate themselves, eats through the flesh of their customs, ceremonies and earthly possessions to the very destruction of their life. It is a rust which has the consuming energy of fire (Ps. 21:22; Isa_10:16-17). The rotten fixity, described as rust, in its last stage transforms itself into the fire of a revolutionary movement, into a fanatical, consuming conflagration of rebellion (see Rev_19:20), or in brief: absolutism becomes revolution. It is the consummated national self-dissolution, as it fully developed itself in the Jewish war and in Jerusalem besieged. The reference therefore on the one hand, is neither to consuming grief and want (Erasmus and al.), nor, on the other, already to the real, positive judgments (Calvin, Grotius, Wiesinger, Huther and al.). With respect to ὡς πῦρ, Wiesinger, who adopts the punctuation of Cod. A and Oecumenius, and follows Grotius and Knapp, connects it with ἐθησαυρίσατε: “tanquam ignem opes istas congessistis, et quidem ipsis extremis temporibus.” Wiesinger cites as an analogy θησαυρίζεις σεαυτῷ ὀργήν, Rom_2:5, to which Huther rightly objects that in the words ἐθησαυρίσατε ἐν ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις the principal stress rests on ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις. This is sufficient; his further remark that the fire denotes already positive judgment we consider, for the reason already given, to be incorrect, but this fire points to positive judgment. ὡς also is against Wiesinger’s construction, and so does the over bold metaphor: ye have as it were gathered fire in gathering your wealth.
Ye have heaped up treasure.—The verb requires no definite specification of the object and the supply of ὀργήν (according to Rom_2:5. Calvin and al.) is superfluous and arbitrary. Moreover, the treasure, as Huther remarks, has been specified before.
In the last days.—Not perchance the last days, and the last days are neither the last days of life, nor the last days before the advent of Christ (Huther). James refers to the last days before the final national judgment, alluded to in Jam_5:1, but not yet described. The gathering of treasure is done in the anticipation of a long happy future; this reprehensible heaping up treasure in the last days of their existence, immediately before the judgment involving not only the ruin of their treasure but also of their very existence, characterizes moreover their fearful want of apprehension (freedom from all misgiving and fear, assurance) and mad-like self-delusion. All their spiritual and worldly treasures are useless obstacles in the impending judgment, destined to vanish as the means of their self-delusion in order to make room for a fearful undeceiving. Thus the indication of positive judgment draws nearer, but the Apostle first refers to their decisive sins.
Their positive sins resulting from such spiritual self-delusion. Their sins against the reapers of the harvest in Israel. The unsuspecting assurance of their life of indulgence in the very day of their judgment. The crime of the murder of the Just One. Jam_5:4-6.
Jam_5:4. Behold the hire of the labourers.—First decisive sin. Huther: “Injustice towards those who work for them;” Wiesinger: One case instead of many, a case moreover which clearly exposes the crying injustice of those rich men as the transgression of the express prohibition, Deu_24:14-15; Lev_19:13; Mal_3:5.—And this is to be the whole meaning of this passage! But in the first place it is inconceivable that those wandering trafficking Jews of the dispersion (Jam_4:13) should all of a sudden be transformed into large landed proprietors, and in the second equally inconceivable that James should have occasion to reproach all the rich landlords of the dispersion with literally holding back the hire of their labourers. Here also we must again insist upon the symbolical sense of the passage. The first question is to determine the sense in which the term “the harvest of Israel” is used by the prophets (Isa_9:3; Joe_3:18), by John the Baptist (Mat_3:12), and by our Lord (Matt 4:85; Mat_9:38; cf. Rev_14:15-16).—It denotes the time when the theocratic seed of God in Israel has become ripe unto harvest; on the one hand unto the harvest of judgment, on the other unto the harvest of salvation. The latter idea predominates here. The harvest of Israel was the ripened spirit-produce of the Old Testament, as manifested in the work of Christ; in the reapers we may aptly see the Apostles (according to Joh_4:35), and the first Christians in general. From them the rich in Israel kept back the hire in that they rejected their testimony in unbelief. And thus the voices of those reapers cried into the ears of the Lord of hosts, i.e., abandoning the figure: their sin against them cried out to God, even to God, the Lord of those hosts which were already on the point of approaching in order to execute the judgment of God on Israel.—The labourers, ἐργάται, see 1Ti_5:18. ἀμᾷν is ἅπαξ λεγ. in N. T. The expression imports moreover that Israel’s whole harvest of blessing has been brought home by these labourers into the Christian Church and that there is no other harvest besides it.
Which hath been kept back.—We construe with Huther “the hire which hath been kept back, crieth out from you,” ἀφ’ ὑμῶν, as we read in Gen_4:10. “the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground,” because thus the injustice crying out for vengeance is laid to the charge of the evil-doers not to that of the labourers; the common construction “which hath been kept back by you” seems to be less opposed by taking ἀπό in the sense of ὑπό, than by the consideration that κράζει denotes a crying out for vengeance. Hence the connection is not: “the hire of the mowers crieth out and this crying has come to the ears of God” (Theile), but the crying out of the hire that has been kept back (Gen_18:20; Gen_19:13) on the one hand, is completed on the other by the βοαί of the reapers or the gatherers of the harvest, first as cries of complaint and cries for help (see Heb_5:7; Act_4:24 etc.; Act_12:5), and lastly also as cries for righteous recompense (Rev_6:10-11). And these, even more than the former crying have entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts; which would yield this sense: not only the unbelief of the unbelieving Jews but also the distress of the believing Christians induce the Lord of hosts to send forth His hosts unto judgment; as indeed the destruction of Jerusalem was not only a visitation of judgment on Judaism but also a visitation of salvation on the Christian Church. The crying out of Christian blood for mercy to enemies reaches also its limit in the induration of unbelievers; moreover we should distinguish the reapers themselves from their βοαί, here made objective. The term “Lord of hosts” hardly renders prominent the power of God, as that of Lord of the heavenly hosts only (Wiesinger, Huther); He is also Lord of the earthly hosts according to the prophets (Isa_4:3; Isa_18:7; Isa_24:21; Amo_9:4-5), and also. According to Christ (Mat_22:7). [Bede suggests the following reason “Dominum exercituum appellat, ad terrorem eorum, qui pauperes putant nullum habere tutorem.” This is the only passage in the New Testament where the term “Lord of hosts” is used in direct discourse. Rom_9:29 is a quotation.—M.].
Second sin. Jam_5:5. Ye have lived high on earth.—τρυφᾷν is ἅπαξ λεγ. in the N. T. It comprehends the ideas: to live softly, voluptuously, gloriously and also extravagantly. In LXX. (Neh_9:25 and Isa_66:11) the fundamental idea is “to take delight in something to revel.” σπαταλᾷν denotes living lewdly, luxuriously, especially in eating and drinking; but in Lxx. (Eze_16:49 and Amo_6:4) the idea of idle indulgence is decidedly predominant, probably also in 1Ti_5:6. Hence the two words would express not the definite antithesis deliciæ et exquisita voluptas and luxuria atque prodigalitas (Hottinger), but that of positive sumptuousness in pleasure and sensuality and of negative sumptuousness in effeminate, careless indolence. We might therefore translate “Ye have had your delight and have settled down on earth,” or “ye have become worldly and effeminate,” or “ye have bragged and made a show.” The opposite order occurs in Luk_16:19 : the daily wearing of holiday-apparel denotes the idler, the sumptuous living, revelry. Huther strikingly points out the contrast of this sumptuous mode of life and the toilsome life of the labourers, also the contrast of such revelling on earth and the complaint which is made to the Lord in heaven. But we must not overlook in this revelling on earth the thought, that the earth, the earthly, figuratively taken, was the foundation in which their revelling struck root, and that the day of slaughter is the principal antithesis of revelling.
And fattened your hearts.—τρέφειν in the opinion of several commentators denotes fattening, for the evident design of this clause is to show that the rich regarded and nourished their heart as an animal existence. Hence Huther is wrong in his correction of Luther, “to pasture your hearts,” better: “to satiate.” Luther’s rendering is excellent and we should have retained it but for the necessity of holding fast to the other meaning that fattening the heart is at the same time indurating the heart (καρδία πεπωρωμένη). The heart, however, is not a paraphrastic description of the body or individuality but denotes inward life, the kernel of spiritual. life (Act_14:17). Wiesinger asserts that καρδία involves per se the idea of passionate fondness of enjoyment, but Luk_21:34 is the last passage which makes good his assertion.
In the day of slaughter.—On the omission of ως see Appar. Crit. Nor must ἐν be changed into εἰς. The rendering “as on a day of slaughter” (Luther, Wolf, Augusti) is consequently a double weakening of the thought. The comment of Calvin, Grotius, Bengel etc., that the day of slaughter is the day of sacrifice, when the slaughter of the victims is followed by banqueting, is altogether outside of the connection with the judgment. Calvin: “Quia solebant in saerificiis solemnibus liberalius vesci, quam pro quotidiano more. Dicit ergo divites tota vita continuare festum.” Huther rightly observes that the term in question is never used in this sense. De Wette sees in it a comparison to beasts, which on the very day of slaughter eat in unconcern. Huther thinks this comparison inappropriate, since beasts do not eat more greedily on the day of slaughter than at any other time. But this refutation rests on a misunderstanding. Beasts6 always eat greedily; their eating on the day of slaughter may therefore be used as a figure of the inordinate feasting of the obdurate on the very day of judgment. The analogy of 2Pe_2:12 only tends to strengthen the appropriateness of this construction. The thought is further intensified by the consideration that while beasts are led to pasture and fattened for the day of slaughter, these men laid themselves voluntarily out for feasting in the very day of slaughter. But we may suppose that this point of comparison must not be dissociated from the general and more lofty meaning of ἡμέρα σφαγῆς, viz. that of a day of judgment (Jer_12:3; Jer_25:34). In the last passage also the ideas “day of judgment” and “day of slaughter” are taken together in a literal sense, so also in Isa_53:7; Rev_19:17-18. But the day on which began Israel’s day of judgment which is developing itself into a day of slaughter, was the day of Christ’s crucifixion which connected with the day of the destruction of Jerusalem becomes in a symbolical sense one day of visitation. The Aorists here, therefore, are not used to indicate that the conduct of the rich is to be viewed from the future day of judgment at the second coming of Christ (Huther), but because their carnal arrogance and unconcern in the devilish revelling of their hearts culminated just on the judgment-day of Israel. Since then their day of slaughter is in process of development. Just as they had therefore collected together the treasures of legal righteousness in the last days, while the old time was on the wane, so they had reached the climax of their self-indulgent worldliness on the last day, the day of judgment.—This leads to their third and greatest sin.
Jam_5:6. Ye have condemned, ye have killed the Just.—The fact of modern commentators disputing the exposition of Oecumenius, Bede and Grotius that the Just signifies Christ, proves how far they have wandered from the text in the treatment of this Epistle. Only think of James, the witness of Christ, at the end of his course calling out to the obdurate of all the people of Israel: Ye have condemned and killed the Just and they not to have understood him to refer to the rejection and crucifixion of Christ! But to what or to whom else did they think he was alluding? Gebser and Huther [also Alford—M.] take δίκαιον collectively for τοὺς δικαίους; i.e. oppressed, suffering Christians, and Huther says: “The ground of the persecution is implied in the word δίκαιον itself; the Singular should be taken collectively, the idea absolutely” (similarly Theile). But then surely Christ ought to be considered as standing at the head of these slain ones. Wiesinger (and de Wette) refers the term to continued persecution ad mortem usque and adds that all reference to Christ is so manifestly against the whole context of the passage, that refutation is altogether unnecessary. On the contrary, proof is almost unnecessary. Wiesinger objects first, that the Epistle is addressed to the dispersion. But at the Passover, when Christ was crucified, the dispersion also was represented at Jerusalem, and symbolically all Israel was already dispersed. The most important objection is the Present οὐκ ἀντιτάσσεται ὑμῖν. This Present is certainly difficult. But is it more convenient to affirm concerning the collectively just man, that he had been killed by those rich and that he was still living than to affirm as much concerning Christ? The Vulgate probably alludes to Christ in rendering “non restitit;” so Luther, “he hath not resisted you.” But the Present forbids such a rendering. But also the common explanation: “Ye have killed the Just, he does not resist you” gives a thought which is not clear, at least not very distinct. It would perhaps be easier to suppose that the readers of the Epistle understood James to say: “Christ does not resist you in His members, He still endures willingly all persecutions in His sufferings.” But would this thought be a fitting conclusion of the great denunciation of those obdurate people? Nor is it the idea “the just do not resist you.” We understand therefore Bentley’s conjecture of reading ὁ κύριος instead of οὐκ (see Jam_4:6; 1Pe_5:5; Pro_3:34); still more the explanation of Benson to take the clause interrogatively. Giving to ἀντιτάσσεσθαι the fullest Middle sense, the question would read thus: “Does He not bring up against you His army (as the executor of the punitive justice of the Lord of hosts)?” or “does He not rise against you in combat?” At least it is easy to understand that with a predominantly ascetic turn of mind such a question might have been asked. But considering the importance of the matter, the interrogative form ought to be more distinctly marked: does he not already march against you, march against you in the tempest of war? Besides such an explanation might easily obscure the thought of the continuous suffering which Christ endures in His people. Hence one might light on the idea of rebellion, as we have it in Rom_13:2. He does not rebel against you, i, e. you are the rebels. But this again is not sufficiently clear. We read therefore: He stands no longer in your way, He does not stop you (in the way of death); He suffers you to fill up your measure. See Mat_23:32-38. And this dark, pregnant sentence is the concentration of the announcement that the judgment impending on them, is inevitable. [The clause “οὐκ ἀντιτάσσεται ὑμῖν” seems to be ironical: He lets you alone (Hos_4:17).—James was called by his contemporaries “the Just” and this reference to Jesus as “the Just One” is a touching illustration of his character, for a delineation of which the reader is referred to the Introduction.—M.].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Both the Gospel and James are altogether free from any and every Ebionite one-sidedness that wealth, as such, is sinful and poverty, as such, meritorious. James allows the possession and use of earthly riches, but—in majorem Dei gloriam. While the rich are thus more privileged than others, they are also under doubly great obligations; but if they persistently acquit themselves of their discharge and use their riches only for the attainment of selfish ends which conflict with the law of love, then they are in all justice and reason liable to a uæ vobis divitibus cf. Luk_6:24; Mat_6:19-21.—
2. Earthly wealth is not an absolute but a relative obstacle to entering the kingdom of God; cf. Mar_10:23-25.—The history of many rich men, e.g. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea shows that this obstacle may be overcome. But this is impossible where covetousness reigns supreme and adopts every means of preserving or increasing earthly possessions. Here applies the Apostolic warning, 1Ti_6:17-19,—compare also Plutarch, de cupiditate divitiarum, and the saying of Seneca, de benef. II. c. 27, “concitatior est avaritia in magnarum opum congestus,” also Sallust, in Catil. c. x. 4.—A life of luxurious indulgence as the concomitant of wealth and dependence on that wealth coupled with unfeeling contempt of one’s brother, according to the teaching of Christ Himself, deserves the judgment Luk_16:25. And the history of the destruction of Jerusalem as well as innumerable incidents taken from the history of the kingdom of God confirm the fact that such rich men are not rarely visited already here below with earthly calamity and outward distress apart from that judgment for eternity.
3. The rejection of the Messiah, to which James clearly alludes (Jam_5:6), as the work of the prominent Jews, as the murder of the Innocent and the Just was not only a heinous crime per se (cf. Act_3:13-15), but also the first of a series of crimes enacted on the members of the Body, after they had first laid hands on the Head, which terminated at last in the horrors of the Jewish civil war and were punished with the fall of the and the destruction of the temple.
4. Christianity imposes upon all men, blessed with earthly goods, the duty to ascertain and, if practicable, to satisfy the wants of their subordinates and servants and to consider themselves not as the lords but as the stewards of the capital confided to them, Luk_16:2; cf. Col_4:1.—Those who neglect this duty and oppress the poor have even pursuant to the tenor of the Old Testament to bear the dreadful punishment of God. See e.g. Psalms 37.; Pro_14:31; Ecc_5:-7.
5. “Indulgence as it were fattens men for the punishment of hell—a figure taken from the sacrificial victims—i.e. ripens them so much the more for torments.” Heubner on Jam_5:5.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Wealth not an absolute superiority, poverty not an absolute evil.—Those who have most possessions on earth, have also to lose most in times of common suffering and tribulation.—Earthly riches from the nature of the case, are as transitory as their owners.—The true Christian an omnia sua secum portans.—The history of the rich fool is that of many (Luk_12:16-20).—The degree to which the rich may be poor and the poor rich.—God’s rich harvest-blessing changed into a curse through man’s selfishness.—It is possible to do evil, but not to do it unpunished.—God is higher than the highest that oppress the poor, Ecc_5:8.—The worldling’s short joy followed by long pain.—The murder of the Just One the most horrid manifestation of outward selfishness.—The fact that evil is suffered here on earth no guarantee that it will not be punished (Jam_5:4-6).—Threefold sin of the rich; 1, oppression of the poor (Jam_5:4), 2, selfish indulgence (Jam_5:5), 3, murder of the Just One (Jam_5:6).—How the crime of the rejection of Christ is still continued in various ways by many among the rich of this world.—The Christian has great cause to offer the prayer of Agur, Pro_30:7-9.—The love of money the root of all evil (1Ti_6:10) and of idolatry, Col_3:5.—
Starke: Cramer:—If you get riches, set not your heart on them, Psa_62:11.—A man may be very rich and yet be very wicked, Psa_73:12.
Augustine:—Magna pietas! thesaurizat pater filiis; immo magna vanitas! thesaurizat moriturus morituris.—Many who do not leave even children and know not whose shall be their riches (Luk_12:20) are so possessed of avarice, that they loathe parting even with a penny. O, unhappy rich!
Quesnel:—Thus the rich ground their hope on things which decay and perish. Foolish building! Mat_7:26-27.
Langii op.:—If there were many pious rich men, who did husband their wealth as the stewards of God, the need of the poor would be greatly lessened, Luk_8:2-3; Luk_22:35.
Hedinger:—There are many who gather along with their gold a treasure of the wrath and vengeance of God, Rom_2:5.—To defraud labourers of their hire they have earned is a sin that crieth out to heaven and is sure to be followed by the curse and most fearful vengeance of God, 1Th_4:6.—The name of God “the Lord of hosts” is as terrible to the ungodly as it is consoling to the godly, Ps. 46:11, 12.—Robbing the poor of their well-earned wages is murder, Exo_1:13-14.
Stier: (Jam_5:6):—James refers primarily to the Lord, the Just One (Act_7:52) and he himself bore the honourable epithet “the Just,” he here (implicite) humbly declines that epithet. Yet again—(here the inspiration of the Spirit affects the author of the Epistle so perceptibly and becomes here so remarkably prophetical that again)—he is unconsciously prophesying of himself. An author, who lived soon after the Apostles (Hegesippus), gives us a full account, which is doubtless correct in its main features, of the martyrdom of James the Just, the Lord’s brother, shortly before the siege of Jerusalem. See Introd. p. 9 etc.; [also Excursus p. 18, etc.—M.].—(Jam_5:4). Surely the words of James apply to many of our contemporaries, and many a proud palace ought to have the appropriate inscription.—“Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong.”—The treatment which poor labourers experience at the hands of our money-aristocrats and merchant princes, who in their avarice are just what those names import and nothing more, who refuse to know the Lord God and our Saviour, cries everywhere loud enough in our ears, and is it likely that this crying has not also entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts? Of Him, who commanded even Moses to say in the law: “Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant, that is poor and needy—lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee.” Deu_24:14-15.—
Jakobi:—It is not the measure of wealth, but the measure of sin, which tells; everything depends upon the manner how earthly riches, be they great or small, have been acquired and are enjoyed; and hence those whom we can by no means call wealthy, may be just as ungodly and unrighteous, just as indulgent and voluptuous as those who are really rich. Our text is therefore addressed to all that are earthly-minded, to all worldly people that do not order their lives according to the rule “to have, as though they had, and to buy, as though they possessed not.” 1Co_7:29 etc.
Neander:—James describes wealth in three different respects, viz. in garnered fruits of the field, in apparel, in gold and silver. All these, he says, the rich heap up without profit. Their treasures in gold and silver, for want of use, are eaten up with rust and will testify against them in judgment, finding them guilty because they suffered to perish for want of use that which they ought to have employed for the benefit of others. The rust consumes their own flesh, reminding them of their own perishableness and of the punishment that awaits them in the judgment, because instead of gathering durable riches, they have heaped up the fire of Divine punishment in treasures destined to be eaten up with rust.
Viedebandt:—A Christian, as has been strikingly said, may own worldly possessions like Abraham, David and many more, for a beggar’s staff will no more take us to heaven than a golden chain or velvet fur will take us to hell. Christ says not; “Ye cannot have God and mammon,” but “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Riches, says Augustine, are gifts of God and therefore good in themselves, Lest men decry them as evil, they are also accorded to the good, lest they be valued as the best goods, they are also given to the evil; Holy Scripture therefore only forbids men to be proud of and to ground their hopes on uncertain riches. But although riches and righteousness are compatible with one other, yet those who are distinguished by their worldly possessions, should cherish in their souls a sacred fear of them.—Riches are snares [German rhyme “Schätze sind Netze.”—M.].—A man lights hell-fire with his own hands if he suffers the fire of lusts to burn in his heart.—Dr. Sauvergne, a physician, narrates the case of a miser, who had his money brought to his dying bed and expired with the words “more gold, more gold!”
Lisco:—The dangers of wealth.—Of twofold riches (earthly and heavenly).—
Porubszky:—The woe uttered over the rich. 1, what it means; 2, its application to our time, 3, when it will cease.
[Wordsworth: Jam_5:2.—Although they may still glitter brightly in your eyes, and may dazzle men by their brilliance when ye walk the streets, or sit in the high places of this world; yet they are in fact already cankered. They are loathsome in God’s sight. The Divine anger has breathed on them and blighted them: they are already withered and blasted, as being doomed to speedy destruction; for ye lived delicately on the earth (Jam_5:5), and have not laid up treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt (Mat_6:20).
Even while shining in your coffers, they are, in God’s eye, sullied and corroded, and they will not profit you in the day of trial, but be consumed by His indignation: and the rust they have contrasted by lying idle as κτήματα, and not being used as χρήματα, will be a witness against yon at the Great Day; and will pass from them by a plague-like contagion and devour your flesh as fire.
Jam_5:5.—A striking contrast. Ye feasted jovially in a day of sacrifice, when abundance of flesh of the sacrificed animals is on the table at the sacrificial banquet. Ye ought to have ruled the people gently and mildly; but ye “have fed yourselves and not the flock,” ye nourished your own hearts and not those of your people; ye have sacrificed and devoured them like sheep or calves of the stall fatted for the pampering of your own appetites. Cf. Eze_34:1-10. Cyril in Caten. p. 33.
Ye did this at the very time when ye yourselves were like victims appointed to be sacrificed in the day of the Lord’s vengeance, which is often compared by Hebrew prophets to a sacrifice, see below, Rev_19:17. Cf. Oecumenius and Theophylact here.
