Commentari biblici

Jam 5:1-6 Wicked rich men are warned of God’s impending judgment.

Jam 5:7-11 The brethren are exhorted to patience, after the

example of the prophets and of Job,

Jam 5:12 to abstain from swearing,

Jam 5:13-15 to pray in affliction and sickness, and sing psalms

in prosperity,

Jam 5:16-18 to acknowledge mutually their faults, and to pray for one

another,

Jam 5:19,20 and to endeavour to reclaim sinners.

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.

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 Jeremiah 4:8 Micah 1:8 Joel 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.

Your riches are corrupted: either by riches he means the general, and by

garments, gold and silver, the particulars in which their riches consisted; and then being corrupted, is to be taken generally, as comprehending the several ways whereby the several kinds of their riches were spoiled: or else, by riches he understands such things as were liable to corruption, or putrefaction, as corn, wine, oil, which were a great part of their riches.

And your garments are moth-eaten; costly garments, in which rich men are wont to pride themselves; and under them may be comprehended all such clothes as may be eaten by worms or moths.

Your gold and silver is cankered; the most precious and lasting metals; yet even they, with long disuse, canker, and go to decay. Under these, other metals in esteem among them may be understood.

And the rust of them shall be a witness against you: by a prosopopoeia, that which properly belongs to living persons is ascribed to dead things, as Habakkuk 2:11 Luke 19:40. It is as much as if he had said: The rust shall be a certain evidence against you, and which will as effectually convict you, as any living witness could do, of your folly in putting your trust in perishing things, your greediness in hoarding them up, your unmercifulness in not supplying the wants of others, and your unreasonableness in denying the use of them to yourselves, when you had rather let them lie by and perish, than enjoy the comfort of them, or do good with them. The like expression we have, Mark 6:11.

And shall eat your flesh; the rust (the witness of your covetousness and cruelty) which now eats your money, shall hereafter devour yourselves, soul and body, (which he means by flesh), viz. by procuring and kindling the wrath of God upon you, (compared to fire), and likewise by galling your consciences with a vexatious remembrance of your sin and folly; and so what in the judgment is a witness against you, in hell will be a tormentor to you.

As it were fire; as if you had reserved fire in your treasure, as well as treasure in your chests.

Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days: either this may be understood metaphorically, ye have heaped a treasure of wrath for the last days, Romans 2:5; or literally, ye have hoarded up your wealth against the last and fatal days, in which God is bringing those judgments upon you which will consume all.

Behold; this is either a note of demonstration, as John 1:29; q.d. The case is plain, and cannot be denied; or of excitation; q.d. Seriously consider it; or rather, of confirmation, to intimate, that the threatenings here denounced should certainly be made good upon them: see Judges 1:14.

The hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields; the wages of those by whose labour and sweat ye yourselves live and are nourished.

Which is of you kept back by fraud; either wholly denied them, or detained from them when due to them, contrary to the law, Leviticus 19:13 Deu 24:14,15. Deferring payment is a sort of defrauding, as it bereaves the creditor of the benefit of improvement; and so they are taxed here with injustice, as well as covetousness, in that they lived upon other men’s labours, and starved the poor to enrich themselves.

Crieth; viz. to God for vengeance, as such sins are said to do, which either are so openly and boldly committed, as to dare the justice of God, or so secretly, or securely, that they are like to escape the justice of men, Genesis 4:10 18:20,21. Among others, oppression of the poor is a loud crying sin, Exodus 2:23 Job 24:11,12 Hab 2:9,11,12.

The Lord of sabaoth; i. e. the Lord of hosts, as having all the creatures above and below, of all sorts, ranked under him as their great Commander, whose will they are ready to execute. He mentions God by this title, not only for the encouragement of the poor oppressed, whose Patron and Protector he avows himself to be, Exodus 22:23,24,27 Pr 23:11; but for terror to the powerful oppressors, who think themselves out of the reach of men’s judgment.

Ye have lived in pleasure; luxuriously and deliciously, giving up yourselves to your sensual appetites, Amos 6:4-6 Luke 16:19,25.

On the earth; where you place your happiness without looking higher, and from whence you fetch your delights, Philippians 3:19.

And been wanton: the same word is used 1 Timothy 5:6; it seems to imply effeminate, lascivious behaviour, as the effect of their riotous living.

Ye have nourished your hearts: either by a Hebrew phrase, ye have nourished your hearts, for ye have nourished yourselves, Esther 6:6 Job 10:13; or, ye have cheered up and encouraged your hearts in your luxury by pampering your flesh, {Luke 12:19} and feeding not to the satisfaction of nature, but the inflaming of your lusts.

As in a day of slaughter; either securely, and without fear of the destruction coming upon you, as sheep graze quietly, though by and by to be brought to the shambles; or rather, in a day of slaughter, i.e. in a day of solemn feasting, when many beasts were killed in sacrifice, on which they were wont to feast, Proverbs 7:14 17:1. They made every day a feasting day, and that, too, lavishing out other men’s dues upon their own flesh, and sparing from their labourers that they might spend upon their lusts. This he brings to aggravate their sin.

Ye have condemned and killed; i.e. procured by your wealth and power the passing unrighteous sentences, and thereby the destruction of the just.

The just; indefinitely and collectively, the just for any just man, viz. such as were innocent and just in comparison of their persecutors.

And he doth not resist you; this notes not only the patience of such in bearing injuries, but their weakness, and being destitute of human help against their adversaries’ power.

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord; viz. to judgment, and that either particular, to avenge the quarrels of innocent sufferers upon their tyrannical persecutors; or rather, to the general judgment, in which a full retribution is to be made both to the just and unjust, Romans 2:5,6, &c. To which judgment the Scripture calls all to look, especially those that are under oppression and persecution, 2 Thessalonians 1:6,7, &c.

Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth; which cost him hard labour, and by which he receives great benefit, the sustentation of his life.

Until he receive the early and latter rain; the rain soon after the sowing, which caused the corn to spring up; and that before the harvest, which plumped it, and made it fit for reaping, Deu 11:14 Jeremiah 5:24 Hosea 6:3 Joel 2:23.

Be ye also patient; viz. in expectation of your harvest, and the fruit of your labours, as the husbandman is in looking for his.

Stablish your hearts; let your hearts be stedfast in faith and constant in holiness, encouraging yourselves to both by the coming of the Lord.

For the coming of the Lord draweth nigh; as before, his coming to the general judgment, which is said to be nigh, because of the certainty of its coming, and the uncertainty of the time when it will come, and because it is continually drawing on, and the whole time of the world’s duration till then is but short in comparison of the eternity following; and likewise because the particular judgment of every man is nigh at hand. See Philippians 4:5 Hebrews 10:37.