This was signally verified by the event. The Jews from all parts of the world came together to the sacrifice of the Passover A. D. 70, and they themselves were then slain as victims to God’s offended justice, especially in the Temple; particularly was this true of the rich, as recorded by Josephus, B. J. vi. passim.—Their wealth excited the cupidity and provoked the fury of the factious zealots against them, and they fell victims in a day of slaughter to their own love of mammon; what was left of their substance was consumed by the flames, which burnt the city.—Joseph. B. J. vii. 29, 32, 37.—M.].
Footnotes:
[1] Jam_5:1. Cod. sin. insert ὑμῖν after ἐπερχομέναις [so vulg.syr.copt.Æth.Arm.—M.]
Jam_5:1. Lange: Well then, ye rich, weep unto howling over calamities which are drawing near on you.
Jam_5:1. [Go to now, ye rich, weep howling over your miseries which are coming upon you.]
Jam_5:2. Lange: Your riches are [already] corrupting, and your garments are become motheaten. [ … corrupted … M.]
[2] Jam_5:3. [2 Cod. Sin. A. inserts ὁ ἰὸς after σάρκας ὑμῶν.—M.]
Jam_5:3. Lange: Your gold and the silver is rusted and their rust will be a testimony against you and shall consume your flesh [σάρκας, your carnalities] as fire. Ye have heaped up treasure in the last [these last] days.
Jam_5:3. [Your gold and your silver are eaten up with rust and their rust shall be for a testimony to you .… Ye heaped up treasure in the last days.—M.]
[3] Jam_5:4. [3 Cod. Sin. B. read ἀφυστερημένος for ἀπεστερημένος—M.]
Jam_5:4. Lange: … which hath been kept back, crieth out from you, and the cries of the reapers have come to the ears of the Lord of hosts, [ … have entered into the ears of the lord of hosts.—M.]
[4]Jam_5:5. Cod. Sin. A. B. omit ὡς before ἐν; so Vulg. and other versions; found in Rec., G K. and is probably an exegetical addition.
[5] Jam_5:5. [ Aeth. Pell Piatt’s edition. “ut qui saginat bovem in diem mactationis.—M.]
Jam_5:5. Lange: Ye have lived high on earth, ye have lived wantonly and fattened [like flesh] your hearts [as] in the day of slaughter.
Jam_5:5. [Ye lived in luxury on the earth and wantoned (Alford); ye fattened your hearts in. … M.]
Jam_5:6. Lange: Ye have condemned, ye have killed the Just. He doth not resist you [any longer opposing and saving].
Jam_5:6. [Ye condemned, ye killed the Just One. He doth not resist you.]
[6]In German “Fressen” and “Saufen” are properly used to denote the eating and drinking of beasts, i. e. inordinate, greedy eating and drinking. Applied to human beings the terms are offensive and insulting, although the vulgar are apt to indulge in these choice terms with reference to themselves.—M.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–3 corrupted--about to be destroyed through God's curse on your…
corrupted--about to be destroyed through God's curse on your oppression, whereby your riches are accumulated (Jam 5:4). CALVIN thinks the sense is, Your riches perish without being of any use either to others or even to yourselves, for instance, your garments which are moth-eaten in your chests.
garments . . . moth-eaten--referring to Mat 6:19-20.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–3 4. Denunciatory appeal to the rich for their oppression,…
4. Denunciatory appeal to the rich for their oppression, self-indulgence, and persecution, Jas_5:1-6.
1. Go to now—Note on Jas_4:13.
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Rich men—The rich men of St. James were something different from the honest and charitable possessors of wealth of which our Christianity has since furnished so many specimens. They displayed great outward pomp, Jas_2:2-3; they were political dynasts, (καταδυναστευουσιν,) or potentates, Jas_2:6; they were blasphemers and persecutors, Jas_2:7; they used their power to defraud the labourers upon their broad acres, Jas_5:4; they held judicial positions, and used them to put the just man to death, Jas_5:6. They are, therefore, the Jewish ruling tyrant-class of the day, called rich men, because their gorgeous display of pomp and opulence is their prominent aspect to the Christian eye. Of the rich men of St. James’s day in the Roman empire generally, see note on Jas_5:6. But the strangest thing in interpreting the words of St. James is, the fact that leading commentators imagine these rich men to be Christians! Howl and shall come are both participles in the present tense. A literal rendering of the whole verse would be, Ho, now, ye rich men, weep! howling upon the miseries coming on. The howling aggravates the weep, likening them to a pack of eastern dogs.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Ch. Jas_5:1-6. Warnings for the Rich
Ch. Jas_5:1-6. Warnings for the Rich
1. Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl] The words are nearly the same as those we have met with before in ch. Jas_4:9, but there is in them less of the call to repentance, and more of the ring of prophetic denunciation. The word for “howl,” not found elsewhere in the New Testament, is found in three consecutive chapters of Isaiah (Isa_13:6, Isa_14:31, Isa_15:3), which may well have been present to St James’ thoughts.
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for your miseries that shall come upon you] Literally, that are coming upon you, in the very act to come. The context points to these as consisting not merely in the cares and anxieties that come in the common course of things upon the rich, but in the special troubles that were to usher in the advent of the Judge. Historically, the words had their primary fulfilment in the woes that preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, but these were but the first in the series of “springing and germinant accomplishments” which will attain their completeness before the final Advent.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 (1) Go to now, ye rich.—As in Jas_4:3, it…
(1) Go to now, ye rich.—As in Jas_4:3, it was “Woe to you, worldly,” so now “Woe to ye rich: weep, bewailing”—literally, howling for your miseries coming upon you. Comp. Isa_13:6; Isa_14:31; Isa_15:3, where (in the LXX.) the same term is used;—a picture word, imitating the cry of anguish,—peculiar to this place in the New Testament. Observe the immediate future of the misery; it is already coming. Doubtless by this was meant primarily the pillage and destruction of Jerusalem, but under that first intention many others secondary and similar are included: for all “riches certainly make themselves wings” and fly away (Pro_23:5). Calvin and others of his school fail to see in this passage an exhortation of the rich to penitence, but only a denunciation of woe upon them; in the sense, however, that all prophecy, whether evil or good, is conditional, there is sufficient room to believe that no irrevocable doom was pronounced by “a Christian Jeremiah.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Vers. 1-6. DENUNCIATION OF THE RICH FOR
Vers. 1-6. DENUNCIATION OF THE RICH FOR
(1) GRINDING DOWN THE POOR AND KEEPING BACK THEIR WAGES;
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(2) LUXURY;
(3) MURDER.
The whole section resembles nothing so much as an utterance of one of the old Jewish prophets. It might almost be a leaf torn out of the Old Testament.
Go to now. (see on Jam_4:13) The Vulgate there has ecce; here, agite. Ye rich men. (see on Jam_2:6) Weep and howl, etc.; cf. zontev: Jam_4:9, but note the difference of tone; there, more of exhortation; here, more of denunciation. jOlolu only here in the New Testament, but several times in the LXX, in passages of which the one before us reminds us; e.g. aiv: Isa_10:10 Isa_13:6 Isa_14:31 Isa_15:2 Isa_23:1, Isa_23:6, Isa_23:14. Miseries. Talaipwri only again in Rom_3:16; (equivalent to Isa_59:7) frequent in the LXX.
Vers. 1-6.
The judgment on selfishness.
Selfishness lay at the root of the sinfulness of the rich men, whose conduct is so sternly denounced. The sin
(1) displayed itself mainly in heaping together treasures and living in pleasure upon the earth, as did Dives in the parable; but
(2) it led them to injustice (ver. 4) and even murder (ver. 6). So now the selfishness of those who live in splendor and luxury, while they detain the money due to tradesmen, and neglect the payment of accounts rendered, is similar in character to this detaining the wages of the laborers of which the apostle speaks in such scathing terms. "Ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter." The judgment falls when least expected. In the days of Noah they were eating anti drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away. The judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, on Babylon in the night of Belshazzar"s feast, when men were cherishing their hearts in the day of slaughter, all these are well-known types of the suddenness of the judgment that is continually falling upon individuals now, when the Son of man comes to them as a thief in the night, and of that final judgment which shall fall upon the whole world at his last advent.
HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN. Vers. 1-6.
The judgments coming upon the wicked rich.
This apostrophe is so dreadful that we cannot imagine it to have been addressed to professing Christians. It would rather seem that the apostle here turns aside to glance at the godless rich Jews of his time, who were in the habit of persecuting the Church and defrauding the poor. (Jam_2:6, Jam_2:7) His words regarding them are words of stern denunciation. Like one of the old Hebrew prophets, he curses them in the name of the Lord. Its design in doing so, however, must have been in unison with his lifework as a Christian apostle, laboring in "the acceptable time;" he sought, by proclaiming the terrors of the Lord, to persuade to repentance and a holy life. The paragraph breaks naturally into three sections. Ver. 1 refers to the future; vers. 2, 3 to the present; vers. 4-6 mainly to the past. We shall consider these three sections in the inverse order.
I THE CAUSES OF JUDGMENT IN THE PAST. (Vers. 4-6.) James mentions three.
1. Heartless injustice. (Ver. 4.) The humane Law of Moses forbade that the wages of the hired laborer be kept back even for a single night; (Deu_24:14, Deu_24:15) but these wicked men had paid no heed to that Law. They had grown rich by defrauding the poor. Instead of relieving the needy by a liberal charity, they had not even paid the lawful debts which they owed them. And does not this sin linger in the heart of Christendom? What was American slavery but just a crushing of the poor? What was villeinage in our own country but a defrauding of the laborers? It is net yet a century since the Scotch collier was attached by law to the coal-work where he had been born the right to his services being bought and sold with the mine itself. In more recent times our poets have once and again given voice to great social wrongs in weeds that have rung like a tocsin through the land (e.g. Mrs. Browning"s "Cry of the Children," and Hood"s "Song of the Shirt"). Or, to take the form of labor referred to in ver. 4, we may ask Is the condition of the English ploughman even yet what it ought to be, and what our rich landlords ought to help to make it? James says that the robbing of the poor is a "crying" sin. The victims themselves cry; and even their wages, fraudulently withheld, "cry out" also from the coffers of the rich. But there is One who has ears to ear, and a heart to resent, the injustice. "The Lord of hosts" will avenge the poor of the people who trust in him.
1. Lavish luxuriousness. (Ver. 5.) The wealthy, wicked Jews sinned, not only against righteousness, but against temperance. They were luxurious in their living, and prodigal in their expenditure. And this wasteful life of theirs was largely maintained at the expense of the poor whom they defrauded. It was "the hire of the laborers" that had built their magnificent palaces, and bought the beds of ivory upon which they lay. They did all this "on the earth," and as if they should still live forever" (Psa_49:9) here. They forgot that in their godless self-indulgence they were acting like "mere animals, born to be taken and destroyed". (2Pe_2:12) Unconscious of impending ruin, they were still living voluptuously; like the fat ox, which continues to revel among the rich pastures on the very morning of the "day of slaughter.
2. Murderous cruelty. (Ver. 6.) By "the righteous," or "just," many understand the Lord Jesus Christ; this statement being a historic allusion to the scenes of Gabbatha and Calvary. And it is very probable that the murder of our Lord was in the apostle"s mind. But we judge that the words are rather to be regarded as describing a prevalent practice of the wicked rich in every age. They apply to the death of Jesus Christ, but also to that of Stephen, and to that of James the brother of John; and they were soon to be illustrated again in the martyrdom of the writer himself. For our apostle, by reason of his integrity and purity, was surnamed "the Righteous;" and he was by-and-by condemned and killed by the scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem. But why all this oppression of "the righteous"? It is inflicted simply because they are righteous. Every holy life is an offence to evil men. Because Christ was holy, he was crucified. Because Stephen was "full of faith and of the Holy Spirit," he was stoned. Because James was truly righteous, he was thrown from the battlements of the temple, and killed with a fuller"s club. Finally, the apostle adds, "He doth not resist you." The righteous man submits patiently to your persecuting violence. He endures your murderous cruelty with holy meekness. Jesus did so. (Isa_53:7) Stephen did so. (Act_7:60) James presently would do so: he is said to have offered the very prayer for his murderers which his crucified Master had done. Such patient endurance, however, only increases the guilt of the persecutors, and shall make their doom more awful.
II THE FIRST DROPPINGS OF JUDGMENT IN THE PRESENT. (Vers. 2, 3.) The material for their punishment was being prepared, in accordance with the law of retribution, out of the very wealth on which they doted. "Of our pleasant vices" Divine Providence makes "instruments to plague us." "Your riches are corrupted;" that is, their treasures of grain and fruits were already rotting in the storehouses. Since these were not being used to feed the hungry, God"s curse was upon them all. "Your garments are moth-eaten;" because these rich men did not clothe the naked out of their costly wardrobes, the moth was cutting up these with his remorseless little tooth. "Your gold and your silver are rusted;" that is, their money, not being used for doing good, lay in their treasure-chests morally cankered by the base avarice which kept it there. And that rust shall not only eat up the wealth itself; it shall also gnaw the conscience of its faithless possessor. It shall be a witness-bearer to his sin, and an executioner of it, is punishment, By-and-by, the remorseful thought of his unused riches shall torture his soul as with the touch of burning fire. (Vide T. Binney on "Money," p. 126.) These men had "laid up their treasure in the last days;" that is, immediately before the coming of the Lord in judgment to make an end of the entire Hebrew polity. And their wealth would avail them nothing in the presence of that great catastrophe. These corrupting treasures of theirs would corrupt still further into treasures of wrath. After the first droppings would come the deluge.
III THE FULL FLOOD OF JUDGMENT IN THE FUTURE. (Vex. 1.) The "miseries" spoken of refer primarily to the sorrows connected with the impending siege and ruin of Jerusalem. These were to fall with especial severity upon the influential classes; and the Hebrews of the Dispersion, in whatsoever land they might be, were to share them. The wealthy men among the unbelieving Jews had sinned most; so they were to suffer most. Well, therefore, might they "weep" at the prospect, as only Orientals can weep; and "howl" as only brute beasts can do. But these words point onward further in history than to the destruction of Jerusalem. The full flood of "miseries" which providence is preparing shall overtake the ungodly rich only at the Lord"s second coming, when he shall appear to judge the whole world. The ruin of Jerusalem was but a faint foreshadowing of the" eternal destruction" of the wicked which shall begin at that day. (Mt 24) These "miseries" suggest solemn thoughts of the doom of eternity.
LESSONS.
1. To remember the moral government of God, and to make ready to meet him in the judgment (vers. 1-6).
2. The sin of the wicked prepares its own punishment (vers. 2, 3).
3. One of the greatest social wants of our time is that of mutual sympathy between the capitalist and the laborer (ver. 4).
4. A Christian should avoid debt as he would avoid the devil (ver. 4).
5. The right use of wealth is not to spend it upon self-indulgence, but to do good with it (ver. 5).
6. A man has reason to suspect the purity of his own character, if no one ever persecutes him (ver. 6). C. J.
HOMILIES BY T.F. LOCKYEAR Vers. 1-6.
The doom of misused wealth.
We have in these opening words an echo of Jam_4:9; but with a difference. There, a call to repentance; here, a denunciation. The very word "howl" recalls old prophecies of doom. (Isa_13:6 Isa_14:31 Isa_15:3) So here, the coming doom. The destruction of Jerusalem? Yes; but this only the "beginning of sorrows." The culminating judgments, and the second advent These rich, these delicate-living and pleasure-taking ones? Yes, let them weep and howl; for their miseries are coining upon them!
I THE SIN OF THE RICH. Professedly religions or not, they were great sinners, and as sinners alone does he regard them. And as sinners he denounces them.
1. Indulgence. "Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure." What is the law of the true life? A thankful acceptance of such
2. joys as God gives, and increased service in the consecration of such joys. But they? Their pleasure was their all. They were pampering their lusts. Instead of making self a center from which, under God, all blessing should radiate, they made it a center to which all pleasure must converge.
3. Luxury. "Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten." What is the law of property? A thankful use of such things as God gives, that we and the world may be the better for them. But they? They were guilty of a wanton accumulation of wealth, and so their very plenty was corrupting in its idleness. Like corn in a famine, heaped up and moldering.
1. Selfish oppression. "The hire of the laborers," etc. What is the law of work? A mutual ministry of employers and employed, involving a recognition of the rights of labor. How spoke their Law on this matter, and the prophets. (see Lev_19:13; Deu_24:14, Deu_24:15; Jer_22:13; Mal_3:5) But they? The words suggest sufficient. So their indulgence and luxury were not merely selfish in themselves, but at others" expense. They, forsooth, were all in all, and others must work for them, and yet starve and be naked, while they heaped up their riches! Verily, they were thieves and robbers.
2. Ruthless persecution. "Ye have condemned, ye have killed," etc. The historical fact; probably judicial tyranny, these rich men refusing justice to the poor, when pleading against the fraud perpetrated towards them by their rich employers. But what was the essential fact? Him, the Just One, they had virtually condemned and killed! Yes, for so they were filling up the measure of their fathers (see. (Mat_23:32 Mat_27:25) For the spirit which actuated them was the selfsame spirit of unjust cruelty which had actuated those to whom Stephen spoke of the Just One whom," he said, "ye have been the betrayers and murderers." So also James "the Just" was afterwards their victim.
II THE DOOM OF THE RICH. Sin and judgment, in the ways of God, are ever closely joined. For
the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.
1. Thus their selfish indulgence was but indulgence for the slaughter; they were fattening themselves for the shambles. We are reminded of the time of" the slaughter that came, when "the temple floors ran with blood, and the roofs raged in fire till all was utter desolation (see Punchard, Ellicotts Commentary).
2. The canker of their wealth was premonitory of the judgment of remorse, that should eat their flesh as fire. (Luk_16:24)
3. Their oppression and fraud, likewise, were marked by one eye, and the cries of the oppressed had entered the ears of the Lord of hosts. The Lord of hosts? Yes, power belonged unto him, and it had been written, He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the pool also, and him that hath no helper". (Psa_72:12, etc.)
4. And their murder of the Just One, as it really was? "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him". (Rev_1:7) Yes, judgment should come, swift and sure; "for as the lightning,". (Mat_24:27) The great lesson is one of stewardship; let rich and poor alike learn this. And to all there is one Lord, and he cometh! yes, "to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity". T.F.L. (Psa_98:9)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Ye rich men, weep and howl
Jam_5:1-6
Ye rich men, weep and howl
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The miseries coming upon the rich
I.
THE COMING OF JUDGMENT. Weep and howl--weep, and do it in this open, violent manner, with loud, bitter cries of distress--do it wailing, shrieking, howling as was, and still is, so customary among the Orientals in times of mourning. Lament thus for, or over, the miseries that shall come upon you--more exactly and impressively, which are coming on, are already even now impending. These miseries were not simply those which in all circumstances the love and abuse of money entail, but specially, and in addition to them, the temporal judgments which were about to visit the guilty parties in this instance. They were to be the peculiar objects of vengeance; their treasures were to be rifled, their possessions wrenched from them, and stripped bare, they were to be subjected to hardships, all the heavier because of the pleasures once enjoyed and the losses thus sustained.
II. THE COMMENCEMENT OF JUDGMENT. Your riches are corrupted either their possessions of all kinds, these being afterwards spoken of in detail, or, as distinguished from what follows, those hoarded stores of grain, fruits, and other provisions, in which the wealth of Orientals largely consisted. To the latter the term corrupted could most properly be applied. They were rotting, perishing. Your garments are moth-eaten. In eastern countries one of the most valuable possessions was a stock of costly clothing, a number of dresses, wardrobes filled with a great variety of articles of apparel. They were moth-eaten--a way in which articles of dress, when long kept and little used, are often wasted, destroyed. Your gold and silver is cankered--rusted, corroded. The original word implies that it is so not partially, but entirely--as it were through and through its whole substance. This does not take place in regard to silver and gold as it does to iron and steel; but they are spoken of as undergoing the change to which metals generally are subject; and there is that which corresponds to it n their case, for they get discoloured, blackened, tarnished, wasted, corrupted-looking. And the rust of them shall be a witness against you--literally, shall be for a testimony to you--and shall eat your flesh asit were fire. In the moth-eaten garments, the cankered silver and gold, their sin no doubt appeared, but appeared in the judgments which had followed it, for in that process of destruction which had commenced there was the avenging hand of God visible. This is the prominent thing--the punishment already begun. The very objects on which they prided themselves, which they made an idol of, were smitten; and n every hole of the cloth, every spot on the money, there was a sign of the consumption that was coming on themselves, of the destruction that was impending over them, the servants of the mammon of unrighteousness. There was a testimony in their wasted, blackened stores--a testimony borne to the worm that dieth not, and the fire that cannot be quenched. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Treasure has been understood here in the figurative sense of a store of wrath, vengeance to be opened and emptied at the time mentioned. But it is obviously to be taken literally, and as referring to their material riches as detailed in the preceding verses. The last days are those introducing and issuing in the season of judgment which was approaching--the last days of the Jewish Church and nation, and, in many cases of the individual persons themselves; for what multitudes were then to perish by the sword, by famine, by disease, by captivity? They had gathered wealth for a season like this, when they could not enjoy it, could not retain it--when it was to become the prey of the rapacious invaders, or of the more needy and desperate of their own countrymen. But the literal translation of the original is in the last days--they had heaped treasure together, not for, but in the period thusdesignated. These days were already upon them--the days were begun, and hastening to their terrible close; and it was at a season like that, one fitter far for repentance and reformation, one calling them to break off their sins by righteousness, to prepare for impending judgment by turning to the Lord--one specially imposing on them the obligation to lay up treasure, not on earth but in heaven, where no moth or rust can corrupt, and where no thieves can break through and steal--it was then that they devoted their efforts to the gathering of riches, the storing of fruits, garments, and the precious metals. Here was the deepest guilt, here the most reckless, unprincipled infatuation.
III. THE CAUSES OF JUDGMENT.
1. Injustice. The wages of the workman should be paid honestly and punctually. To withhold it is a flagrant wrong, and such a wrong was committed by the rich men whose conduct the apostle is here denouncing. They kept it back by fraud. And in various ways may such fraud be perpetrated. The master may not pay at all the stipulated and earned wages. He may receive the service without remunerating the servant. Or he may make unjust deductions from the amount which has been agreed on. He may take advantage of his position and power, and on certain pretexts give less than was bargained for by the other party. And what is still more common, he may beat down the price of labour, and pay for it most inadequately. He may turn to account the competition which prevails and the necessities of the poor, so as to get work done for greatly less than its proper value. This hire, dishonestly retained, is represented by James as crying. Yes, from the coffers where it was treasured up, a loud, piercing call for vengeance rose to high heaven. Often, often, the oppressed are not listened to on earth, however just their claim and urgent their pleading. But they are heard in heaven. Here their cries are said to have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. He was able to vindicate the cause of the defrauded reapers who groaned and supplicated. He could call to account, and overwhelm with destruction, those who trampled on their dependents, and set all human law and right at defiance.
2. Luxury. Ye have lived in pleasure--that is, in a self-indulgent, sumptuous, effeminate manner. In the qualification, on the earth, there is an implied contrast with another region, where vengeance was stored up, and their portion was to be one of want and misery. And been wanton. This word conveys to us the idea of lewdness, lustfulness; but what is intended here is luxuriousness, voluptuousness. It does not necessarily involve indulgence in gross excesses, in coarse and degrading impurities. It intimates that the persons were devoted to earthly enjoyments, and regardless of expense in procuring them, for the term is expressive of extravagance, wastefulness. Ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. They have satiated, pampered their hearts, for there were seated the tastes and appetites which they gratified; there the craving for, and the sense of satisfaction, repletion, as they fed and dressed, fattened and adorned their bodies. And they had been doing this as in, or simply, in a day of slaughter. They were on the brink of destruction. God was about to draw His glittering sword and smite them in His anger. And yet in these circumstances they disregarded all warnings and signs; they revelled and wantoned as if they were perfectly secure. They were sunk in brutish insensibility. It was thus with the antediluvians: for they did eat and drink, they were married and given in marriage, until the flood came and took them all away.
3. Violence--violence going the length even of blood, of murder. Stephen was the first of a band of early martyrs whom the Jews, in the malignant unbelief, had put to death for their adherence to the gospel. The holiness, the righteousness of these victims of fanatical fury, instead of saving them, had excited the rage and drawn down the vengeance of their adversaries. And he doth not resist you--not only or chiefly because of a want of power, but because of the meekness of his character, his patience, endurance, long-suffering. He submits to your murderous violence. He commits his cause to God, and allows you to do your utmost, striving to exhibit the spirit of his crucified Master. And this made their guilt the greater. Their cruelty was the less excusable. It had no provocation. (John Adam.)
Avaricious rich men
It is not to rich men, simply as such, that James addresses himself. There was no sin in being rich. It is to the description of rich men whose characters he proceeds to portray, that he speaks--unprincipled, selfish, ungodly, wicked rich men. Weep and howl. Tears are the natural indication of grief: howling, or loud lamentation, of overwhelming distress. They had reason for both in the miseries that were coming upon them. They would be the chief objects of the plundering rapacity of the besieging foe; and, while the sword would be upon them for their riches sake--even to those of them who fell not a prey themselves, the very loss of all their accumulated stores, gathered with so much pains and care, would itself be one of their miseries from which the poorer would be exempt. True it is, however, with regard to all rich men of the same character, that miseries are coming upon them. What, then, is the character? Verses 2, 3. The word riches need not be confined to the precious metals alone: the silver and the gold are separately mentioned. Eastern riches consisted frequently, not in these alone, but also in stores of corn, and wine, and oil; and here, as in other places, garments--wardrobes of various descriptions of clothing, are mentioned, as forming part of such wealth. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten, is a part of the charge brought against them: the charge of avaricious selfishness--that, instead of giving away, they kept all to themselves; allowing what might have been distributed for the benefit of others, rather than part with it, to go to waste in their own stores; and allowing the moths to consume what might have clothed and comforted the naked. Had they given away as they ought to have done, their riches would not have been corrupted. That their riches were corrupted and their garments moth-eaten was thus their crime rather than their punishment--though as a part of their punishment--the effects of their selfish hoarding--it might also be regarded. The last days are susceptible of twointerpretations: of the time of Jerusalems destruction and the final overthrow of the Jewish economy; or of the end of the world. I do not think it at all unlikely that the apostle had both in his eye; on the same principle on which our Lord Himself appears to pass from the former to the latter--from the nearer to the more distant--in His remarkable address to His disciples in the twenty-fourth chapter of the Gospel by Matthew. In the sack and pillage of Jerusalem, how vain would all the pains appear which they had bestowed on the heaping together of their treasures. And in the great day of final reckoning they should find that, in having amassed for self, instead of having distributed for God and for fellow-men, they had only been heaping up evidence for their own crimination at the bar of Divine judgment. How different the case with those who, in the early days of the Christian Church, used their wealth as the inspired history describes: when they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, as every man had need; and distribution was made to all as need required. They had acted in conformity with the Lords own directions (Mt Luk_12:33). Of that treasure there would in the last days be no loss, nor any bitter lamentation over it. No enemy could touch it. And in the day of the Lord--the day of final account--it would tell in their favour as the evidence of the genuineness of their faith and love. The wealth of those addressed by James was not only selfishly hoarded, it was obtained by criminal oppression and cruelty (verse 4). This keeping back by fraud--under false and unworthy pretexts--of the reapers wages, to which they were rightfully entitled, was a fearful violation to explicit Divine precepts (see Lev_19:13; Deu_24:14-15). And it cried--cried against the unrighteous oppressor; cried to God; cried for just retribution; cried--in the same sense in which God said to Cain--The voice of thy brothers blood crieth unto Me from the ground. And, as God heard the voice of the blood of a murdered brother, so did He hear that of the hire of the defrauded labourers. Let Christians avoid even the remotest approach to such oppression. They ought to be examples of righteousness and love as the children of a just and merciful God. We have next, the manner in which they laid out their riches. We have seen how they were made: we learn now how they were used (verse 5). The verse expresses the extreme of self-indulgence; the gratification of every sensual desire. Like the infatuated king of Israel, in the days of his vanity, whatsoever their eyes desired they withheld not from them; they restrained not their hearts from any joy. The clause--ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter, is by many understood to mean their pampering themselves as in a day of killing for social festivity. But the meaning seems rather to be that they were pampering themselves as beasts were fed and fattened for a day of slaughter. They were preparing themselves for the knife. While thus feeding themselves without fear, they were only fitting themselves for final destruction. Their joy would be turned to sorrow; their mirth to heaviness. And, in addition to all this, while at the same time in full consistency with it, they were persecutors. Ye have condemned and killed the just (verse 6). This by some interpreted as having reference to Christ Himself: the just being in the singular number--the just or the just one. And without doubt this is one of His distinguishing designations. But, on the other hand, He doth not resist you is in the present time; and agrees better, consequently, with a charge of present persecution unto death, than with one relating to a deed so long past. This, therefore, favours the interpretation which makes it refer to the persecution of Christs followers, who resembled Him in character; of which we have so beautiful an exemplification in the case of the first martyr, Stephen. That there were persecutors still troubling the Church is evident from the admonitions to patience under such troubles, which immediately follow (verses 7, 8). Let us conclude with one or two reflections.
1. Surely the poorest Christian has no reason to envy the wealthy but wicked man of the world; no, even though he were to suffer, and suffer unto death, at his hands. The poorest Christian is rich in faith, and an heir of the kingdom which God hath provided for them that love Him. He has God Himself for his portion--a portion infinite in preciousness and fulness of blessing, and unfailing and everlasting in duration. Let him cherish godliness with contentment, and he is a happy man--happy in enjoyment, and happier in hope.
2. There may be rich men whose wealth has been acquired by honest means--who have been chargeable with no extortion; and who, in the use oftheir wealth, have not at all rioted in sensuality and libertinism, or abused the superiority which it imparted in evil-entreating and persecuting the godly. Let not such, on this account, sit at ease and flatter themselves with safety. Your riches may be a snare to you, notwithstanding. You may trust in your wealth. It may take away your heart.
3. Let Christians, whom Providence, in whatever measure, has favoured with this worlds wealth, remember the true use of riches. Bear in mind that in bestowing wealth upon you the universal Proprietor alienates nothing from Himself. Of the gold and the silver which He puts into your coffers He continues to say, just as He does of all yet in the bowels of the earth--The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine. And His command is, Honour the Lord with thy substance, and--not with the paltry remnants after all thine own selfish cravings have been fully satiated, but--with the first-fruits of all thine increase. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
The curse of wealth
A full purse, with a lean soul, is a great curse. (Bunyan.)
The gold poison
Gold is the worst poison to mens souls. (Shakespeare.)
God help the rich
God help the rich, the poor can help themselves.
Gold bought too dearly
Men may buy gold too dear.
Wealth disappointing
Very few men acquire wealth in such a manner as to receive pleasure from it. Just as long as there is the enthusiasm of the chase they enjoy it; but when they begin to look around, and think of settling down, they find that that part by which joy enters is dead in them. They have spent their lives in heaping up colossal piles of treasure, which stand at the end like the pyramids in the desert sands holding only the dust of kings. (H. W. Beecher.)
Too much and too little
He that hath too little wants feathers to fly withal; he that hath too much is cumbered with too large a tail. (Owen Feltham.)
The wounds of evil wealth
It were no bad comparison to liken mere rich men to camels and mules; for they often pursue their devious way over hills and mountains, laden with India purple, with gems, aromas, and generous wines upon their backs, attended, too, by a long line of servants as a safeguard on their way. Soon, however, they come to their evening halting-place, and forthwith their precious burdens are taken from their backs; and they, now wearied and stripped of their lading and their retinue of slaves, show nothing but livid marks of stripes. So, also, those who glitter in gold and purple raiment, when the evening of life comes rushing on them, have nought to show but marks and wounds of sin impressed upon them by the evil use of riches. (St. Augustine.)
Excessive wealth ruinous
Gotthold saw a bee flutter for a while around a pot of honey, and at last light upon it, intending to feast to its hearts content. It, however, fell in, and, being besmeared in every limb, miserably perished. On this he mused, and said, It is the same with temporal prosperity, and that abundance of wealth, honour, and pleasure, which are sought for by the world as greedily as honey is by the bee. A bee is a happy creature so long as it is assiduously occupied in gathering honey from the flowers, and by slow degrees accumulating a store of it. When, however, it meets with hoard like this, it knows not what to do, and is betrayed into ruin. (New Cyclo. of Illustrations.)
Unsatisfactory riches
Worldly riches are like nuts: many clothes are torn in getting them, many a tooth broke in cracking them; but never a belly filled with eating them. (J. Venning.)
Wealth too dearly bought
A ship bearing a hundred emigrants has been driven from her course, and wrecked on a desert island far from the tracks of man. There is no way of escape; but there are means of subsistence. An ocean, unvisited by ordinary voyagers, circles round their prison; but they have seed, with a rich soil to receive, and a genial climate to ripen it. Ere any plan has been laid, or any operations begun, an exploring-party returns to headquarters, reporting the discovery of a gold mine. Thither instantly the whole party resort to dig. They labour successfully day by day and month after month. They acquire and accumulate large heaps of gold. But spring is past, and not a field has been cleared, nor a grain of seed committed to the ground. The summer comes, and their wealth increases; but the store of food is small. In harvest they begin to discover that their heaps of gold are worthless. When famine star, s them in the face a suspicion shoots across their fainting hearts that the gold has cheated them. They rush to the woods, fell the trees, dig the roots, till the ground, sow the seed. It is too late! Winter has come; and their seed rots in the ground. They die of want in the midst of their treasures. This earth is the little isle, eternity the ocean round it; on this shore we have been cast. There is a living seed, but gold mines attract us. We spend spring and summer there; winter overtakes us toiling there, destitute of the bread of life, forgetting that we ought to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto us. (W. Armlet, D.D.)
Wealth seasoned by alms
The pious Jews believed that as salt seasoned food so did alms riches, and that he who did not give alms of what he had his riches should be dispersed. The moth would corrupt the bags, and the canker corrode the money, unless the mass was sanctified by giving a part to the poor.
Ruined by riches
Do not be over-anxious about riches. Get as much of true wisdom and goodness as you can; but be satisfied with a moderate portion of this worlds good. Riches may prove a curse as well as a blessing. I was walking through an orchard, looking about me, when I saw a low tree laden more heavily with fruit than the rest. On a nearer examination it appeared that the tree had been dragged to the very earth and broken by the weight of its treasures. Oh! said I, gazing on the tree, here lies one who has been ruined by his riches. In another part of my walk I came up with a shepherd who was lamenting the loss of a sheep that lay mangled and dead at his feet. On inquiry about the matter he told me that a strange dog had attacked the flock, that the rest of the sheep had got away through a hole in the hedge, but that the ram now dead had more wool on his back than the rest, and the thorns of the hedge held him fast till the dog had worried him. Here is another, said I, ruined by his riches. At the close of my ramble I met a man hobbling along on two wooden legs, leaning on two sticks. Tell me, said I, my poor fellow, how you came to lose your legs? Why, sir, said he, in my younger days I was a soldier. With a few comrades I attacked a party of the enemy and overcame them, and we began to load ourselves with spoil. My comrades were satisfied with little, but I burdened myself with as much as I could carry. We were pursued; my companions escaped, but I was overtaken and so cruelly wounded that I only saved my life afterwards by losing my legs. It was a bad affair, sir; but it is too late to repent of it now. Ah, friend, thought I, like the fruit tree, and the mangled sheep, you may date your downfall to your possessions. It was your riches that ruined you. When I see so many rich people as I do, caring so much for their bodies and so little for their souls, I pity them from the bottom of my heart, and sometimes think there are as many ruined by riches as by poverty. (Old Humphrey.)
Riches eating the flesh
Some strong poison is made of the rust of metals; none worse than that of money. (J. Trapp.)
Money an opportunity
Money, both inherited and accumulated, is a great talent or opportunity. Nothing astonishes me more than the fact that so many rich men utterly fail to realise what an opportunity wealth gives them. They go on heaping up useless wealth with which to curse their children. As though the mere accumulation of money was, in itself, a great gain! As though heaps of gold could protect them against all the ills to which flesh is heir! I am very glad that one millionaire--Mr. Carnegie, of Pennsylvania--realises that the best thing he can do with his money is to get rid of it, and that the worst thing possible would be to pile it upon the hapless head of his children. There seems to be, in some respects, even less public spirit among the wealthy men of our own time than distinguished the heathen patricians of old Rome. They delighted to spend their wealth in dignifying and adorning their great city. It is exceedingly strange to me that the immensely wealthy citizens of London do not use their millions to purify and to beautify this great capital. It is even more astonishing that those who profess and call themselves Christians, toil on and slave on, adding money-bag to money-bag, instead of using this mighty instrument to facilitate and encourage the evangelisation of mankind. Nearly every Christian and humanitarian organisation is crippled for want of more adequate resources. One of the greatest evils of the time is the miserliness of the wealthy. They are preparing for their children an awful retribution. The bitter and almost implacable hatred of the wealthy, which is the most dangerous social symptom of modern Europe, is the direct result of the awful way in which the wealthy have neglected to use their wealth for the public good. They are busily heaping up wealth, but they are also heaping up wrath against the day of wrath. They seem to have forgotten that wealth is a talent, an opportunity, a glorious opportunity, of serving God by serving men.
The troubles of the rich
Mr. Jay Gould, the American millionaire, thus confided his woes to a reporter: I am kept on the drive now from early in the morning till late at night, without any let up, day in and day out. The money Ive made has enslaved me. With financial success, cares, and responsibilities, and trials outnumbered go close together; and there is no escaping the embarrassments and troubles. A rich man ought to be judged pretty generously. He has a good deal more to contend with than people who are not rich generally suppose. Food and clothes and a place to sleep, thats all a man gets in this world, and I dont care how rich he is. The boy on the farm, the man who isnt driven to death to look after property that is in his name, they are the happiest--or ought to be.
Your riches are corrupted
Sordid sparing
1. Sordid sparing is a sure sign of a worldly heart. God gave us wealth, not that we should be hoarders, but dispensers. Seneca calleth covetous men chests. We think them men, and they are but coffers; who would envy a trunk well stored? Well, then, beware of withholding more than is meet Pro_11:24), of a delight in hoarding; it is a sure note that the world has too much of your heart.
2. Keeping things from public use till they be corrupted or spoiled is sordid sparing. When you lay them not out upon God, or others, or yourself, you are justly culpable. The inhabitants of Constantinople would afford no money to the Emperor Constantinus Palaeologus when he begged from door to door for a supply for the soldiers; but what was the issue? the barbarous enemy won the city and got all. The like story there is of Musteatzem, the covetous caliph of Babylon, who was such an idolater of his wealth and treasures that he would not dispend anything for the necessary defence of his city, whereupon it was taken, and the caliph famished to death, and his mouth, by Haalon, the Tartatian conqueror, filled with melted gold.
3. Covetousness bringeth Gods curse upon our estates. He sendeth corruption, and the rust, and the moth. There is nothing gotten by tenacity, by greedy getting, or close withholding. Not by greedy getting; when men will snatch an estate out of the hands of Providence, no wonder if God snatch it away again; ill gains are equivalent to losses (Mic_6:10). Not by undue withholding; it draweth mans curse and Gods too upon us Pro_11:26). God can easily corrupt that which we will not bestow, and cause a worm to breed in manna. Certainly there is a withholding that tendeth to poverty (Pro_11:24).
4. There is corruption and decay upon the face of all created glory, Riches corrupted, garments moth-eaten, gold and silver cankered. It is madness to set up our rest in perishing things, Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not (Pro_23:5)? It is not only against grace, but reason; confidence should have a sure and stable ground. Well, then, take Christs advice (Mat_6:19-20).
5. From the diversity of the terms--moth, corruption, canker, note that God hath several ways wherewith to blast our carnal comforts. Sometimes by the moth, sometimes by the thief, by rust or robbery; they may either rot, or be taken from us. Well, then, let the greater awe be impressed upon your thoughts. (T. Manton.)
The folly of avarice
We have here three kinds of possessions indicated. First, stores of various kinds of goods. These are corrupted, they have become rotten and worthless. Secondly, rich garments, which in the East are often a very considerable portion of a wealthy mans possessions. They have been stored up so jealously and selfishly that insects have preyed upon them and ruined them. And thirdly, precious metals. These have become tarnished and rusted, through not having been put to any rational use. Everywhere their avarice has been not only sin, but folly. It has failed of its sinful object. The unrighteous hoarding has tended not to wealth, but to ruin. And thus the rust of their treasures becomes a testimony against them. In the ruin of their property their own ruin is portrayed; and just as corruption, and the moths, and the rust consume their goods, so shall the fire of Gods judgment consume the owners and abusers of them. They have reserved all this store for their selfish enjoyment, but God has reserved them for His righteous anger. (A. Plummer, D. D.)
Wealth exposed to danger
Strolling along the banks of a pond, Gotthold observed a pike basking in the sun, and so pleased with the sweet soothing rays as to forget itself and the danger to which it was exposed. Thereupon a boy approached, and with a snare formed of a horsehair, and fastened to the end of a rod, which he skilfully cast over his head, pulled it in an instant out of the water. Ah me! said Gotthold with a deep sigh, how evidently do I here behold shadowed forth the danger of my poor soul! When the beams of temporal prosperity play upon us to our hearts content, so grateful are they to corrupt flesh and blood, that, immersed in sordid pleasure, luxury, and security, we lose all sense of spiritual damager, and all thought of eternity. In this state, many are, in fact, suddenly snatched away to the eternal ruin of their souls.
Wealth destructive
When Crates threw his gold into the sea, he cried out, Ego perdam te, ne tu perdas me. That is, I will destroy you, lest you should destroy me. Thus, if the world be not put to death here, it will put us to death hereafter. (T. Secker.)
Your garments are motheaten
Moth-eaten garments
In early days, besides silver and gold, which always and everywhere have been considered wealth, garments were stored up, and were regarded as an evidence of riches. Against these things time has a grudge. They wear out if you use them, and waste more if you do not. If you store them away, mildew and damp searches for them to rot them. If you too incautiously expose them to the cleansing air, you give knowledge of your treasure, excite cupidity, anti draw the thief to your dwelling. And while men covet, and the elements enviously consume your garments and your fabrics, there are insects created, it would seem, expressly to feed upon them. First is the moth miller. It is most fair, silent, harmless. And yet every housewife springs after it with electric haste. It is a dreaded pest--not for what it is, but for what it becomes. It is the mother of moths. And there are ten thousand moral moths just like them--soft, satiny, silent, harmless in themselves; but they lay eggs, and the eggs are not as harmless as the insects. There are sins that have teeth, and there are sins that have children with teeth. Could there, then, have been selected a figure more striking in its analogies than this? Could anything more clearly show to us the power of the sins of neglect? of the sins of indolence and of carelessness? of sins of a soft and gentle presence, that in themselves are not very harmful, but that are the breeders of others that are? of the silent mischiefs of the unused faculties or rooms of the soul, that are not ventilated, nor searched with the broom and the brush? men do well to watch and fight against obvious and sounding sins. They are numerous. They are armed and are desperate. They swarm the ways of life. Not one vice, not one temptation of which the Word of God warns us, is to be lightly esteemed. But these are not our only dangers. Tens of thousands of men perish, not by the lion-like stroke of temptation, but by the insidious bite of the hidden serpent; not with roar and strength, but with subtle poison. More men are moth-eaten than lion eaten in this life; and it behoves us in time to give heed to these dangers of invisible and insidious little enemies. The real strength of man is in his character. Now character is not a massive unit; it is a fabric, rather. It is an artificial whole made up by the interply of ten thousand threads. Every faculty is a spinner, spinning every day its threads, and almost every day threads of a different colour. Myriads and myriads of webbed products proceed from the many active faculties of the human soul, and character is made up by the weaving together of all these innumerable threads of daily life. Its strength is not merely in the strength of some simple unit, but in the strength of numerous elements. There are crimes that, like frost on flowers, in one single night accomplish their work of destruction. There are vices that, like freshets, sweep everything before them. Men may be destroyed in character and reputation, utterly and sudden. But there are other instruments of destruction besides these. We do well to mark them, and to watch against them; but we also do well to remember that a man may be preserved from crimes and from great vices, and yet have his character moth-eaten. Watch against little sins and little faults. First, aside from great vices and crimes, there are the moths of indolence. Indolence may be supposed to be morally wrong; but it is thought to be wrong rather in a negative way than otherwise. No, no! The mischief of water is not that it does not run, but that, not running, it corrupts, and corrupting breeds poisonous miasma, so that they who live in the neighbourhood inhale disease at every breath. The mischief of indolence is, not that it neglects the use of powers and the improvement of the opportunities of life, but that it breeds morbid conditions in every part of the soul. There is health in activity, but there is disease in indolence. There are moths also in things unsuspected. All men agree that a glutton and a drunkard are opprobrious and ignominous. But there are excesses from over-eating on this side of gluttony, and excesses from over-drinking this side of drunkenness. There are moths of appetite. There are many men who eat beyond the necessities of nature. They obscure their minds. There are many who, by taking too much food, twice or thrice a day repeated, keep all their feelings upon an edge, so that they are quick and irritable, or stupid and slow. There are many who, by mere over-eating, take from sleep its refreshment, and from their waking hours their peace, by the gnawing of the worm of appetite. This is a little thing. Your physician does not say much about it. Your parents hardly ever speak of it. It is a thing for every man to consider for himself. But it is a serious fact that two-thirds of the men who live a sedentary life impair their strength by the simple act of injudicious feeding--over-eating. And that which is true of food is still more true of stimuli: not alone of spirituous liquors, with regard to which you are warned abundantly, but also of domestic stimuli. I do not mean to be understood as saying that every man who employs tobacco is moth-eaten; that every man who indulges himself moderately in the use of tea and coffee is injured thereby. I do not mean to go so far as to say that every man who uses unfrequently and in small quantities, wines and liquors, is himself physically injured by them. But I do mean to say, comprehensively--and you know it is true--that in this sphere lie a multitude of mischiefs and of temptations, each of which is minute, but the sum of which is exceedingly dangerous. The carriage of our affections also develops a class of tendencies which are fitly included in this subject. There are many men who never give way to wrath on a great and sounding scale. It is wholesome to be mad thoroughly. It does a man good to subsoil him by stirring him up down to the bottom. I would that men were fretful less and angry more. For it is these little petty moths of perpetual fretfulness, moroseness, sourness; these little fribbles of temper that cut the thread of life--it is these that destroy men, inside and out. We read about some of the passions of which we see traces, but of the nature, and progress, and power of which we scarcely ever form an adequate conviction, either in others or in ourselves. Some of them are such as these: greediness, envy, jealousy. Youth is seldom afflicted with them. They are latent. They lie concealed. There is a sphere in mens lives into which they are accustomed to sweep a whole multitude of petty faults without judging them, without condemning them, and without attempting to correct them. There is a realm of moral moths for almost all of us. We all hold ourselves accountable for major morals, but there is a realm of minor morals where we scarcely suppose ethics to enter. There are thousands and thousands of little untruths, that hum and buzz and sting in society, which are too small to be brushed or driven away. They are in the looks; they are in the inflections and tones of the voice; they are in the actions; they are in reflections rather than in direct images that are presented. They are methods of producing impressions that are false, though every means by which they are produced is strictly true. There are little unfairnesses between man and man, and companion and companion, that are said to be minor matters, and that are small things; there are little unjust judgments and detractions; there are slight indulgences of the appetites; there are petty violations of conscience; there are ten thousand of these plays of the passions in men, which are called foibles or weaknesses, but which eat like moths. They take away the temper, they take away magnanimity and generosity, they take from the soul its enamel and its polish. Men palliate and excuse them, but that has nothing to do with their natural effect upon us. They waste and destroy us, and that, too, in the souls silent and hidden parts. (H. W. Beecher.)
The hire of the labourers
Various ways of oppressing the poor
1. When through greatness you challenge their labours without reward, as the gentry use the peasants of many countries, Woe be to him that useth his neighbour without wages (Jer_22:13), meaning Jehoiakim, who, in his pompous buildings used his subjects labour without hire.
2. When you give them not a proportionate hire, working upon their necessities, for then a great part of their labour is without reward; and it is flat covetousness to exact all your labours (Isa_58:3), when your reward is scanty and short.
3. When by cunning ye defraud them of their reward, either through bad payment or crafty cavils. The Lord saith, I will be a swift witness against those that oppress the hireling in his wages (Mal_3:5). So it is in the text, by fraud kept back. God knoweth what is oppression, though veiled under crafty pretences.
4. When you diminish or change their wages, as it is said of Laban that he changed Jacobs wages ten times (Gen_31:41).
5. When you delay payment. God commanded the Jews to do it before sunset (see Deu_24:14-15; Lev_19:30). It is a maxim of the law that not to pay it at the time is to pay the less, because of the advantage of improvement; and in the text it is said, kept back by fraud, though not wholly taken away, yet kept back entitled them to sin. The Lord, you know, rewardeth His servants ere they have done their work; we have much of our wages aforehand, &c. (T. Manton.)
Profane rich men
What shall we say then? Is it not lawful at all to resist injuries, but shall we suffer ourselves to be spoiled, robbed, injured, smitten, and murdered without resisting? by not withstanding them shall we animate them, encourage them to further mischief? Hereunto I answer, though it be commanded us that we shall not resist, and commended in the righteous men that they did not resist their oppressions, yet it followeth not that the righteous may not at all resist. For, touching the commandment of Christ and His apostle, it is apparent that they spake of impatient resisting, and of such resisting as was joined with greedy desire of private revenge, in which manner the saints of God are everywhere forbidden to resist. In other respects it is not unlawful to resist, but either by avoiding their oppressions; either by telling the wicked of their injuries or, finally, by repelling force by force; when we cannot have the lawful aid of magistrates it is lawful to resist the wicked when they oppress us, which doctrine may be warranted out of the infallible word of truth. Our Saviour Christ commanded His disciples to fly from city to city when they were persecuted, and so by avoiding injuries to make resistance, as it were, to their persecutors. And when Himself was in danger of stoning He conveyed Himself from them, and did not suffer the Jews to wreak their wrath upon Him. Neither by avoiding and shunning their injuries is it lawful only to resist the wicked, but also by telling them of the wicked oppressions and extreme cruelty which they show towards their brethren, though in the meantime our bodies be subject to their tyrannous outrage and fury (Joh_18:22-23). The first sin and evil condemned in thesewicked rich men against whom St. James dealeth is their fraudulent detaining of their hirelings wages, whereof he giveth special example in their harvest labourers. Yet for so needful, so painful and profitable a work they were unrewarded and their wages detained by fraud from them, no doubt an extreme point of evil dealing. The greatness of their sin the apostle amplifieth in most effectual manner, Behold, saith he, the hire of the labourers which have reaped your fields, which is by you kept back by fraud crieth, and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts. First, saith he, Behold of which speech there are divers uses. Sometimes it is used far a greater evidence and certainty of a thing. St. Jude, citing the words of Enoch for a great evidence of the Lords coming to judge the world, useth this phrase of speech: Behold the Lord cometh with thousands of His saints, to give judgment against all men, &c. In like manner, in this place, to assure them that their wickedness was certainly gone up into the cares of the Lord the apostle breaketh out in this manner: Behold the hire of the labourers, &c. Sometimes it is used in strange and wonderful things, which rarely are heard or seen, as Isaiah entreating of the extraordinary, rare, and wonderful manner of Christs conception, in this wise expresseth it: Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel. Our apostle, either to assure them of their punishment, or as wondering at the hard dealing of the wicked, may not amiss in this sense be thought to use it: Behold the hire of your labourers, &c., as a thing to be wondered at, that you would be so hard hearted as to defraud their labourers of their hire, the apostle breaketh out and saith, Behold the hire of your labourers, etc.
2. The hire of those labourers which reaped their fields was detained. This amplifieth their wickedness. To detain the wages of any labourer who by the toil and moil of his body, and in the sweat of his face, eateth his bread cannot be but a great sin; but to deny them their wages, by whom our fields are reaped, our corn and grain gathered into our garners, is no doubt a grievous sin before God.
3. The wages of their hired servants was by fraud kept back. To detain the wages of the hireling and servant, which for his living worketh with men, is an evil and sin by the law and Word of God forbidden (Lev_19:13). To withhold the daily relief of a man from him, what is it, but as much as lieth in us, to take his life from him; for we keep back the thing whereby he liveth, and this is murder before the Lord.
And this sin of fraudulent detaining the wages of the hired servants is divers ways committed.
1. When the hirelings wages are stopped altogether under some colourable pretence and intended matter, not right, not true, not just, but deceitful.
2. Moreover, this cruelty is done, and sin committed, when the wages are deceitfully deferred longer than the poor can well spare it.
3. Men become guilty hereof also when, through fraud, they misreckon the poor hireling being simple, or ally ways diminish of the wages of the labourer.
4. Finally, by changing the wages of the servant and workman to their hurt and damage.
5. To conclude, this sin is mightily amplified in that the cry thereof is said to ascend and come to the cars of the Lord of hosts. Here God is called the Lord of hosts, which attribute is oftentimes given unto Him because He hath all His creatures always ready as an innumerable and infinite host to fight at His pleasure against the wicked for the maintenance of His glory and defence of His servants. They shall be glad to do His commandment, and when need is they shall be ready upon earth, and when their hour is come they shall not overpass the commandment. St. James, therefore, partly for the terror of the wicked, who in due time shall feel the weight of His revenging hand, and partly for the comfort of His afflicted servants whose wages wicked men hold back by fraud, calleth Almighty God the Lord of hosts, as having a power always prepared, and an army evermore in readiness, to fight against His enemies and to defend His saints. Now, if the cries of their detained wages which work in our bodily and earthly harvest be entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts, how much more fearful judgment shall be pronounced against them--under how wretched condition are they who, by fraud or by force, keep back the wages of them that labour in the heavenly and spiritual harvest of the Lord? who sow the furrows of your hearts with the Divine seed of the Word of truth, and should reap the increase of their labours with great joyfulness. The first evil then in this place condemned is their fraudulent detaining of their labourers wages, the cry whereof entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts. This second evil and sin for which the apostle threateneth their destruction to the wicked is their sensuality and carnal life, which consisteth briefly in three thing.
1. Pleasure.
2. Wantonness.
3. Riotousness and excessive banqueting.
1. Pleasure here signifieth the deliciousness of men in this life, whereunto they give themselves that they, faring deliciously every day, may spend their time and life in pleasure like Epicures, by the which they are not only condemned as injurious unto others, but also are accused as misspending that which they detain from their workmen upon their own pleasures and delights.
2. Their sensuality also showeth itself in the wantonness of their lives, whereby carnal uncleanness is understood (Rom_13:13). Thereunto also most rich men are given. For riches minister matter of living deliciously; delicious living pricketh forward to fleshliness and bodily uncleanness. St. Cyril saith: In those which flow in prosperity, honour, and all worldly wealth, there is a sting of desire of deliciousness more vehement, and the mind moved with concupiscence is (as it were)carried away with the whole bridle, none staying it.
3. Of their sensuality the last and third branch is that they nourished their hearts as in the day of slaughter. Whereby their continual study to banquet and make merry is noted that their whole life might be, as it were, a continual day of feasting, by which they grew as fat as pork or brawn for Satan the devil to feed on in the day of judgment. The Hebrews call the days of feasting the days of slaughter, because at great feasts there is great killing, great slaughter. Calves from the stall, sheep from the fold, oxen from the pasture, kids from the goats, lambs from the ewes, deer from the forest, buck from the chase, fish from the sea, fowl from the fen, birds from the air, capons from the coop, pheasant from the wood, partridge from the covey, rabbit from the warren, and infinite the like are then slam to be devoured. The third sin and evil for which these men are subject to this judgment is their cruelty, which in these two things appeareth.
1. That they condemn the righteous men.
2. That they condemn them not only, but slay them when they make no resistance.
1. The wicked men of this world condemn the righteous at their pleasures, they give what sentence they lust against the just and godly men, they judge the innocent at their wills, if in all things they do not please them, which is great cruelty and a thing abominable before God (Pro_17:15).
2. Neither do these only wrongfully judge and condemn the righteous, but also they slay him, and he resisteth them not, this is fierceness and intolerable cruelty. Now, the righteous are slain divers ways.
(1) In heart by hatred, He that hateth his brother in his heart is a murderer, saith St. John.
(2) In tongue by slander, therefore Christ containeth it under the nature of murder, making it subject to like judgment
(3) By denying help in their misery wherein we suffer them to perish without succour.
(4) When by fraud or force, when by greedy courteousness or cruel extortion, whereby our hands are imbued by the blood of our brethren we take or hold from them, that which is their own; whereby, as much as in us lieth, we murder them.
(5) When, finally, we bereave men of their lives, which all agree with this place of St. James, and are found in the rich wicked men of this world. For--
1. They hate the godly poor men in their hearts.
2. They slander them with their tongues.
3. They withdraw their helping hands from them.
4. They detain their right from them.
5. And, to conclude, they cause their lives oftentimes to be taken from them, who, albeit themselves by themselves, do not always these things; yet by their means and power these are done, therefore are they said to do it.
Finally, there are times and seasons when by repelling force by force it is lawful to resist. When Christians are so narrowly bestead and so straightly beset with their enemies, as that they cannot have the aid of civil powers and lawful magistrates of the commonwealth, but must either resist by force, or be in danger of the loss of their lives and goods without all recovery or recompense; in such a case to resist I hold it lawful altogether. So that it be done in a moderate defence of ourselves, without private malice or desire of shedding of blood. (R. Turnbull.)
Sins of the wealthy
The three most important things about a mans wealth are these: How it was obtained; how it was enjoyed; how it is used. Lucre is not filthy itself; but if obtained by unjust means it becomes filthy lucre; or if it be enjoyed selfishly, lavishly, and carnally, it becomes filthy lucre; or if employed to carry out crafty and wicked designs by corrupting men to become instruments for evil in the hands of its owner, it is filthy lucre. It is to men who have so obtained and employed wealth that James calls out in tones of tremendous warning. In the midst of the shouts of their revelry he calls them to weep, in words spoken in tones of the old prophets (see Isa_13:1-22.). It is a call to arouse them from their self-contentment and self--sufficiency; dispositions frequently caused by great riches. He prophesies that miseries are coming upon them. He seems to hear the footfall of the approaching days of misery--misery that could not be warded off by all the wealth which they had gathered around them. In the picturesque phrases which follow, James alludes to the various kinds of wealth in his day. If a man acquired wealth beyond his own house and garden, what was he to do with it? There were three classes of things in which he ordinarily invested it--grain, clothes, and gold and silver coin. The first might be used in several ways. It might be stored for a rise in breadstuffs, something like our modern corners in grain; or it might be transported and sold; or it might be kept stored in vaults for the owners use if there should come at any time a famine or a war. With such wealth one might say (Luk_12:19), When the calamities came, the grain, which had been kept up at a high price, thus increasing the suffering of the poor, had become rotten in the bins. Another form of accumulation was in the shape of costly raiment, and even of plainer garments in greater quantities. In our day this kind of accumulation is almost unknown, because the fashions are so constantly varying. Not so then. As the prizes taken in ancient wars, we often hear of fine garments as amongst the treasures. In regard to that species of wealth James said: Your garments have become moth-eaten; and so he said of coin: Your gold and silver are rusted. Long kept out of circulation, and thus increasing the embarrassment of society, they had become spotted in the secret and safe places where they bad been concealed. The words of James must have brought back to his readers the exhortation of Christ (Mat_6:19-20). He announced to them that the rust of their money should rise up against them and condemn them, and come down upon them and punish them, that is, should eat into them, with an agony that should be like the burning of ones flesh; for their avarice, which had led them to such great injustice, which had warmed their hearts and burned out their neighbours, should be in them like the flaming fire. Here, again, we have the old prophetic thunder (Psa_21:9; Isa_10:16; Jer_5:14; Eze_15:7; Eze_28:18). To the Jews who lived when James wrote, this soon came to be literally true; for their substance and their flesh were destroyed when the city and the temple were burned. Josephus tells us that the flames consumed their dead bodies and their substance and their wardrobes. Whatever was spared from the flames fell into the hands of the Romans; and so it came to pass that the treasures which had been heaped up to produce for thrum a long season of quiet and comfort were all swept away; for they had planted their seed in a garden that lay over the heart of a volcano which was soon to burst. Their doing was aggravated by the injustice they bad used in the accumulation of their hoarded property. They had violated the law of justice and, as well, the law of benevolence, and had broken the precept of Moses (Lev_19:13; Lev_24:14-15). Perhaps there is no portion of the denunciation which could be brought home to the modern Christian community more decisively than this. The crying sin against the rich in every large city is the sin of keeping back the hire which belongs to the labourers. In addition to covetousness and oppression, James presents to the conscience the sin of voluptuousness. Supposing a certain amount of enjoyment to be possible to any one man in his lifetime, it is plain that the excesses of one day make drafts upon another day; it may be, upon all days. If he have a thousand days to live, and ten thousand dollars be put at his command, it is plain that he will have the purchasing power of ten dollars for every day in his life. But if he spend fifty dollars a day in the first hundred days, it is quite plain that he would have less than six dollars a day during the remaining nine hundred. And if he spend a hundred dollars a day for the first hundred days, the remaining nine hundred would be spent in absolute penury. This is a rigid mathematical calculation, which does not do justice to the case, for life is composed of so many factors, and each man has so many faculties and connections that an impairment of a man is a wider injury than the removal of anything which can be represented by numbers. To these destructive excesses great wealth tempts any man, no matter what may be his moral qualities. The fourth sin with which James charges the rich, the worldly, and the wanton Jews of his day, is the oppression of the righteous, even to the taking of their lives. If the application of the verse be made either to the good in general, or to the Lord Jesus in particular, there is something very striking in the omission of the conjunction, Ye have condemned, ye have killed, the Just, expresses the rapidity of the action and result of their maliciousness. They seemed so afraid that after condemning a good man He should escape slaughter, that they hurried up His death, although, as a lamb before the shearers is dumb, He opened not His mouth. (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
The moral evils of wealth
I am obliged to regard with considerable distrust the influence of wealth upon individuals. I know that it is a mere instrument, which may be converted to good or bad ends. I know that it is often used for good ends; but I more than doubt whether the chances lead that way. Independence and luxury are not likely to be good for any man. Leisure and luxury are almost always bad for every man. I know that there are noble exceptions. But I have seen so much of the evil effect of wealth upon the mind--making it proud, haughty, and impatient; robbing it of its simplicity, modesty, and humility; bereaving it of its large, and gentle, and considerate humanity; and I have heard such astonishing testimonies, to the same effect, from those whose professional business is to settle and adjust the affairs of estates--that I more and more distrust its boo, steal advantages. I deny the validity of that boast. In truth, I am sick of the worlds admiration of wealth. Almost all the noblest things that have been achieved in the world have been achieved by poor men; poor scholars and professional men; poor artisans and artists; poor philosophers, and poets, and men of genius. (Orville Dowry.)
Money
A philosopher has said, Though a man without money is poor, a man with nothing but money is still poorer. Worldly gifts cannot bear up the spirits from fainting and sinking when trials and troubles come, no more than headache can be cured by a golden crown, or toothache by a chain of pearls. Earthly riches are full of poverty.
The ingenuousness of fraud
Some frauds succeed from the apparent candour, the open confidence, and the full blaze of ingenuousness that is thrown around them. The slightest mystery would excite suspicion and ruin all. Such stratagems may be compared to the stars: they are discoverable by darkness, and hidden only by light. (C. Colton.)
The greedy disposition
The king vulture will not permit any other bird to begin its meal until his own hunger is satisfied. The same habit may be seen in many other creatures, including some men, the more powerful lording it over the weaker, and leaving them only the remains of the feast instead of permitting them to partake of it on equal terms. If the king vulture should not happen to be present when the dead animal has reached a state of decomposition, which renders it palatable to vulterine tastes, the subject vultures would pay but little regard to the privileges of their absent monarch, and would leave him but a slight prospect of getting a meal on the remains of the feast. Thus the greedy disposition, whether in the high or low, never concerns itself about the want of others. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)
Insatiable greed
The father-lasher, or lucky proach, is a big-headed, wide-mouthed, staring-eyed little fish. Every atom of meat that you drop into the water within the range of his vision must be his; you perhaps intended the morsel for the goby or the blenny, but proach sees it, and proach must have it. They, indeed, may sail up towards the speck, but proach dashes up, bristling with indignation at their temerity, and snaps the food from their very noses. Not one of them can get a bit till preach is satiated, and I have often seen him lie with a morsel projecting from his mouth for some time, absolutely incapable of swallowing more, before he would relinquish the contest. (P. H. Gosse, in Good Words.)
The unscrupulous money-getter
The unscrupulous money-getter is not necessarily an able man. On the contrary, he often appears dull and stupid. But he is rapacious, cruel, and cunning, and he owes his success to these qualities. Notwithstanding the applause with which society greets his performances, they have much the same inspiration as those of the glutton. The glutton is thought but a dull animal, but his mode of catching deer shows much the same proportion of intelligence as that which is exhibited by the money-getter, or by the Arctic fox when he arranges cods heads as baits to catch crows. The glutton climbs into a tree in the neighbourhood of a herd, carrying up with him a quantity of a kind of moss of which the deer are fond, and when be sees any one of the herd approaching, he lets a portion of the moss fall. If the deer stops to eat, the glutton instantly descends on its back, and torments it by tearing out its eyes and other violence to such a degree that, either to get rid of its enemy, or to put an end to its sufferings, it beats its head against the trees till it falls down dead; for when the glutton has once fixed himself by his claws and teeth, it is impossible to dislodge him. After killing the deer he divides the flesh into convenient portions, and conceals them in the earth for future provision. In this he shows himself to be as prudential as the money-getter, who at the end of a nefarious financial success places his profits in various securities, and the balance in his bank for future use. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)
Ye have lived in pleasure
Luxury
A day of slaughter! What day of slaughter? Who are slaughtered? The answer is in the context. The poor are slaughtered. The labourers whose hire is kept back by fraud. The luxury of the few is always obtained by the slaughter of the many. The few cannot live delicately on the earth without directly or indirectly keeping back by fraud the hire of the labourer. In a word, we ate all so tightly bound together in the bundle of life that extravagant expenditure anywhere always involves starvation somewhere else. Prodigality at one end of the scale must mean pauperism at the other end. What pestiferous delusion is more widely accepted than the notion that the extravagant expenditure of the rich is good for trade? How often have I heard people condemn the Queen of England because she does not spend more time in London holding costly leyden and drawing-rooms and concerts. Now, there is no doubt that if she wasted her money as most monarchs do, she would bring a great deal of temporal prosperity to some of our West-end tradesmen. But when we think of it, that temporary prosperity of the comparative few would be a great loss to the nation as a whole. Let me take a concrete example of this. The Queen holds a drawing-room. A young lady of high rank and of great wealth is to be presented. For this purpose she procures a court dress, which, with all its finery and lace and jewellery, is worth, say, £400. That sum of money has been calculated by a great authority to be the equivalent of 50,000 hours of labour--labour of the most tedious kind and fatal to the eyes. What is the advantage of expenditure of that luxurious sort? This poor, vain child wears it once or twice, and then the fruits of all that arduous toil is thrown away. Now, suppose the dressmakers and others had spent those 50,000 hours in making cheap, warm, and beautiful dresses for the half-clad and starving poor. Would they not have added a deal more to the sum of human health and happiness? Let us take another example. Some time ago a friend of mine was in the provinces, and was driving along the road near one of the great provincial palaces which belong to the British nobility. He began to speak of the aristocratic family who owned that estate. Ah, said the man who was driving him, we used to have a great deal of aristocratic company coming down here, and much money was spent on dinner-parties and wines. There was plenty of amusement. But now that the property has fallen into the hands of the heir, there is no more of that, and everything is going to the bad. Now, from this mans narrow point of view it appeared a dreadful matter that the old state of things was not continued. But look at the other side of the picture. The owner of that estate had also a very large property, inhabited by the poor, in one of the most miserable parts of London, full of public houses and hovels where the people were living in abject misery. The estate had been neglected for generations. Now, in the old time, when a handful of the rural tradesman were making money out of the prodigality and extravagance of the owner of the property, this London estate was utterly neglected, and thousands of the poor were suffering untold agonies. But the present owner having a conscience and being a Christian, instead of using the revenue for the purpose of diffusing a little trade among a handful of people in the country, is living a quiet life in a very simple home, and is using all the resources of her property to blot out the liquor-shops and the houses of infamy, and to build proper dwellings for the poor, where for generations they have been occupying hovels. Although a handful of people in a remote part of the provinces may suffer a certain amount of loss, it is an untold gain to thousands of people and to the human race that the wealth of that great property is no longer wasted in the old way. It is impossible to waste and save at the same time. Luxury and economy are as diametrically opposed as darkness and light. Luxury is any expenditure that is both costly and superfluous. I do not say a word about any little superfluity that does not cost much and which may give as much pleasure as it is worth. But when the superfluity is a very costly one, then it becomes a luxury, and must be denounced by every Christian and by every lover of the human race. It is astonishing what ingenious arguments have been used from time to time in defence of luxury. It has been argued, for example, that luxury is necessary to keep machinery at work. But, as Laveleye says, the object of machinery is to give us more leisure as well as more products. It is quite clear that in the better times which are coming we must not only give fair wages for every piece of work done, but we must also give men leisure to spend with their families, and to cultivate the higher aims of life. But there is another reply to this argument, and it is this. The money which is saved from luxury will give much more employment to machinery in other and healthier directions than it now gives in doubtful ways. It is very important in this particular discussion to remember that money is not hoarded now. If a man happens to have a good deal of money he does not bury it; that money is saved. When economy has saved money it is spent in employing labour. That is always a great gain to the human race. This brings us to the point from which we started, and is a fresh refutation of the delusion that luxury is good for trade. A distinguished French economist tells a good anecdote about himself, and shows how he discovered that prodigality was not an advantage to the human race; that it was an absolute and total delusion; and that the human race has no deadlier enemy than the spendthrift. On one occasion, when M. Say was a young man, he went to dine with his uncle, who produced some exceeding beautiful wineglasses, which he subsequently broke into pieces. He justified this extraordinary conduct by saying that every one must get a living, and he thought that by destroying his wineglasses he was a benefactor of the human race. That is a very simple illustration, but it precisely illustrates a widespread delusion which exists in West London, that waste and extravagance and destruction are beneficial and make trade. It was, of course, a matter of fact that if he broke six wineglasses it was to the benefit of some one in the neighbourhood, for he sent a servant the next day to buy some more. This incident set young Say thinking. If my uncle is really doing good, he had better proceed to smash all his crockery, and then to smash all his furniture, and then all the glass in the windows of his house; for glaziers, painters, and carpenters would be employed; and from this point of view his destructiveness would be a great benefit. When the argument is worked out, every one sees that there must be some delusion in it. If waste is for the good of trade, those Communists who set fire to many of the finest buildings in Paris were great benefactors. It has employed thousands of masons and painters to replace those buildings. Yes, but when you reflect, the answer is this: If none of this destruction had taken place, the money that has been used by the French Government to restore the public monuments, schools, and museums that were burnt would still be at their disposal, and might have been used to pay for other monuments, schools, railways, and museums. They would have retained their old property and had other property as well. Money is never well spent except, first, when it satisfies real human wants, and secondly, when it makes permanent improvements. (H. P. Hughes, M. A.)
Living in pleasure
1. A sin very natural to us. There were but two common parents of all mankind--Adam the protoplast, and Noah the restorer, and both miscarried by appetite: the one fell by eating, and the other by drinking. We had need be careful (Luk_21:34).
2. The sin is natural to all, but chiefly incident to the rich. There is, I confess, a difference in tempers; wealth maketh some covetous, and others prodigal; but the usual sin in the rich is luxury. Pride, idleness, and fulness of bread were the sins of Sodom, and they are usually found in great mens houses; they should be the more wary.
3. Though delicate living be a sin incident to wealthy men, yet their abundance doth not excuse it. God gave wealth for another purpose than to spend it in pleasures. Intemperance is odious to God, be it in any whatsoever they be.
4. Luxury is living in pleasure. God alloweth us to use pleasures, but not to live in them; to take delights, but not they should take us; to live always at the full is but a wanton luxury. (T. Manton, D. D.)
Aggravations of luxury
St. James words here are of a highly tragical character, and therefore the sentences are brief, abrupt, concise, and broken; the graphic metaphor reminds us of the style of the outpourings of Hosea. The difficulty here, as in other examples of the same kind of composition, is to catch the logical relation of the thoughts expressed, and trace out the consecutiveness of the clauses. He had charged them with laying up riches in the last days. There his purpose was to point out their folly with reference to the time in which they were engaged in their ungodly gain. Now he proceeds to show where they were doing this, in the land, the land of Israel, which was on the very point of being given over to the avenger. In the former chapter the visiting of the city by the rich for the purposes of gain had been adverted to, now he supposes them ripen the spot, and the day of vengeance at hand. Jerusalem was the central spot on which the thunderbolt was about to fall that would paralyse all Israel, Hebrews and Hellenists. As a matter of history it is well known that vast numbers of the Dispersion were involved in the catastrophe of the holy city. This passage, however, though addressed to, and by direct implication comprising the Dispersion, yet evidently conveys a prophetic warning and denunciation against the whole family of Israel, on whom the judgment was about to descend. (F. T. Bassett, M. A.)
End of gaiety
A Parisian gentleman who had educated his daughter Ninon for the gay world, on his death-bed thus addressed her, Draw near, Ninon: you see that nothing more remains for me than the sad remembrance of those enjoyments which I am about to quit for ever. But, alas! my regrets are as useless as vain; you, who will survive me, must make the best of your precious time
Poison in pleasures
It is said to have been a plan sometimes practised in the Middle Ages, to send poisoned flowers to princes or great persons, when a plot was laid against their life. Whether the fact be true or not, the moral it may suggest is true. (New Cyclopoedia of Illustration.)
A warning to the rich
A nobleman who lived in the neighbourhood of the Rev. Mr. D--, one day asked him to dine with him. Before dinner they walked into the garden, and after viewing the various productions and rarities with which it abounded, his lordship exclaimed, Well, Mr. D--, you see I want for nothing; and I have all that my heart can wish for. As Mr. D--made no reply, but appeared thoughtful, his lordship asked him the reason. Why, my lord, a man may have all these things, and go to hell after all. The words powerfully struck the nobleman, and through the blessing of God terminated in his conversion.
Take care of pleasure
It is said that where the most beautiful cacti grow, there the venomous serpents are to be found at the root of every plant. And it is so with sin. Your fairest pleasures will harbour your grossest sins. Take care, take care, of your pleasures. Cleopatras asp was introduced in a basket of flowers: so are our sins often brought to us in the flowers of our pleasure. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Sodden with pleasure
A soul sodden with pleasure is a lost soul. (J. C. Lees, D. D.)
Pleasures
Think not that a pleasure which God hath threatened, nor that a blessing which God hath cursed. (Quarles)
The pleasures of sense will surfeit, and not satisfy; the pleasures of religion will satisfy, but not surfeit. (Henry.)
The pleasures of sense and of religion
He buys honey too dear who licks it from thorns. Xerxes offered a reward to the man who would invent a new pleasure.
Living in pleasure
Ye have lain melting in sensual delights, which have drawn out your spirits and dissolved them. (J. Trapp.)
Ye have nourished your hearts
Nourished hearts
Pleasures nourish the heart, and fatten it into a senseless stupidity: nothing bringeth a dulness upon it more than they. There is a fish which they call the ass-fish, which hath its heart in its belly; a fit emblem of a sensual epicure. The heart is never more dull and unfit for the severities and masculine heights of religion than when burdened with luxurious excess; therefore Christ useth that expression, Let not your hearts be overcharged, etc. (Luk_21:36). Ah! do but consider how many reasons we have to be wary in our pleasures. Will the inconveniences they bring to your estates mow you? He that loveth corn, and wine, and oil, shall be poor (Pro_23:21). How often hath the belly brought the back to rags? Or will the mischiefs they bring upon the body move you? Lust, which is but the last end and consummation of all pleasures, sucketh the bones, and, like a cannibal, eateth your own flesh (Pro_5:11). Ah! but chiefly think of the inconveniency which your precious souls sustain; your hearts will be nourished and fattened. Pleasure infatuateth the mind, quencheth the radiancy and vigour of the spirit, the generous sprightliness of the affections. So the apostle speaketh of persons given to pleasures, that they are past feeling (Eph_4:1-32.); they have lost all the smartness and tenderness of their spirits. Oh! that men would regard this, and take heed of nourishing their hearts while they nourish their bodies. You should starve lust when you feed nature; or, as Austin, come to your meat as your medicine, and use these outward refreshments as remedies to cure infirmities, not to cause them; or, as Bernard, refresh the soul when you feed the body, and by Christian meditations on Gods bounty, Christs sweetness, the fatness of Gods house, &c., keep the heart from being nourished whenever you repair nature. (T. Manton.)
Running to death
Alas! the greatest part of this world run to the place of torment, rejoicing, and dancing, eating, drinking, and sleeping. (S. Rutherford.)
Ye have condemned and killed the just
The just
The true meaning is found, it is believed, in taking the just as the representatives of a class, probably of the class of those who, as disciples of Christ, the Just One, were reproducing His pattern of righteousness. Such an one, like his Master, and like Stephen, St. James adds, takes as his law the rule of not resisting. He submits patiently, certain that in the end he will be more than conqueror. It is not without interest to note that the title was afterwards applied to St. James himself. The name Justus (Act_1:23; Act_18:7; Col_4:11) was evidently the Latin equivalent of this epithet, and it probably answered to the Chasidim or Assideans of an earlier stage of Jewish religious history. It is as if a follower of George Fox had addressed the judges and clergy of Charles IIsreign, and said to them, Ye persecuted the friend, and he does not resist you. (Dean Plumptre.)
Taking advantage of meekness
Meekness of spirit commonly draws on injuries and indignities from unreasonable men. A crow will stand on a sheeps back, pulling off the wool from his side; she durst not do so to a wolf or mastiff. (J. Trapp.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Chapter 23
Chapter 23
THE FOLLIES AND INIQUITIES OF THE RICH;
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THEIR MISERABLE END.
Jam_5:1-6
HERE, if anywhere in the Epistle, the writer glances aside from the believing Jews of the Dispersion, to whom the letter as a whole is addressed, and in a burst of righteous indignation which reminds us of passages in the old Hebrew Prophets, denounces members of the twelve tribes who not even in name are Christians. In the preceding section such a transition is in preparation. When he is condemning the godless presumption of those seekers after wealth who dared, without thought of their own frailty and of Gods absolute control over their lives and fortunes, to think and speak confidently of their schemes for future gains, he seems to be thinking almost as much of unbelieving Jews as of those who have accepted the Gospel. Here he appears for the moment to have left the latter entirely out of sight, and to be addressing those wealthy Jews who not only continued the policy and shared the guilt of the opponents and murderers of Christ, but by scandalous tyranny and injustice oppressed their poor brethren, many of whom were probably Christians. The severity of the condemnation is not the only or the main reason for thinking that the paragraph is addressed to unconverted Jews. The first ten verses of chapter 4. are very severe; and there also, as here, the affectionate form of address, "brethren," so frequent elsewhere in the Epistle, is wanting; but there is no doubt that those ten verses, like the paragraphs which immediately precede and follow them, are addressed to Christians. What is so exceptional in the passage now under consideration is the entire absence of any exhortation to repentance, or of any indication that there is still hope of being reconciled to the offended Jehovah. They are to "weep and howl," not in penitence, but in despair. The end is at hand; the day of reckoning is approaching; and it is a fearful account which awaits them. In this respect there is a very marked difference between this paragraph and the one which follows it. In both the nearness of the Day of Judgment is the motive; but this nearness is to "the rich" a terror, to "the brethren" a comfort. This difference would be very difficult to explain if both paragraphs were addressed to believing Jews.
Throughout the Epistle there are strains which sound like echoes from the Prophets of the Old Testament, with whom St. James has much in common; but the passage before us is specially in their spirit. It would not surprise us to meet with it in Isaiah or Jeremiah. One or two similar passages are worth comparing: "Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! When thou hast ceased to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou hast made an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee". {Isa_33:1} "Woe to him that getteth an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil? Thou hast consulted shame to thy house, by cutting off many peoples, and hast sinned against thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it". {Hab_2:9} In the New Testament the passage which most resembles it is our Lords denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees. {Mat_23:13-36}
"Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you." We have the same combination of words in Isaiah: "In their streets they gird themselves with sackcloth: on their housetops, and in their broad places, every one howleth, weeping abundantly". {Isa_15:3} And in an earlier chapter we have a still closer parallel to the spirit of this verse: "Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand". {Isa_13:6} The miseries to which St. James alludes are those which shall befall them at "the coming of the Lord" (Jam_5:8). It is the impending judgment of the tyrannous rich that is primarily in his mind. He may also have foreseen something of the horrors of the Jewish war and the destruction of Jerusalem, and in accordance with Christs prophecy may have considered these calamities typical of the judgment, or part and parcel of it. In the Jewish war the wealthy classes suffered terribly. Against them, as having been friendly to the Romans, and having employed Roman influence in oppressing their own countrymen, the fury of the fanatical party of the Zealots was specially directed; and although the blow fell first and heaviest upon the Jews in Jerusalem and Judea, yet it was felt by all Jews throughout the world.
They imagined themselves to be rich; they were really most poor and most miserable. So sure is the doom that is coming upon them, that in prophetical style St. James begins to speak of it as already here; like a seer, he has it all before his eyes. "Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted." We have here three kinds of possessions indicated. First, stores of various kinds of goods. These are "corrupted"; they have become rotten and worthless. Secondly, rich garments, which in the East are often a very considerable portion of a wealthy mans possessions. They have been stored up so jealously and selfishly that insects have preyed upon them and ruined them. And thirdly, precious metals. These have become tarnished and rusted, through not having been put to any rational use. Everywhere their avarice has been not only sin, but folly. It has failed of its sinful object. The unrighteous hoarding has tended not to wealth, but to ruin. And thus the rust of their treasures becomes "a testimony against them." In the ruin of their property their own ruin is portrayed; and just as corruption, and the moths, and the rust consume their goods, so shall the fire of Gods judgment consume the owners and abusers of them. They have reserved all this store for their selfish enjoyment, but God has reserved them for His righteous anger.
"Ye laid up your treasure in the last days."
"There was the monstrous folly of it. The end of all things was close at hand; the last days" had already begun; and these besotted graspers after wealth were still heaping up treasures which they would never have any opportunity of using. The Authorized Version spoils this by a small, but rather serious, mistranslation. It has, "Ye have heaped up treasure together for the last days," instead of "in the last days" (εν εσχαταις ημεραις). The case is precisely that which Christ foretold: "As were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall be the coming of the Son of man". {Mat_24:37-39} "Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all: after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed". {Luk_17:28-30}
That the "last days" mean the days immediately preceding the Second Advent can scarcely be doubted. The context renders this very probable, and the exhortation in the next section renders it practically certain. "Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged: behold, the Judge standeth before the doors." That the first Christians believed that Jesus Christ would return in glory during the lifetime of many who were then living, will hardly be disputed by any one who is acquainted with the literature of the Apostolic age and of the period immediately following. Nor, perhaps, will many at the present time care to dispute that this erroneous opinion was shared, for a time at any rate, even by Apostles.
"Ye are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time," says St. Peter. {1Pe_1:5} "We that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in nowise precede them that are fallen asleep"; {1Th_4:15; cf. 1Co_15:51} and again, writing some years later, "In the last days grievous times shall come," about which Timothy is to be on his guard, says St. Paul. {2Ti_3:1} And much nearer to the close of the Apostolic age we have St. John telling his little children that "it is the last hour". {1Jn_2:18} Some twenty or thirty years later St. Ignatius writes to the Ephesians, "These are the last times. Henceforth let us be reverent; let us fear the longsuffering of God, lest it turn into a judgment against us. For either let us fear the wrath which is to come, or let us love the grace which now is" (11.).
Only very gradually did the Christian Church attain to something like a true perspective as to the duration of Christs kingdom upon earth. Only very gradually did even the Apostles obtain a clear vision as to the nature of the kingdom which their Lord had founded and left in their charge, for them to occupy until He came. Pentecost did not at once give them perfect insight into the import of their own commission. Much still remained to be learned, slowly, by experience. And if this was the case with Apostles, we need not wonder that it was so with James, the Lords brother. It is remarkable that Christs solemn warning against speculating as to the time of His return seems to have made only partial impression upon the disciples. "Of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is". {Mar_13:32-33} But it is our gain that they were allowed for a time to hold a belief that the Lord would return very speedily. The Epistles and Gospels were written by men under the influence of that belief, and such influence is a very considerable guarantee for the honesty of the writers. It was because the rich whom St. James here denounces had no such belief in a speedy judgment, indeed had very little thought of a judgment at all, that they were guilty of such folly and iniquity.
Having indicated their folly in amassing wealth which was no blessing to themselves or others, but simply deteriorated by being hoarded, St. James passes on to point out their iniquity. And first of all he mentions the gross injustice which is frequently inflicted by these wealthy employers of labor upon those who work for them. The payment of the wages which have been earned is either unfairly delayed or not paid at all. "Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth out." Several passages in the Old Testament appear to be in the writers mind. "Thou shalt not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates: in his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee." {Deu_24:14-15; cf. Deu_24:17, and Lev_19:13} "And I will come near you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn away the stranger from his right, and fear not Me, saith the Lord." {Mal_3:5; cf. Jer_22:13} Perhaps also, "Their cry came upon unto God by reason of the bondage"; {Exo_2:23} and "The voice of thy brothers blood crieth unto me from the ground." {Gen_4:10} The frequency with which the subject is mentioned seems to show that the evil which St. James here denounces had long been a common sin among the Jews. Tobit, in his charge to his son, says, "What is hateful to thee do not thou to others. Let not the wages of any man, which hath wrought for thee, tarry with thee (abide with thee all night), but give him it out of hand." {/RAPC Tob 4:14} And in Ecclesiasticus, which St. James seems so often to have in his thoughts, we read, "The bread of the needy is the life of the poor; he that defraudeth him thereof (ο αποστερων αυτην) is a man of blood. He that taketh away his neighbors living slayeth him; and he that defraudeth the laborer of his hire (ο αποστερων μισθοου) is a blood-shedder" (Ecclus. 34:21, 22).
But none of these passages determine for us a point of some interest in the construction used by St. James. The words translated "of you," in "of you kept back by fraud," literally mean "from you" (αφ υμων, not υφ υμων). Two explanations are suggested:
1. The fraudulent action proceeds from-them, and hence "from" becomes nearly equivalent to "by"; and the use of "from" (απο), rather than "by" (υπο), is all the more natural because the word for "kept back by fraud" has the former preposition compounded with it.
2. "From you," being placed between "kept back by fraud" and "crieth out" (ο απεστερημενος αφ υμων κραζει), may go with either, and it will be better to take it with "crieth out:…The hire kept back by fraud crieth out from you." The wrongfully detained wages are with the rich employers, and therefore it is from the place where they are detained that their cry goes up to heaven. The passage quoted above from Exo_2:23 slightly favors this view, for there the Septuagint has, "Their cry came up unto God from their labors" (απο των εργων); but the passages are not really parallel.
The word used for "fields" (χωρας) is worth noting. It implies extensive lands, and therefore adds point to the reproach. The men who own such large properties are not under the temptations to fraud which beset the needy, and it is scandalous that those who can so well afford to pay what is due should refuse. Moreover, the labor of mowing and reaping such fields must be great, and therefore the laborers have well earned their wage. The words "into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth" probably come from Isaiah, {Isa_5:9} and perhaps St. James was led to them by the thought that these extensive fields are the result of fraud or violence; for the Verse which precedes the words in Isaiah run thus: "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!" No other New Testament writer uses the expression "the Lord of Sabaoth," although St. Paul once quotes it from Isaiah. {Rom_9:29} Bede may be right in thinking that its point here is that the rich fancy that the poor have no protector; whereas the Lord of hosts hears their cry. And there is possibly another point in mowers and reapers being selected as the representatives of all hired laborers. Calvin suggests that it is specially iniquitous that those whose toil supplies us with food should themselves be reduced to starvation; and to this it has been added that the hard-heartedness of the grasping employers is indeed conspicuous when not even the joy of the harvest moves them to pay the poor who work for them their hardly earned wage.
The second feature in the iniquity of the rich is the voluptuous and prodigal life which they lead themselves, at the very time that they inflict such hardships upon the poor. "Ye lived delicately on the earth, and took your pleasure; ye nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter." The aorists should perhaps be translated as aorists throughout these verses: "Ye laid up your treasure…ye lived delicately," etc. rather than, "Ye have laid up, ye have lived," etc. The point of view is that of the Day of Judgment, when these wealthy sinners are confronted by the enormities which they committed during their lives. But it is a case in which it is quite permissible to render the Greek aorist by the English perfect. "On the earth" may either mean "during your lifetime," or may be in contrast to "entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." All the while that the cry against their iniquity was ascending to heaven, as an accumulating charge that would at last overwhelm them, they were living in luxury on earth, thinking nothing of the wrath to come. It was the converse of the old Epicurean doctrine, so graphically described by the late Laureate in "The Lotus-eaters." There it is the gods who "lie beside their nectar" in ceaseless enjoyment, "careless of mankind," who send up useless lamentations, which provoke no more than a smile among the neglectful deities. Here it is the men who revel in boundless luxury, careless of the righteous God, whose vengeance they provoke by persistent neglect of His commands.
The meaning of "in a day of slaughter" is not easily determined. The "as"-"as in a day of slaughter"-must certainly be omitted. It was inserted to make more evident one of the possible interpretations of "day of slaughter." "Ye fattened your heart with perpetual banqueting, as if life were made up of killing and eating." "And in that day did the Lord, the Lord of hosts, call to weeping and to mourning, and baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: and behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die". {Isa_22:12-13} If this be the idea which is expressed by the words in question, then the meaning would be, "Ye fared sumptuously every day." But it is possible that "in a day of slaughter" here balances "in the last days" just above. As the folly of heaping up treasure was augmented by the fact that it was done when the end of all things was at hand, so the iniquity of voluptuous living was augmented by the fact that their own destruction was at hand. In this case the wealthy owners, like stalled oxen, were unconsciously fattening themselves for the slaughter. Instead of sacrificing themselves to Gods love and mercy, they had sacrificed and devoured their poor brethren. They had fed themselves, and not the flock; and unwittingly they were preparing themselves as a sacrifice to Gods wrath. For a sacrifice, either willingly or unwillingly, every one must be.
Did any of those whom St. James here condemns remember his words when, a few years later, thousands of the Jews of the Dispersion were once more gathered together at Jerusalem for the sacrifice of the Passover, and there became unwilling sacrifices to Gods slow but sure vengeance? As already pointed out, it was the wealthy among them who specially suffered. Their prosperity and their friendship with the Romans provoked the envy and enmity of the fanatical Zealots, and they perished in a day of slaughter. Josephus tells us that it was all one whether the richer Jews stayed in the city during the siege or tried to escape to the Romans; for they were equally destroyed in either case. Every such person was put to death, on the pretext that he was preparing to desert, but in reality that the plunderers might get his possessions. People who were evidently half-starved were left unmolested, when they declared that they had nothing; but those who bodies showed no signs of privation were tortured to make them reveal the treasures which they were supposed to have concealed. {"Bell. Jud," 5 10:2}
"Ye condemned, ye killed the righteous one; he doth not resist you." Does this refer to the condemnation and death of Jesus Christ? This interpretation has found advocates in all ages-Cassiodorus, Bede, OEcumenius, Grotius, Ben-gel, Lange, and other modern commentators; and it is certainly attractive. St. Peter, addressing the Jews in Solomons Porch, says, "But ye denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of Life". {Act_3:14-15} St. Stephen, in his speech before the Sanhedrin, asks, "Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? and they killed them which showed before of the coming of the Righteous One; of whom ye have now become betrayers and murderers." {Act_7:52; cf. Act_22:14, and 1Pe_3:18} It is certainly no objection to this interpretation that St. James uses the aorist-"ye condemned, ye killed." That tense might fittingly be used either of a course of action in the past, as in the aorists immediately preceding, or of a single action, as of Abrahams offering Isaac. {Jam_2:21} Nor is it any objection that in "He doth not resist you" St. James changes to the present tense. In any case the change from past to present has to be explained, and it is as easy to explain it of the present longsuffering of Christ, or of His abandoning them to their wickedness, as of the habitual meekness of the righteous man. Nor, again, is it any objection that the Jews addressed in this Epistle could not rightly be charged with the condemnation and death of Christ, for twenty or thirty years had elapsed since that event. It is by no means improbable that among the Jews then living there were many who had cried "Crucify Him" on Good Friday; and even if there were not, the words of St. James are quite justifiable. The Crucifixion was in a very real sense the act of the whole nation, far more so than was the murder of Zacharias the son of Jehoiada, and yet Jesus says to the Jews respecting Zacharias, "whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar." If at the present day the English might be told that they condemned and killed Charles I, and the French be told that they condemned and killed Louis XVI, much more might the Jews in the middle of the first century be said to have condemned and killed Jesus Christ. But nevertheless, this attractive and tenable interpretation is probably not the right one; the context is against it. It is the evil that is inherent in class tyrannizing over class that is condemned, the rich oppressing the poor, and the godless persecuting the godly. "The righteous one" is here not an individual, but the representative of a class. The iniquitous violence which slew Jesus Christ and His martyrs, James the son of Zebedee and Stephen, illustrates what St. James says here, just as his own martyrdom does; but it does not follow from this that he is alluding to any one of these events in particular. The Book of Wisdom seems once more to be in the writers mind: "Let us oppress the poor righteous man; let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient grey hairs of the aged Let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education He is grievous to us even to behold: for his life is not like other mens; his ways are of another fashion…Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience. Let us condemn him with a shameful death; for by his own saying he shall be respected". {Jam_2:10-20}
Julius Caesar on one occasion stated his financial position by confessing that he needed half a million of money in order to be worth nothing. The spiritual condition of many prosperous men might be expressed in a similar way. Caesar never allowed lack of funds to stand between him and his political aims; when he had nothing he borrowed at enormous interest. So also with us. In pursuing our worldly aims we sink deeper and deeper in spiritual ruin, and accumulate debts for an eternal bankruptcy. Riches are not a whir less perilous to the soul now than they were in the first century, and yet how few among the wealthy really believe that they are perilous at all. The wisdom of our forefathers has placed in the Litany a petition which every well-to-do person should say with his whole heart: "In all time of our wealth, Good Lord, deliver us."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1–6. Go to now. The same expression is used…
1–6. Go to now. The same expression is used in 4:13. There it is a rebuke to those who haste to be rich; here to those who use riches wickedly. Ye rich men. James looks beyond the church of his day to be his nation and to the church of after time. Weep and howl. Because of coming judgments for your sins.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Jas_5:1. Rich men.—Always in Scripture, the men who are…
RULES FOR DAILY CONDUCT
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
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Jas_5:1. Rich men.—Always in Scripture, the men who are proud of their riches, centred in their riches, and are nothing but rich. The good man, who happens to have the trust of wealth, and is trying to use it faithfully, should not be thought of as addressed in Scripture reproofs. Howl.—Only used here in the New Testament, but found in Isa_13:6; Isa_14:31; Isa_15:3; “weep with howling,” a desperate form of distress. Illustrate by the woes that came on the rich in connection with the siege of Jerusalem. Shall come.—Better, “are now actually coming.”
Jas_5:3. Cankered.—Rusted; used generally of the tarnish that comes over all metals exposed to the action of the air. Witness against you.—“For a witness to you,” not testimony against, but warning lest. For the last.—Better, “in the last.” Evidently in mind is the speedy fulfilment of our Lord’s predictions.
Jas_5:4. Of the Lord of sabaoth.—Κυρίου Σαβαώθ. Lord of hosts, especially characteristic name found in Malachi.
Jas_5:5. Lived in pleasure.—Better, “ye lived luxuriously and spent wantonly.” As in.—Better, “in.” “The rich men’ of Judæa, in their pampered luxury, were but fattening themselves, all unconscious of their doom, as beasts are fattened for the slaughter” (Plumptre).
Jas_5:6. The just.—Not specifically “the Just One,” but generally “pious, righteous men.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Jas_5:1-6
Rich Men that are Only Rich.—This passage seems to have the character of an “aside” or “parenthesis.” It is difficult to conceive that persons of such character, worthy of such severe condemnation, could have been members of the Jewish Christian Churches. It is more reasonable to think that St. James sends this severe message to such as were persecuting the members of the Churches, and riding over them in the masterfulness of their pride, and that he designed to comfort the persecuted and distressed by the assurance that God was surely dealing with their persecutors, and that there could be no reason for envying their lot. The message is but an echo of our Lord’s saying, “Woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation” (Luk_6:24). It is important to make a careful distinction between persons who are rich and persons who are only rich. It is not wrong to be rich. It is not necessarily a hindrance to Christian life to be rich. A man may just as sincerely and acceptably lay his riches upon the altar of service as anything else that he has. But it is wrong to be a rich man and nothing else. It is wrong when that is all you can say about the man. It is woful wrong when you are compelled to say that he is a bad rich man. This message should not be taken as sent to all rich men—only to such rich men as St. James describes. This distinction and qualification needs to be kept in mind in treating all the New Testament references to rich men. With some care the circumstances of the rich Jews, in the time immediately preceding the final fall of Jerusalem, should be presented.
I. Riches with troubles.—In the best of times to increase riches is to increase anxieties and troubles; and when hard times come, their strain is always felt most severely by the rich. For one thing, as riches increase, wants are multiplied, indulgences become necessities, and there is so much to give up, when banks break, ships founder, and speculations fail. The poor may feel the strain of troublous times first, but they do not feel it worst. It is but a little step from their usual limitations down into poverty; but it is a big step from the mansion to the workhouse. St. James sees, in the swiftly advancing miseries that were coming on the Jewish nation, the just judgment of God on men who were rich, and nothing else; at least, nothing else that was good. If a man is only rich, he can lose everything in a time of national calamity. If a man has character, and is rich in that way, all the woes of the world cannot take his riches away. Ward Beecher says: “No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.” We envy the rich; but perhaps we should not if we clearly saw that we must take riches with trouble. That truth may be borne in upon us by watching the faces of the carriage-folk in Hyde Park. It is a most rare thing to see a sunny face in middle-aged man or woman; discontent, weariness, envy, bad temper, well-nigh everywhere, so plainly revealing that, for them with all their riches, life is a failure and a bore. If it is thus when a country is peaceful and plenty abounds, what must be the troubles of the rich when Roman armies encircle the city, and drought and famine and pestilence stalk around? Riches can do so little to alleviate misery then; and a gaunt, famished crowd have no respect for any, but grasp and steal wherever they can. Bishop Wordsworth vigorously paraphrases Jas_5:2-3 : “Your wealth is mouldering in corruption, and your garments, stored up in vain superfluity, are become moth-eaten: although they may still glitter brightly in your eyes, and may dazzle men by their brilliance, yet they are in fact already cankered; they are loathsome in God’s sight; the Divine anger has breathed upon them and blighted them; they are already withered and blasted.” When the rich man has character, then only is he prepared for the trouble-times of life; then only has he the “treasure in heaven, which neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.”
II. Riches with injustice.—“Behold, the hire of the labourers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth.” It is making wholly wrong use of this passage to compel it to support modern socialistic schemes, which are based on the false assumption, that all employers of labour deal unfairly with their labourers. It would be as true to say that all labourers deal unfairly with their employers; and that is manifestly false. There are cases. Deal with the cases; but do not attempt to base a general law upon isolated cases. Oppressing the hireling in his wages was, however, a characteristic Jewish sin. “The grasping avarice that characterised the latter days of Judaism showed itself in this form of oppression among others.” And it should be recognised that the possession of riches easily becomes, or supports, a temptation to deal unjustly with the poor. Injustice may take form as
(1) failure to consider their due claims;
(2) reserve of the payments due to them through indifference or wilfulness;
(3) inattention to the things necessary to their physical, sanitary, and moral well-being. Happy is that man in the possession of riches who, having a sensitive conscience, finds it brings him no accusations of injustice.
III. Riches with self-indulgence.—“Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter.” The sentence is a severe one, and forcibly presents to us the self-centredness of the rich, pampering his appetite—every sort of appetite—clothing in scarlet and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day, like Dives. St. James, with the licence of poetic imagination, pictures them dressing themselves for death, fattening themselves for the day of slaughter. This self-indulgence is the supreme peril of the rich. They have no call to the exercise of self-restraint, and every moral fibre becomes relaxed. Self-indulgent people easily do wrong things.
IV. Riches with violence.—“Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous one.” Not Christ. St. James is speaking in a poetic vein, and giving point to his accusation by compelling them to think of some one case. Reference is directly to some cases of persecution, in connection with the Jewish Christian Church, which had aroused St. James’s indignation. Of this all may be assured who suffer wrong in any way from the masterfulness and injustice of unprincipled rich men—“Their cry enters into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” “He is the avenger of all such.”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Jas_5:1-3. The Poverty of Riches.—It is important to recognise that the rich man denounced in Scripture is never the man who merely has possessions. They may come to him by the accident of birth, or as the natural result of business ability. There is nothing wrong, or necessarily mischievous, in possession; and wealth is just as truly a trust from God, to be used in helpful ministries, as is any personal talent. But, like everything else frail man deals with, riches may be misused. They may come to be trusted in; they may take the soul’s confidence from God. They may spoil a man’s relations with his fellow-man. They may seriously deteriorate a man’s personal character. The peril of riches lies in their persuasion of the man to trust in them, and in their attraction of the man to seek them at any cost or sacrifice. “They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare.” Because riches so easily entice, persuade, and tempt, it is necessary to point out what a side of poverty there is even to great riches. Its purchasing power is the real test of the value of wealth. It is thus we estimate the differing values of gold and silver and copper. A thing is reckoned of no value if it has in it no purchasing power.
I. What can riches buy?—Only what belongs to the range of material good. We need not think of that material good as in any narrow limitations. It includes all pleasant things meeting bodily needs and bodily desires; but it includes also all that ministers to mind, to artistic feeling, to society interests, and even to spiritual necessities. The rich man has at command whatsoever of good the material world can supply; and getting it for himself, he cannot help getting it for others to share with him. If man were only of the earth earthy, riches might secure supply of all his need.
II. What cannot riches buy?—It has no purchasing power in any of the immaterial worlds. It cannot buy love. It cannot secure the noblest form of human service—the service of love. Love is only bought with love. No coin was ever yet paid for it. True of the love of man to man. Sublimely true of the love of God to man. It is bought “without money and without price.”
Jas_5:4. Loyalty to Workpeople.—There are peculiarities in Eastern workpeople which partly explain the need for such advice as this. Eastern workpeople have no such personal independence as characterises even the labourers of our Western lands. They are more correctly associated with our idea of slaves. They have the spiritless character, the unintelligent submission, the disposition to shirk burdens, which we connect with our notion of slaves. In Eastern countries no kind of servant or workman can be trusted alone without direct personal supervision. Overseers are always appointed, to keep them at their duty. As a natural consequence, masters readily become severe and tyrannical, indifferent to the labourers’ well-being, and practically out of all sympathy with them. Moses had to legislate for their protection (Lev_19:13). Prophets had to denounce the sin of oppressing the labourer (Jer_22:13; Mal_3:5). “The grasping avarice that characterised the latter days of Judaism showed itself in this form of oppression.” Christianity indirectly improves the position and relations of workpeople. It does not directly interfere with social conditions. Its principle is distinctly stated in the apostolic decision, “Let every man wherein he is called, therein abide with God.” It affects workpeople by improving them, and by altering the sentiments of their masters concerning them. A worldly master sees in his workpeople only persons with whose help he is to make money. A Christian master sees in his workpeople persons for whose all-round well-being he is responsible. There are some senses in which they cannot help themselves. Yet in those things their truest well-being is bound up. Loyalty to Christ means loyalty to them; and this brings upon the Christian a burden of responsibility to them. Let the Christian master feel his loyalty to those who serve him, and cherish a right spirit towards them; these will be sure to inspire right and wise and kindly deeds. How far the individual sense of loyalty and responsibility is likely to be destroyed by modern strikes, combinations, social, or rather socialistic, movements, must be left open to individual decision.
Jas_5:5. The Moral Mischief of living delicately.—It greatly surprises us that such intensely severe reproofs could be needed for persons in the actual membership of the early Christian Church. The R.V. renders this passage, “Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure.” We might render, “Ye lived luxuriously, and spent wantonly.” In this is severely reproved the misuse of the riches possessed. And riches are always misused when they are made to pamper bodily appetite. The word “delicately” is suggestive as reminding us that luxurious and wanton living as readily takes refined and artistic as coarse and animal forms. The point which may be worked out is that, no matter what may be the station, culture, or resources at command of the Christian professor, he is under absolute obligation to Christ to hold himself under all due self-restraint, and to put all his relations into wise and careful limitations. His “moderation is to be known unto all men.” This means a moral bracing himself up, to secure control of himself, and control of his circumstances; and with that control the man is safe amid temptations. But any form of self-indulgence unbraces a man, loosens and weakens the moral fibre. And when a man loses his power of self-restraint and self-rule in some one thing, he can never be certain of holding his power of self-restraint in any other. And, moreover, he has opened one “gate of the city of Man-soul” to the enemy, and the city is no longer safe. It is usually on the side of some bodily indulgence that Christian professors begin to fail. Moral mischief comes with indulgence at the table, or in drink; sometimes there is a relaxation which allows a man to be carried away by worldly pleasures or sensual attractions—the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life.” The apostle gives the advice, which we may wisely apply in a variety of directions, when he bids us “keep the vessel of our body in sanctification and honour.” In relation to delicacy of eating and drinking, it should be better known than it is, that highly cooked and spiced foods bear mischievously on the animal feelings which are so closely associated with the moral life.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Jas 5:7-8
Jas 5:7-8
The lesson of Advent is a twofold one. It is a lesson of watchfulness; it is also a lesson of patience. They are the two contrasted tones heard all through that solemn discourse upon the Mount of Olives from which, as "in a glass, darkly," through parable and figure, we have learned all that we can ever learn of that—
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"Far-off Divine event
To which the whole creation moves."
I. Patience is a lesson which we all need. We need it in the heat and eagerness of youth; we need it in the more firmly held purposes and severer tempers of manhood; we need it in forming our opinions and in ordering our lives, in judging our friends, in judging our enemies, in judging ourselves; we need it in our selfish plans and in our unselfish ones also. Impatience wears many disguises. It is indeed nearly related to several virtues; but the near relations of virtues are often not virtues themselves. To one it bears the appearance of frankness, which says out what others feel, which has no time or care to soften wholesome, if unpleasant, truth; to another it seems like proper spirit, resenting what should be resented, chafing at officious criticism, claiming a man’s freedom in thinking and judging; to still another it seems the expression of energy, or zeal, or fearlessness, pushing on when others hesitate, making light of imaginary obstacles, so intent on a great end as to have no time for minute consideration of the means. In the smallest spheres of life, in little societies, in the family, in the individual soul, impatience destroys peace, takes its happiness from effort, wears out prematurely hearts which, if this poison were absent, would bear and do great things in God’s service.
II. I suggest three points in respect of which especially the New Testament bids us connect the lesson of patience with the thoughts of the Second Advent: (1) Judging. "Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come." "Let your moderation" (your fairness, largeness, gentleness of judging) "be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand." Our Lord puts it in one word, not as a counsel of perfection, not as what in all cases we can actually do, but as an aim, an ideal, a warning: "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged." We should make allowance, look always on the best side, hope all things, believe all things. "He hath committed all judgment unto the Son, because He is the Son of man." (2) Bearing. Think how many times in the Epistles we hear the words "patience," "endurance," and almost always in the context, either in word or in thought, is the remembrance of this limit, this great hope, in which men can stand firm. Our trials are very various; they vary with our years, our circumstances, our temperament. "The heart knoweth its own bitterness," but the great sweetener to all may be the thought that God knows it too; that He is disciplining us for the day when He comes to "restore all things," to "bind up the broken-hearted," when "all sorrow and sighing shall flee away." (3) Waiting. "O tarry thou the Lord’s leisure," sings the Psalmist; "the patient waiting for Christ," is St. Paul’s last word to the Thessalonians. Both of them knew that to anxious and eager hearts it was one of the hardest of lessons; but peace cannot be had unless it be learnt, nor true strength.
E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 278.
References: Jas 5:7, Jas 5:8.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1025; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 308; Ibid., vol. xiv., p. 88; E. H. Palmer, Ibid., p. 269. Jas 5:7; Jas 5:11.—Homilist, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 86. Jas 5:11.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi., No. 1845; T. B. Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. v., p. 376; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 269; vol. iii., pp. 287, 326.
Jas 5:11
Note:—
I. The character here given to God: "The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy." (1) "Pitiful." Pity is a feeling for, a feeling with, the distressed. The pity of God is of high quality and eminent degree. (2) "Of tender mercy." It is kindness to the sinful, to the guilty and undeserving and ill-deserving. Tender mercy is mercy easily excited, not like a flow of water produced by machinery, but like a stream of water from a spring or well. The merciful Father is of tender mercy, and the tenderness of that mercy has not been produced by Christ; it is, on the other hand, expressed and manifested by Christ.
II. The character manifested. Observe the unfolding of this beauteous and glorious character. God has a purpose in all the afflictions of His saints, which when developed reveals God as very pitiful and of tender mercy. (1) Here, then, is something to believe. (2) Here is something to be ultimately seen: the end of the Lord. To be seen, there is the coming out of tribulation; to be seen, the being better and more happy for that tribulation; the comparison between the sufferings of the present time and the glory revealed; the light and transient appearance of affliction when in conjunction with an eternal weight of glory; the high purpose and supreme wisdom of God in the suffering of affliction; the end seen to be better than the beginning; and God proved, demonstrated, to be "very pitiful and of tender mercy."
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 28.
Jas 5:13
Religious Worship a Remedy for Excitements.
St. James seems to imply in these words that there is that in religious worship which supplies all our spiritual need, which suits every mood of mind and every variety of circumstances, over and above the heavenly and supernatural assistance which we are allowed to expect from it. Prayer and praise seem in his view to be a universal remedy, a panacea, as it is called, which ought to be used at once, whatever it be that affects us. Excitements are the indisposition of the mind; and of these excitements in different ways the services ’of Divine worship are the proper antidotes. How they are so shall now be considered.
I. Excitements are of two kinds: secular and religious. First, let us consider secular excitements. Such is the pursuit of gain, or of power, or of distinction. A man may live from week to week in the fever of a decent covetousness, to which he gives some more specious names, till the heart of religion is eaten out of him. One very momentous use of prayer and praise with all of us is that it breaks the current of worldly thoughts. Our daily prayer morning and evening suspends our occupations of time and sense, and especially the prayers of the Church do this. The weekly services of prayer and praise come to us as a gracious relief, a pause from the world, a glimpse of the third heaven, lest the world should rob us of our hope and enslave us to that hard master who is plotting our eternal destruction.
II. Next, let us consider how religious excitements are set right by the same Divine medicine. Is any one desirous of gaining comfort to his soul, of bringing Christ’s presence home to his very heart, and of doing the highest and most glorious thing for the whole world? Let him praise God; let David’s holy Psalter be as familiar words in his mouth, his daily service, ever repeated, yet ever new and ever sacred; let him pray: especially let him intercede. Few are rich; few can suffer for Christ; all may pray. Other men will not pray for themselves; you may pray for them and for the general Church; and while you pray, you will find enough in the defects of your praying to remind you of your own nothingness and to keep you from pride while you aim at perfection.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. iii., p. 336.
Jas 5:13-16
The Visitation of the Sick.
I. To understand the clause which refers to anointing with oil, it must be remembered that in those early and simple days, when little was known about the structure of the human frame, and the healing art resolved itself very much into a rude kind of surgery, oil was regarded as a great restorative—as, indeed, it is now—and as the best form of medicine. In the Old Testament, Isaiah speaks of wounds and bruises which have never been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment; and in the New Testament, when the good Samaritan bound up the wounds of the traveller to Jericho, he gave oil as a medicine, and wine. Hence the application of oil is here prescribed possibly as the means which it might please God to bless to the sick man’s recovery, possibly only as a symbol of that recovery; but whether it be the prescribed means or symbol, no greater perversion of a Scriptural passage can be imagined than that which has found here a warrant for what Romanists call "extreme unction," that is, anointing, as a religious ceremonial, a patient who is given over by a physician and about to die. While we pray for the recovery of our sick friend, we must at the same time remember that Almighty God works by means, and apply to the patient the remedies which a medical man prescribes; in a word, modern medicine, of whatsoever kind it be, corresponds to the ancient oil.
II. "If we have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." The Apostle naturally means, if in respect to his particular sickness he have committed sins. In a general sense we have all committed sins, and it is perfectly true that there is a deep connection between sin and disease; but at the same time it cannot be said of a particular case of sickness that the patient is suffering for his own sins.
III. Visitation of the sick may be made in the way of fraternal sympathy, as well as of ministerial duty. That gracious acknowledgment of the King in the day of final account, "I was sick, and ye visited Me," will surely not be made to the clergy only, but to all who have brought the accents of sympathy and the consolations of religion to the bedside of the sick and suffering.
E. M. Goulburn, Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 241.
Reference: Jas 5:14.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 132.
Jas 5:15
Among all the trials of life there is no occasion when we more deeply feel the need of God’s helping hand than when brought low by sickness ourselves, or when we tremble for the life of some member of our household or a near and valued friend. Unwavering confidence in God inspires the belief that whatever is really for the best our gracious Father will be sure to grant.
I. We should always be humble in our prayers. Doubtless many a petition is rejected by a higher tribunal for lack of humility in the hearts of those who presented it.
II. Importunate earnestness is another characteristic of successful prayer, if, at the same time, we have the spirit of submission to the wisdom of our heavenly Father.
J. N. Norton, Every Sunday, p. 351.
Jas 5:16
The Strength of Working Prayer.
I. The praying. It is not said "the prayer." And the difference is worth observing. If it were said "the prayer," it might seem as if the words of the prayer were like a charm, such as we read of in ancient fables, when some particular words repeated by any person are spoken of as able to produce some wonderful effect, so that, whoever uses them, they are regarded as equally powerful, the power, some mysterious imaginary power, being in the words themselves. It is the praying—the constant, earnest praying of the heart, not without words, no doubt, at least in general, but the constant, earnest praying of the heart—to which the effect is attributed by St. James.
II. It is the praying of a righteous man, not anybody’s praying. St. James is speaking of the continuous heart-praying of the man who, clinging to the righteousness which has been won for him in Christ, is earnestly bent on rendering to God in his own body, soul, and spirit, by the help of the Holy Ghost, the offering of a righteous and saintly life. That is the sort of man of whose praying the Apostle speaks.
III. That sort of praying by that sort of man is a very strong thing. It is stronger than the wind, stronger than the earthquake, stronger than the sea, stronger than anything in the world; for God is moved by it, and He moves all creation at His pleasure.
IV. Its strength lies in the energy of its working; it sets on foot a mighty system of energies. The angels of God exult, the souls of men are wrought upon, the course of human events is guided, the grace of God is won, the Holy Spirit of God is abundantly poured out, by the secret incessant working of the mighty spiritual power that belongs to the "praying of the righteous man."
G. Moberly, Parochial Sermons, p. 225.
Fervent Prayer.
Intercessory prayer is but one part of the great system of intercession on which human life is organised. Intercession—it is simply a "coming in between." We know the word well in Roman political history as the tribune’s veto. In its widest sense it may be applied to every act in which one human being is able to come in between another and some evil that might befall him. Nay, we may extend it even more widely still to the whole principle of mediation, by which one man is used to convey blessings to another. As it was with our Lord, so it is with the Church which He founded to represent Him when He should be gone. Its whole existence is one living act of intercession. Always and everywhere the Church is an intercessor; it is the expression of the mind of the Paraclete, standing by its very existence between God and the world, standing between the world and the forces of evil which threaten it. Intercessory prayer is but the expression of its intercessory life. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, that interdependence of man on man which is seen in the actions of daily life finds a new sphere of operations in our prayers. Not merely the actions, not merely the character and influence, but also the praying, of a righteous man becomes a great force.
I. It is a great force, first, because it forces us to keep up a true ideal of what those for whom we pray may be. It makes us, in George Macdonald’s striking phrase, "think of them and God together." If I pray for any one, that implies that I have faith in him, that I believe he may be better than he is. Which of us does not know what a power for good this is? To know that some one does believe in us, that some one, knowing all our weakness, yet does believe that we can conquer our temptations; to be with some one who expects us to be better, this, even if it comes from those who have never knelt in prayer for us—this is an effectual intercession.
II. Intercession is, again, a great force because it pledges us to do the best we can for those for whom we pray. We cannot, in very shame, ask God to help those whom we are refusing to help ourselves when that help lies in our power; the very fact of intercession reminds us of the truth of the dependence of man upon man. We ask God to bless those for whom we care, and again and again He reminds us that His blessings are given through men, and the answer to our prayer is that we are sent on an errand of mercy.
III. Intercession is also such a great force because it brings into action the power of God, just as the tribune’s veto would have had no force if it had been spoken by him on his own responsibility. It was strong because armed with the strength of law; it was strong not with the strength of even a Tiberius Gracchus, but with the power of a sacrosanct authority: so our prayers are strong because they have the promise and the power of Christ behind them.
W. Lock, Sermon Year Book, vol. i., p. 1.
References: Jas 5:17.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 96. Jas 5:17, Jas 5:18.—J. Davis, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 214.
Jas 5:19-20
Means of Salvation.
I. Let us see what character consists of, and then we may see where and in what way it may be changed. First of all, there is the character we bring with us into this world, which we call our nature; and then there is that second nature which education and habit impart. Christian divines in all times have taught that man comes into this world with a decided character, bent, or bias; they call it human depravity, and they account for it by original sin: and modern science is equally strong in maintaining that man comes into this world with the shaping influence of the past upon him and a depravity inherited from savage or animal ancestors. Anyhow here is the fact: a man comes into this world a positive and decided kind of being, with a nature of a fixed quality and texture, a nature which is a kind of concrete, a fusing together of all sorts of broken fragments and dust of the past, or, to take a more living illustration, a soul with all sorts of buried seeds in it.
II. Conduct in the long run modifies character, especially that product of habit which we call second nature. By not doing a thing for a certain time a man cares less about doing it, his health is better, his courage higher, his pleasure with others increased, his self-respect more ample. The old taste begins to decay. A joyful audacity fills the eye which once had a suspicious, hunted look. New habits and tastes are gradually formed. In other words, a new character arises from changed circumstances, from a changed condition of things. Leave men, in all which surrounds them and acts upon them, in precisely the same state, without the smallest change, and they must remain the same. They must be brought into contact with new powers, new saving forces, if they are to be renewed in the spirit of their minds. But since they cannot change themselves, but must be what they are, change must be thrust upon them; their salvation must be directly set up by a power outside themselves; they need a Saviour. This is the Divine law, and its great manifestation was the Son of God, who was Son of man, who is the perfect illustration of God’s dealings with man, the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He came to men, who without Him must have remained dead in trespasses and sins, and started them from the grave into newness of life.
W. Page Roberts, Liberalism in Religion, p. 147.
Danger and Effort.
I. There is, first, individual danger: the danger of erring from the truth. The danger may be either intellectual or moral, either the darkening of the understanding, or the corrupting of the heart. The allusion evidently is to one who, having known the truth, had departed from its safe and pleasant paths, and had come under the entanglements either of erroneous notions or of vicious life. And the twofold danger is in existence still. Moral error is, I need scarcely re mind you, more imminent and more disastrous than the other. It is quite possible to hold erroneous opinions in connection with a large charity. Wood, hay, and stubble are sometimes built with as clumsy materials on the true foundation; but where the danger is not intellectual, but moral, there is of necessity present alienation from God and the prospect of perpetual exile from the glory of His power. Heresy is not a trifling thing; it is to be resisted and deplored: but the deadliest heresy is sin, and there is danger in a world where every influence is a temptation, and where every passion is a tempter.
II. Take, next, the thought of individual effort: "If one convert him." There is here a distinct recognition of the influence of mind over mind, that principle of dependence and of oversight which is involved in our mutual relationship as members of one family. Not the least of the endowments which make up our solemn stewardship is this mysterious and inseparable power of influence, one of the most important talents entrusted to us, and of which we shall have to give account at the judgment-seat of God. It is of universal bestowment; we are none of us without it. Your sphere is narrow, you say; your influence is small; you can do nothing for
Christ. One acorn is a very insignificant thing, but the majestic oak is its development of strength; one little rippling wavelet makes no account, but it is carried to the springtide, and the springtide were not perfect without it; one raindrop is hardly noticed as it falls, but it is enough for one rosebud’s life to make it blow. There is not one of you, however small and scanty and narrow your influence, who may not, by patient and prayerful toil, become a wise winner of souls.
W. M. Punshon, Penny Pulpit, Nos. 3674, 3675.
References: Jas 5:19, Jas 5:20.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i., No. 45; vol. xix., No. 1137; Homilist, vol. iv., p. 332; Homiletic Quarterly, vol i., p. 251. Jas 5:20.—J. Keble, Sermons on Various Occasions, p. 156.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Division 5. (Jas 5:1-20.)
Division 5. (Jas 5:1-20.)
The end and the conditions of the way.
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In this closing part of the epistle we are warned, as naturally, of the end at hand. It is most blessed comfort to realize that it is so, and yet we may need it as warning too. The way and the end are here put before us together, as they are, indeed, inseparable. The way has an ending proper to itself, and it is always right seriously to contemplate this. We may abuse the liberty of grace, not, indeed, by overvaluing it, but by our conception of what this means. The apostle’s word, "That, after having preached to others, I may not myself be cast away," is taken either to qualify God’s grace itself, and to make us imagine that the apostle, after all, had some right and reasonable doubt of what might be the end with him; or else, by those who know the gospel better, it is simply put aside, left out of consideration, as if there were no meaning in it; and yet how fruitful for us should be the contemplation of the way by which, and by which alone, God brings us home! It belongs to that discernment of good and evil which the same apostle has told us comes to us as those who are accustomed to be exercised about it. "By reason of use, we have our senses exercised to discern both good and evil." But James, as we realize in the way he speaks here, is still and ever in the synagogue. He is contemplating ends of the most opposite character, for opposite classes of people, to whom he addresses himself. There are the rich on the one hand, living luxuriously and in oppression of the poor. There are those who, in another spirit, are waiting for the coming of their Lord, but who need to be exhorted to patience because of the evil. Yet while we cannot but realize the different classes to whom he addresses himself, it does not follow that there is no profit for every one of us in the contemplation of this. The fact is that all prophecy, which is ever hastening on towards the end, and putting in the light of the end the present, to be illumined by it, has large use for us in this very way. We look at the world as a whole unit. We see the principles upon which men act, and how they work out in result. God, who makes all manifest at the end, is thus brought in everywhere, and we learn more deeply in His presence the character of the things which are contrary to Him, as well as the character of those which please Him. This is what we find in this last division.
1. He addresses himself in the first place to the rich. He threatens them with divine judgment. In his stern, strong language he bids them weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon them. Their riches, he says, are corrupted, and their garments moth-eaten; their gold and silver are eaten away, and their rust only remains, to be a testimony against them, and to eat their own flesh as fire. They have heaped up their treasure in the last days, ignoring entirely that they are the last days. With no thought of the coming judgment, they let the hire of the laborers who have harvested their fields, kept back wrongfully by them, cry in the ever-wakeful ears of the Lord of Hosts, (the "Lord of Sabaoth"). They have lived luxuriously on the earth in self-indulgence. They have nourished their hearts in a day of slaughter, when, as the thought suggests, their tables must be heaped up at whatever cost; nay, they have condemned and killed the just, suffering it unresistingly. It is perfectly plain, therefore, the class which is contemplated here.
But he turns to others who are the sufferers, and to whom the word is an exhortation to patience until He comes who will set all things right. In all that which seems for themselves so vain, in the labor barren to themselves, and which yields nothing except to the hand of the oppressor, he would have them yet consider themselves as laborers for God, as husbandmen waiting for the precious fruit of the earth, which must receive the early and the latter rain before it can be harvested. Harvest there will yet be of another sort than they may now deem. They are to be patient, stablishing their hearts, for indeed the coming of the Lord has drawn nigh. They are to avoid the fretfulness which so easily results from just these things which call for patience. Those that are brethren in a common faith may even thus easily murmur against one another. It may be in view of the better lot that some may seem to have; but the Judge of all standeth before the doors, and for suffering and patience they may take as examples the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord; most blessed, surely, to have been such, yet they are the very types of those persecuted and wronged for that very speaking; and in the endurance which is thus called for, have they not seen the blessing? Did they not know of the endurance of Job; and in his case was not the end of the Lord seen, that indeed the Lord, spite of all that might seem contradictory to it, is "full of compassion, and pitiful"?
The apostle here closes with a solemn warning against oath-making, the special force of which for Jews we may see in our Lord’s "sermon on the mount" (Mat 5:33-37). The law, with that recognition of human strength which as law it necessarily implied, condemned only the "forswearing," while permitting the "swearing." But the powerlessness of man has been amply demonstrated, and the Lord teaches that now it is this which is to be recognized in the common language of those who "cannot make one hair white or black." How thoroughly is that faith, which is the apostle’s theme here, united with such complete giving up of self-confidence as faith supposes! We have had one example of this in the rebuke of all absolute promises as to "what shall be on the morrow." The present exhortation is akin to that; and the lesson of self-distrust, by reason of its great unpalatableness to us, needs to be in various ways enforced.
2. Through all these exhortations, the emphasis, as one can easily see, is upon faith; and that is the great subject of the epistle. The fruitfulness of faith, of course, is pressed, as we know; but that only the more distinctly shows the prominence of it here; so in all that follows now to the end. In various conditions the one sufficiency is God. The one appeal is to Him. "Doth any among you suffer evil? Let him pray: not take things into his own hand, but refer them to Another. "Is any mirthful?" Let his joy be in God, and uttered to Him. "Is any sick, let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up" -a passage which, by some, has been used to deny the lawfulness of all natural means, as inconsistent really with this faith in God and appeal to Him; but we must take Scripture generally to decide in a matter of this kind, and not what is evidently, in some ways at least, exceptional. It awakens questions, moreover, which are hard to answer in the present condition of things. Where shall we find the elders of the assembly now if they are to be, at least, appointed in the regular way that we find in Scripture? Certainly one very distinct thing with regard to these is that the assembly did not, and could not, appoint them. Witness the apostle’s sending Titus to do so in Crete, or the specifications with regard to eldership given to Timothy at Ephesus; where already, as we know, there were elders that had been appointed before. Timothy, himself a young man and not an elder, was evidently an unsuited person for this, if there was any succession in the matter, if elders could appoint elders. The appointment is more distinctly assigned to Titus; without the thought, clearly, of the assemblies themselves being able to appoint them. In the history of the Acts it was the apostles that did so; still not the assembly. We have no apostles, manifestly, and no apostolic delegates, no one who can prove that he has a commission in such matters. No doubt, if we are content merely to think of those who fulfil the character required, without any official appointment, then we may avoid this difficulty; but it is plain we are only following an inference of our own in this case, and not the plain word of God with regard to it. Moreover, the anointing with oil in the name of the Lord seems to be the claim of an authority which those of whom we are speaking would be the last to assert. No doubt the emphasis is laid here upon the "prayer of faith," to save the sick; and the prayer of faith certainly should not be lacking with us. We need not doubt how much we should gain if there were a more simple and constant reference to the Lord in these matters, and we cannot but remember the example of old of one who sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians, and died. The use of means that are in our hand may easily be perverted to the slighting of this way of faith; and it would certainly be far better to leave out the means in any case rather than to leave out the Lord. The distinct and united acknowledgment of our dependence upon Him in all these cases is due from us, and we suffer loss if God is not acknowledged; but then for this, no elders or anointing can be needed, and the prescription of these things makes it evident that something more is contemplated here than simply the prayer of faith. Even so, there is no prohibition of means, if there be no prescription of them; and in God’s ordinary way of working He certainly works by them. He could sustain us at any time without food, but we do not ordinarily expect Him to do this, although the food may profit nothing except the Lord please to use it. We cannot but remember in this way the prescription of a little wine to Timothy, while at the same time he was in the very midst of an assembly which had its regularly appointed elders. In Judaism let us remember how, at the beginning of it, God was pleased to act miraculously in a marked way; and in the beginning of Christianity in Jerusalem, we find the same signs and miracles accompanying the Word. This was a most suited testimony to the new doctrine being published, a testimony which was also recognized in our Lord’s case by the Jews as that which was to establish a new doctrine (Mar 1:27). The waning of all miraculous powers when once the testimony was established is marked, and cannot be denied. People may impute it, as they do impute it, to a lack of faith on the part of Christians; but with regard to such things one might certainly expect faith to be manifested as much as in other things. In fact, they would be things most earnestly clung to, for the manifest benefit and the display of power in them. On the other hand, the prevalence of corruption which, whatever may be our own individual views of truth, cannot but be acknowledged, would naturally make it less suited that the Church so failing should still preserve her ornaments; but the reason for the decline of miracles is evidently other than this. In the history of the Acts we find an apparent absence of such things, where, for instance, as in Berea, men were employed with the Word itself to test the doctrine by it. Although in general, as the Lord promised, miraculous signs did follow at the beginning those who believed, yet even then this was never universally true. It could not be pleaded as the necessary mark of Christian faith. "Are all workers of miracles?" says the apostle; and the question in itself supposes a negative answer. Thus, if a whole assembly lacked, there was no necessary failure, and need be no disappointment in this case; while in Corinth their "coming behind in no gift" was no necessary evidence of a right state of soul. It seems even, one would say, a matter of course that God never meant our daily lives to be full of manifest miracles. He never meant to demonstrate the truth after that fashion. He would leave it, rather, to its own inherent and spiritual power. Men easily crave miracles; but the whole generation in the wilderness, the constant witness of these, nevertheless perished for their unbelief. The miracles work no faith, although they might, and would, awaken attention to that which God presented as an object for faith; yet to those who believed in Christ, when they saw the miracles, He did not commit Himself (Joh 2:23-25). Every way it should be plain today that what goes for such amongst men commonly is no longer the mark upon true faith or the truth itself which calls for faith. The same things exactly can be wrought by those who deny Christian fundamentals as by those who profess them; and where is the evidence then? No set of men in the present day can be found who can adjust broken bones without surgery. If God wanted to show what He was doing, do we think that a broken bone would be a greater difficulty to Him than anything else?
Moreover, the signs and wonders of the time of the end are spoken of as rather giving evidence to falsity than to truth, to Antichrist than to Christ; and there will be signs and wonders wrought yet, which, as the Lord has said, would deceive, if it were possible, even the very elect. Thus, then, we can easily understand (and especially in such an epistle as the present -an epistle to that nation to whom God had testified by signs and wonders of old, and would repeat to them now, in evidence that Christ was in nothing behind Moses) how we should find a reference of this kind to powers which might connect themselves with the elders of the Christian assembly, and yet understand why James should leave us, as it were, at a loss how to apply these things to ourselves. We can never be wrong in believing that the prayer of faith is still really the power that will save the sick, let means be used or not used; but the use of means seems in general rather according to the Lord’s mind than against it. His common way is to work through that which He has Himself ordained, and there are plainly herbs for the healing of men. The very presence of such powers is proof that the Lord has given them; and if He has given them, it is for us. Faith can acknowledge Him in these, as well as be perfectly happy in trusting Him apart from all consideration of these. The prohibition of them, if God designed it, would surely be furnished to us.
Moreover, God at no time intended that things should be left, as it were, absolutely in man’s hands, even though it were the hand of faith, as the doctrines taught suppose. The prayer of faith may be that which saves the sick, and yet, after all, that be far from meaning that we can find in every case a faith which should do so. God has His own will and His own way; and while we can always reckon upon Him to answer the soul that looks to Him, yet the way of His answer we do not always know. The apostle prays that the thorn in the flesh might depart from him, but it did not depart. God turned it to greater blessing. That was an answer to the prayer, but it was not such an answer as men usually count as that. Could any one suppose that among Christians, if everything were absolutely right, the sick would always be raised up, that death would hardly obtain at all, except in the extremest old age? We may imagine any such fancies, but fancies they are, and nothing else. Yet it is plain there is an appeal to God advocated here which we are always right in making, and from which we may always expect an answer in the goodness of Him whom we address. More than this, the Lord may give distinct light as to His mind that will enable one, as to anything, to ask with assurance, without the possibility of denial. If we are near enough to God for this, we have cause indeed to be thankful; but we had better be humble about it, and be very sure that we have it before we claim it.
The apostle adds here with regard to a very possible case, that the sickness contemplated might be the result of sin itself -that if he be one that hath committed sin, it shall be forgiven him. Here is a case in which it is plain that appeal to God is of the greatest necessity. But we may be perfectly sure that here, also, it could not be within the will of others to secure this, but that there must be in the recipient of this forgiveness the state of soul in which God can grant it.
The apostle adds a more general admonition as to which there is no difficulty: "Confess" therefore, "your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed." This still, however, needs wisdom for its application. The confession of sin itself may be looked at, as men look so much at confession to a priest, as if it were to work something merely as confession. Apart from the recognized need of confessing to another that in which we have wronged him, there may be, and no doubt are, cases where it would be good for any one burdened with the sense of wrong-doing to unburden himself, and find the help of another’s prayers. The acceptance of the humiliation of it may be good in itself; but, on the other hand, there is no general rule but will have its exceptions; or, rather, there is no principle that does not need wisdom in application. Nothing will do away with the need of this.
But the apostle enlarges here upon the value of prayer. "The fervent supplication of the righteous man," he says, "availeth much." Plainly, "the righteous man" here is one who is so simply, out and out for God, so that there is nothing to hinder the confidence in Him which this supposes. Elijah is adduced as an example here, a man who stood for God when all Israel was departing from Him; but, as he notes here, a man of like passions with ourselves -notes it, evidently, for our encouragement. We are apt to make exceptions of such men to excuse ourselves, alas, even from the blessing which was theirs in consequence of what they were. His infirmities are made known to us in the very record given to us of his faith; but the man of God was in him most eminent. Thus it was for the honor of God that "he prayed fervently that it might not rain;" not to serve any end of his own apart from this; and such prayers are of the sort that have wisdom in them, and secure answers. Thus he prayed, and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months; and again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit. The power of prayer can never be separated from the character of the man who prays, although God is pitiful, and can hear any man in his extremity; that is true, but that is not the prayer that is recorded here, or the prayer of which we can really say that it has power in it.
3. The apostle closes with one word of mingled exhortation and encouragement: "My brethren, if any one among you err from the truth, and one restore him, let him know that he that turneth back a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins." It is the restoration of a believer, but who has wandered from God, that is contemplated here. The word used in our common version, "one convert him," naturally tends to make us think of that which we ordinarily call conversion now. But the Lord talks, as we know, of Peter’s conversion when he too had erred from the truth, and the Lord’s grace brought him back. In the language of James, if, not in the epistle to the Hebrews, a converted man may be a sinner still; and, as we know, the saving of a soul from death does not necessarily mean a salvation from death eternally, but from that judgment of God which we have seen instanced in Corinth, where many were weak and sickly among them, and many slept. In this way, a multitude of sins would be covered, not simply by the love that individually covereth sins, of which we read elsewhere, but by the labor of that love for the restoration of a soul, which is the sure way, in the government of God over His people, for a multitude of sins to be covered.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Rebuke and Encouragement
Rebuke and Encouragement
2. Are corrupted, etc.] prophetic tense, in which the future is spoken of as though it were already come to pass.
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3. For the last days] RV 'in the last days.' The warning was fulfilled during the siege of Jerusalem, when many rich Jews were slain by Zealots (Jos. 'Wars,'
5. 10).
4. Lord of Sabaoth] an OT. phrase = 'Lord of Hosts.' It is not found elsewhere in the NT., except once in a quotation (Rom_9:29).
5. As in a day of slaughter] omit 'as,' and cp. Jer_12:3; Jer_25:34.
6. The just] RV 'righteous one,' may refer (as Act_3:14; Act_7:52) to our Lord, but is perhaps a general statement, although in that case the plural rather than the singular would naturally be used.
7-11. A message of patience and hope to the persecuted Christians.
7. There will be a final Judgment, when justice will be done. Therefore be patient (better, 'longsuffering,' Rom_2:4).
8. The coming of the Lord] here clearly the reference is to the Lord Christ, to whom St. James applies the sacred Name given by the Jews to God the Father. To a Christian Jew the promise was fulfilled in the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. Early and latter rain] Another illustration from Palestine (Deu_11:14; Jer_5:24; Joe_2:23; Zec_10:1).
9. Do not let your irritation and soreness at outside oppression vent itself in impatience and grumbling towards one another.
11. Patience] better, 'endurance.' This is the only NT. reference to Job, though the book is quoted 1Co_3:19. End of the Lord] In the end God turned Job's sorrow into joy, and showed that He is full of compassion and mercy.
12. See Mat_5:33-37. It was a common Jewish sin to confirm statements by an oath or curse (Mat_23:16; Mar_14:71). The question of judicial oaths is not touched either here or in the Gospels. Above all things] i.e. in your controversies and quarrels (referring back to Jam_5:9) 'avoid especially the use of an oath to strengthen your assertions in ordinary conversation. 'The use of oaths when seriously taken as in the presence of God was allowed both by the Old and the NT. (Deu_6:13; Psa_63:11; Isa_65:16; Jer_4:2; Rom_1:9; Rom_9:1; 2Co_1:23; 2Co_11:31 etc).
13. The true means of sanctifying times of excitement, whether joyful or sorrowful. We must make the worship of God the outlet for our emotion.
14-16. In order to understand this passage, round which much controversy has raged, we must remember that it was, and is, a Jewish custom for a sick man to make his confession to some rabbi or rabbis. Elaborate rules to guide those who receive such clinical confessions are found in the Talmud. St. James is telling his readers that this custom was to be continued by Christian Jews, and that the confession of the sick man was to be made to the clergy ('presbyters') of the Church. They would then (1) pray over him for the pardon of his sins, and (2) anoint him with oil (the recognised remedy, Isa_1:6; Mar_6:13; Luk_10:34). By these means he would obtain forgiveness of his sins, and (if it were God's will) recover from his sickness. It is scarcely necessary to point out that the Roman Catholic doctrine of Extreme Unction receives no justification from this passage. In the Prayer-Book ('Office for the Visitation of the Sick') the lines laid down by St. James are closely followed. To a Jew sickness and sin were associated (Joh_9:2).
16. Confess your faults] RV 'Confess therefore your sins,' referring back to the previous vv. St. James is throughout talking about the confession of a sick man to the elders. He does not touch upon the wider question of the lawfulness of confession generally.
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man] better, 'the supplication of a just man availeth much in its working.' Once more St. James draws his illustration from the OT. Elijah, though a great and holy man, was yet a man of like nature with any other man. But, being holy, he was mighty in intercession. His intercessions not only removed the national trouble, sent as a punishment for national sins, but also (for the time, at least), brought about a national repentance and therefore the divine pardon. The supplication of Elijah for the sick nation is analogous to the supplication of the presbyter for the sick man.
19. The glorious privilege of the man who brings a human soul to repent and believe. He saves a soul from spiritual death, and is himself blessed.
20. The concluding words (quoted from Pro_10:12 and found also in 1Pe_4:8) are usually referred to the sinner. But passages like Sir_3:30; Dan_4:27; Tob_4:10; Tob_12:9 show that the later Jews held that good deeds blot out the sins of those who do them. Probably St. James has these passages in his mind, and teaches that he who waters others shall be watered also himself—that, in covering the sins of another a man may be covering his own.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
sin
Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The oppression by the rich and their coming…
V. THE COMING OF THE LORD AND THE LIFE OF FAITH
CHAPTER 5
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1. The oppression by the rich and their coming doom (Jas 5:1-6)
2. Be patient unto the coming of the Lord (Jas 5:7-12)
3. The prayers of faith and the life of faith (Jas 5:13-20)
Jas 5:1-6
The two classes whom James addresses stand out very prominently in this final chapter of his Epistle. The rich oppressors certainly are not believers but the unbelieving rich; they are not addressed as “brethren”; but others are in verse 7 and exhorted to patience. Both classes, the unbelieving rich and the believing remnant are confronted by the coming of the Lord. “Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted; and their rust shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have heaped together treasures in the last days.”
The present age, which began with the death and resurrection of our Lord, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, is spoken of as “the last days” and “the last time” (Heb 1:2 and 1Jn 2:18); this age will be followed by the dispensation of the fullness of times, the times of restoration as promised by God’s holy prophets (Eph 1:10; Act 3:19-21), the age of the kingdom when Christ reigns and His saints with Him. And this present age will end with the coming of the Lord to execute judgment, to right all wrong and judge all unrighteousness. These rich Israelites heaped treasures together, and, as we shall see later, acted outrageously, thereby showing that they did not believe in the day of the Lord, when He will be manifested in judgment glory. Yet their own Scriptures announced exactly that which James here states. See Isa 2:10-20 and especially Zep 1:14-18. In anticipation of that coming day he calls on them to weep and howl, and announces the fate of their treasures.
Let us remember that the Epistle was written years before the destruction of Jerusalem. When Jerusalem fell, and even before its fall, many of the rich Jews became paupers; they were ruined, tortured and murdered, as Josephus tells us. The fall of Jerusalem with its awful horrors, in the year 70 A.D., was a judgment of the Lord, but not the day of the Lord and the coming of the Lord. What happened then to the stubborn unbelieving masses will happen again, only on a larger scale during the coming great tribulation and when the Lord returns in power and in great glory. We believe therefore, that this exhortation to the rich has a special bearing for the future, during the very end of the age.
But they were oppressing the poor as well. “Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth out; and the cries of them that reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned, ye have killed the just One; he doth not resist you.” Oppression of the poor, yea, the poor of their own people is another characteristic of the Jewish people. The prophet Amos rebuked it in his day, when the poor were downtrodden and robbed by the rich. It is so today and will be so in the future. And the money which was taken from the poor was used by the rich to live in luxury and wanton pleasures. The spirit they manifested in heaping treasures together, oppressing the poor and needy, robbing them, and living in pleasure, is the same which condemned and killed the Just One, the Lord Jesus Christ, who did not resist. To apply these words primarily and altogether to our Lord can hardly be done. What was done to the Lord of glory these unbelievers did to His true followers. It will be so again during the great tribulation, under Antichrist, when the godly remnant will be persecuted by those who side with the false Messiah. See Psa 79:1-3; Dan 12:1; Mat 24:9-25; Rev 11:1-19; Rev 12:1-17; Rev 13:1-18.
Jas 5:7-12
“Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” He addresses in these words the believers, the suffering remnant amongst the unbelieving masses which attended the synagogue. They are to be patient and suffer in patience, without resisting. The coming of the Lord, which is mentioned twice in these verses, is His visible and glorious manifestation, the same which our Lord speaks of in Mat 24:30-31. The first Epistle to the Thessalonians, which contains that unique revelation of the coming of the Lord for His saints, the resurrection of the holy dead and the sudden transformation of the living saints, to be caught up together in clouds to meet Him in the air (1Th 4:13-18) had not yet been given. The mystery “we shall not all sleep but be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Corinth. 15:51-52), was then unknown. And let us note here, that this is one of the mysteries nowhere made known in the Old Testament.
The coming of the Lord, we repeat, is that coming which is so many times announced in the Prophetic Word of the Scriptures. “The first generation of Christians expected to witness in the near future the personal reappearance of Christ on earth to close the old dispensation by punishing unbelievers, and delivering the Christians. These expectations were partly realized when the fall of Jerusalem closed the old Jewish dispensation by the destruction of the temple and the final cessation of the Levitical worship of Jehovah. At the same time misery and ruin befell the Jewish nation which had rejected and crucified our Lord. As regards any more exact fulfilment, the statements of the New Testament must be interpreted according to the principle laid down in 2Pe 3:8 and 1Jn 2:18.” (This passage is from the New Century Bible. One is grateful to find this paragraph in a work which is more or less on the side of the destructive criticism.) That the destruction of Jerusalem and the judgment of the nation was predicted by our Lord is known to all, that the event when it came in the year 70 is the coming of the Lord, is not true.
James exhorts his suffering brethren to be like the husbandman who has to wait between the sowing time and the harvest. But here is another wrong interpretation. The latter rain of which James speaks has been foolishly interpreted as meaning a spiritual latter rain, another Pentecost. This is one of the star arguments of present day Pentecostalism with its supposed revival of apostolic gifts. The former and latter rain of which James speaks has no such meaning; it is purely the rainfall in nature. In Palestine there are two distinct rainy seasons, one in the spring, the other in the fall. (See Deu 11:14.)
Then follow other words of encouragement. “Murmur not, brethren, one against the other, that ye be not judged; behold the judge standeth before the door.” Among themselves they were to guard against any friction and fretfulness, always remembering Him who is the judge, and who standeth before the door. They were also to remember the examples in suffering and patience of the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, the patience of job, and how blessedly his suffering ended through the pity and mercy of the Lord. There is a warning also against oath making, such a common thing amongst the Jews. (See our Lord’s warning in the Sermon on the Mount, Mat 5:33-37).
Jas 5:13-20
The Epistle closes with practical exhortations to prayer and the exercise of faith. “Is any among you suffering? Let him pray.” A short but weighty instruction. Instead of murmuring, as their forefathers did, instead of complaining in suffering, prayer must be exercised. The godly in Israel always made prayer their refuge and especially are the Psalms rich in this direction. “Is any cheerful? Let him sing psalms.” The Psalms were used extensively in the synagogue. To teach upon this statement, as had been done, that the church should sing nothing but the Psalms, and reject the great hymns of the saints of God of all ages, born often in adversity and in deep soul exercise, is far fetched. Much in the Psalms does not express true Christianity at all. “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.” This exhortation demands a closer scrutiny and examination. Of late this instruction by James has been greatly misapplied by faith-healers. There are many extremists who teach that here is a commandment to the church how sickness among the saints should be dealt with; that means, to alleviate bodily ills, must be fully discarded and if they are used, it is unbelief in the power of God and a hindrance to faith.
There are men and women all over Christendom, who go about with a message of healing of diseases, who anoint the sick by the hundreds and thousands, claiming that this is the only way that illness is to be treated. Then these same healers claim miraculous cures which are, after careful investigation, mostly found to be falsehoods. Some of these advocates of this method of healing, denouncing means and the use of physicians, were taken sick and had to use means to overcome their bodily ills. The entire subject of “faith-healing” we cannot examine here; nor can we enlarge upon the claims of “Christian Science” and other metaphysical cults and systems. Supernatural healing of diseases is claimed by Romish Catholicism, by the shrines and holy places of the Greek Orthodox church, by Spiritism, Mormonism and in many pagan systems. We confine our remarks to the passage before us.
It has been explained by some that the words of James mean that which should be done in case sickness unto death has seized upon a believer. It is then interpreted to mean “Prayer shall save the dying man from the punishment of his sins; and after his death, the Lord will raise him up in resurrection.” This view we reject. No prayer of faith is needed for the coming physical resurrection of a believer. Romanism has made out of it “the sacrament of extreme unction” which is another invention.
inasmuch as “the anointing with oil” seems to be the point most stressed by divine healers, we shall examine this first. What does it mean? Here we must remember the Jewish character of the Epistle. We have shown before that the believers who in James addresses were still closely identified with Judaism, hence they practised many things peculiar to Judaism. Anointing with oil was extensively used in the ceremonies of the Jews. Kings and priests were anointed, oil being liberally poured upon the head, denoting outwardly the fact of consecration to office, and symbolically the Spirit of God, which they needed for the exercise of their functions. Furthermore, oil was also very widely used for health and comfort. It was and is still a great remedial agent in the Orient.
The Good Samaritan poured into the wounds of the man who had fallen among the thieves oil and wine. Oil was used in cases of fever and most generally in skin diseases. Anointing the sick with oil was a general practice, as can be shown from talmudical literature. In Mar 6:13, we read, “And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.” Would they not have been healed if they had not been anointed with oil? The anointing with oil was an old custom which the disciples made use of, but the Lord in commissioning them in connection with the kingdom message did not tell them that they should anoint the sick with oil; they did it, for such was the universal practice. If James commands these Jewish believers who were sick to be anointed with oil he reaffirmed therefore this old Jewish custom. Oil is something beneficial to the body, a remedy, just as wine is recommended by the Spirit of God as a remedy for the ills of the body (1Ti 5:23). It is therefore an open question whether oil may not stand here also for legitimate means to be used in case of illness. Divine healers carry with them a small bottle of oil and daub the forehead with a drop of oil, but this is not the anointing commanded here. Where is the authority to say that a drop of oil must be put on the forehead?
But it is very striking that apart from this passage, in this transition Epistle, nowhere else in the New Testament (except in Mar 6:13), do we read anything about this anointing with oil in case of sickness. Why did not Paul write to Timothy, who often had infirmities, “Call the elders, let them anoint you with oil,” but instead of it, the divinely given remedy, “a little wine,” is urged upon him. And Paul was sick himself, suffered with his eyes, which probably was the thorn in the flesh. Trophimus was sick in Miletus. But nowhere this Jewish ceremony, anointing with oil, is mentioned. The Epistles which are the high water mark of divine revelation, are the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians; we find nothing in these Epistles about healing of diseases by anointing and prayer. Nor is it mentioned in any of the other Pauline Epistles. In Corinthians the gift of healing is found among the gifts of the Spirit, but he who possessed that gift had no need of using oil besides. Our conclusion, then, is that the anointing with oil in this passage is something customary with the Jews, which is not meant to be perpetuated in the Church, for if such were the fact the Holy Spirit would have stated it elsewhere.
We pass over the question as to true elders, which are to be called. Many of those who go about as divine healers are women. Who has ever heard of “women elders”? In fact, in the public healing services which have become such a common thing in our days, the question of elders is entirely ignored. Big advertisements appear in the papers that services for the healing of the sick are to be held. As a result hundreds come and are ready to do anything, to believe anything, if only some hope is held out that they might be cured. They readily submit to the ceremony of having a little oil put on their foreheads, but the command, that the sick person, is to call for the elders of the church, those of authority, is ignored. The question is, “Do we still have the elders in the apostolic sense?” These are matters which are completely set aside by modern faith healers.
But the emphasis in the passage is on “the prayer of faith.” The prayer of faith, not the anointing with oil, shall save the sick. No believer denies the efficacy of believing prayer, yet always guarded by the condition of “if it be His will.” In case of sickness the child of God will not send for a physician in the first place, but the believer turns to the Lord and puts himself in His gracious and merciful hands. The passage here seems to be the matter of sickness as a chastening from the Lord on account of specific sins committed. In such a case when self-judgment has brought the matter into His light, the promise can be claimed “the prayer of faith shall save the sick.”
“Was it intended to be a direction universally applicable to all cases, and to be carried out at all times, in all places, and under all conditions? Surely--most surely not. For note that there is no question at all as to the result: ‘the prayer of faith shall save (it is certain) the sick and the Lord will raise him up.’
“Now, we know perfectly well that this is not and cannot be the invariable outcome of all sickness. The vast majority of mankind--yes, of Christians--has died as the result of some sickness: has this been because ‘elders’ have not been called? Have they come to the end of that life here because they were not anointed with oil, and the prayer that always goes up from loving hearts was not the prayer of faith, and since not of faith, was sin? Who would not reject such conclusions with abhorrence? Yet are they inevitable, if this Scripture be pressed as being the one divinely given direction in the case of all sickness.
“In it every act, every movement, must be in faith: that is recognizing the Lord’s hand in the sickness, and the Lord’s mind in removing it. But where is the great and precious promise on which faith can always rest, that shall make healing sure? In one case only, and that is if the sickness does not come from constitutional weakness, as with Timothy, or the hardship of a Christian devotion as with Epaphroditus, or any other natural cause--but as a chastening of the Lord for some specific sins committed, and this confessed and put away, the chastening ceases.
“And this is naturally enough the point of view of such a writer as James. Freedom from sickness consequent on obedience was interwoven in the first covenant: ‘And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest upon thee; but will lay them upon all that hate thee’--is that what the Christian desires today: his diseases put on anyone else who may hate him? yet is that involved in that covenant.
“What, then, more natural than that this writer, who, although Christian, is still on the ground of a regenerate and sincerely pious Jew, should regard sickness in a light that is common to both Christian and Jew--as a chastening for sin.”--(F.C. Jennings, Our Hope.)
With this we leave this portion of the Epistle, which has led to so much misunderstanding. To help the reader in getting the true conception we add in a brief appendix, at the close of these annotations, the comment as it is given in the Numerical Bible.
“Confess, therefore, your sins one to another, that ye may be healed.” This brings out fully the fact that the sickness in view is on account of specific sins. When the sins are confessed and judged, grace intervenes, and God in mercy heals. Rome builds upon this passage the miserable invention of the confessional. But it does not mean confession to a man-made “priest,” but a simple confiding of believers among themselves.
The great value of prayer is next pointed out by James. “The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working”; this is a rendering adopted by many. He cites the case of Elijah. He was a man “of like passions with us” as we learn from the historical record of the Scriptures, which tells us of his great infirmities, as well as of his remarkable faith. He prayed fervently and rain was withheld, he prayed again and God answered his faith. The God of Elijah is our God still, who delights to answer the fervent prayer of the righteous man; the power of prayer can never be separated from the character of him who prays.
“My brethren, if any among you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.” With this the Epistle ends abruptly. Faith must be manifested by love towards those who err. The exhortation finds an application in a general way, but primarily to those who know the truth and have backslidden. This is learned from the words “if any among you”; the application in a general way is also fully warranted. The ending without greeting has led some critics to assume, that the Epistle is made up of passages from sermons, compiled quite late, by a man by the name of James. The internal as well as the historical evidences refute this assumption.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Various Admonitions in View of the Nearness of the…
Various Admonitions in View of the Nearness of the Judgment.
Exhortation to the rich:
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v. 1. Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
v. 2. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
v. 3. Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
v. 4. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
v. 5. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
v. 6. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.
To the remarks which the author has written concerning the rich in the first part of his letter he now adds an exhortation in which he calls upon them directly to consider their ways: Come now, you rich men, weep with lamentation over your calamities which are impending. He wants the rich people to take notice, to stop for a moment in their mad scramble for wealth. For even a superficial consideration of their actual position will take all self-satisfaction and pretended happiness out of their heart and mouth, and cause them, instead, to weep bitterly, unto howling, over the miseries and calamities which are drawing near them. It is a prophetic warning of great energy. See Luk 6:24.
The reason why the rich people, those that put their trust in the wealth of this world, will be reduced to a state of pitiful lamentation, is given by the apostle: Your wealth is rotting, and your garments are becoming moth-eaten. Men in that condition believe that their money, their riches, are secure against every contingency, for which reason they also place their full trust in that which their hands have heaped up. But it is in fact decaying, putrefying; their confidence is resting upon a rotten foundation. And their rich and costly clothes and garments, which they have gathered from all the countries of the earth, are becoming moth-eaten. Such is that in which they find their delight, transient, perishable, without lasting value, yea, more, valueless in the sight of God. See Mat 6:19-20. The same is said in the next sentence: Your gold and silver is rusted, and their rust will be a testimony against you and shall consume your flesh like fire; you have heaped up treasure in these last days. The apostle uses strong figurative language. All the money upon which they that will be rich are relying with such complete abandon is covered with filth; it belongs to the perishable goods of this world, all of which will eventually return to the dust and be consumed at the end. This dust or filth or rust will testify against them that they have put their trust in such decaying matter. Instead of satisfying the soul forever, the time will come when this dust and rubbish for which men sold their immortal souls will prove a torment to them, eating into their bodies with the everlasting fire of hell. For the charge stands against them that they heaped up riches for themselves in these last days of the world. They were not satisfied with the blessing which the Lord places upon honest work, with the necessaries of life, but believed themselves under the obligation of storing up, of gathering together, wealth, never resting, never satisfied.
The sacred writer now shows in what manner this heaping up of riches was largely done: Behold, the hire of the laborers that have harvested your fields, of which you have defrauded them, is crying out, and the cries of the harvesters have come to the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. It is the ancient controversy between capital and labor which is here touched upon. The rich men hired the laborers for the purpose of harvesting the rich fields of grain which they should have looked upon as the blessing of the Lord. But after the workmen had performed their labor in storing the rich gifts of God’s goodness, which incidentally brought new riches to the owners, the latter calmly ignored the fact that the wages were to be paid. It is the same complaint which has arisen thousands of times since, the wealthy owners of farms and factories withholding from the men that work for them the wages due them, while they themselves pocket a disproportionate gain, thus defrauding both their workmen and the public. If only capitalists and laborers both would but heed the warning that it is God who in such cases hears the crying of even the senseless creature, and that the moaning of those that are wronged comes to His ears! He is the Lord of Sabaoth, the King of the heavenly multitudes, the almighty God, the righteous Judge.
There is another accusation that must be brought: You have reveled on the earth and lived a life of dissipation; you have fattened your hearts as in the day of slaughter. That is one of the chief temptations connected with wealth, one of the reasons why the curse of God often attends its acquisition, namely, that people use their wealth for the purpose of leading a life of pleasure, of enjoying this life to the full, of living deliciously and voluptuously, in dissipation and wantonness, in self-indulgence of every form. This is very fittingly expressed when the apostle says that they are fattening their hearts as in the time when slaughtering is done, for then they could eat and drink their fill, forget every form of temperate living, and make their belly their God, Php 3:19. To carry out their aims, those that seek to be rich will not hesitate to use any measures that will bring them the money which they crave: You have condemned, you have killed the righteous, and he does not resist you. This illustrates the depths of depravity to which a person will be driven when once the lust for wealth has taken hold of his heart. There may be a righteous person standing in the way, as in the case of Naboth. But it seems that this fact merely inflames the desire of the covetous all the more. There are thousands of ways in which laws may be evaded or constructed to suit the ends of the wealthy, SO long as they are willing to pay a proportionate sum of money for the legal advice they want. Often enough sentence is passed upon him that is really in the right, and examples are not missing where the righteous person was put out of the way for the sake of a few paltry dollars. Being righteous, such a person will bear the ill-treatment, often in silence, realizing the uselessness of resisting the wrong. The entire description vividly paints conditions as they obtain also today, and in the very midst of the so-called Christian communities.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v1 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
James warns rich people about their focus on pleasure and riches.
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you who are rich
Possible meanings are 1) James is giving a strong warning to wealthy believers or 2) James is talking about wealthy unbelievers. AT: "you who are rich and say you honor God" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
because of the miseries coming on you
James states that these people will suffer terribly in the future and writes as if their sufferings were objects that were coming toward them. The abstract noun "miseries" can be translated as a verb. AT: "because you will suffer terribly in the future" (See: Abstract Nouns)
Your riches have rotted, and your clothes have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have become tarnished
Earthly riches do not last nor do they have any eternal value. James speaks of these events as if they had already happened. AT: "Your riches will rot, and your clothes will be eaten by moths. Your gold and silver will become tarnished" (See: Predictive Past)
riches ... clothes ... gold ... silver
These things are mentioned as examples of things that are valuable to wealthy people.
have become tarnished ... their rust
These phrases are used here to describe how gold and silver are ruined. AT: "are ruined ... their ruined condition" or "are corroded ... their corrosion"
their rust will be a witness against you. It
James wrote of their valuable things being ruined as if they were a person in a courtroom accusing the wicked of their crimes. AT: "and when God judges you, your ruined treasures will be like someone who accuses you in court. Their corrosion" (See: Personification and Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information )
will consume ... like fire
Here the corrosion is spoken of as if it were a fire that will burn up their owners. (See: Simile and Metaphor)
your flesh
Here "flesh" stands for the physical body. (See: Metonymy)
fire
The idea of fire here is meant to lead people to remember that fire often stands for God's punishment that will come on all the wicked. (See: Metaphor)
for the last days
This refers to the time right before God comes to judge all people. The wicked think they are storing up riches for the future, but what they are doing is storing up judgment. AT: "for when God is about to judge you" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
testimony
last day
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–3 5:1-6 This section denounces the rich people for their…
5:1-6 This section denounces the rich people for their greed and arrogant oppression of the poor (Lev 19:13). James warns them to repent while they can; if they do not, they will face terrible troubles . . . on the day of judgment.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.