The Word Must Reach Beyond the Hearing

“James” is Iakobos, the Greek form of Jacob, so a Jacob writes to the twelve tribes. “Scattered abroad” is en te diaspora, “in the Diaspora”, the name for Jews living outside the land. “Greeting” is the plain Greek chairein, which opens only one other letter from the apostles, the one sent from the Jerusalem council where James spoke (Acts 15:23).

“Joy”, chara, plays on the chairein of verse 1, the first of the catchwords by which James links sentence to sentence. “Fall into” is the verb of the man who “fell among thieves” (Luke 10:30): trials are not chosen. “Divers” is poikilos, many-coloured, the word used in the Greek Old Testament for Joseph’s coat.

“Trying” is dokimion, the assaying of metal to find what is genuine, the same word Peter uses with gold tried in the fire (1 Peter 1:7). “Patience” is hypomone, the endurance of someone who stays under a load. “Worketh” is katergazomai, to produce or bring about.

“Perfect” comes twice, teleios, whole and mature. “Entire” is holokleros, sound in every part, the word used for the uncut “whole stones” of an altar in the Greek of Deuteronomy 27:6. “Wanting nothing” is leipo, to lack, and the next verse starts with the same verb: “if any of you lack wisdom”.

“Liberally” is haplos, simply or single-heartedly, the adverb of an undivided giver, which sets up the “double minded” of verse 8. “Upbraideth not” names a habit Sirach 20:15 mocks in the grudging man, who “giveth little, and upbraideth much”. Solomon’s request for an understanding heart (1 Kings 3:9) is the classic prayer of this kind.

“Wavering” is diakrinomai, to be divided in judgment, arguing with oneself, the verb Jesus uses in Matthew 21:21, “if ye have faith, and doubt not”. “Driven with the wind” is anemizo, found in no earlier Greek writing, and “tossed” is rhipizo, fanned back and forth. The sea is a picture of motion with no course.

“Think” is oiomai, to suppose, a verb that often marks a mistaken opinion. After the warm “any of you” of verse 5, the doubter is held at arm’s length as “that man”. “The Lord” here is God, the giver of verse 5.

“Double minded” is dipsychos, literally “two-souled”, a word first met in James (again at 4:8) and later a favourite of the Shepherd of Hermas. Psalm 12:2 has the Hebrew version, speaking “with a double heart”, literally “a heart and a heart”. “Unstable” is akatastatos, the word for the tongue’s “unruly evil” in 3:8.

“Rejoice” is kauchaomai, to boast, which the King James softens. Jeremiah 9:23–24 forbids the rich man to glory in his riches and allows glorying only in knowing the LORD. “Low degree” is tapeinos, lowly or poor, and the poor brother is told to boast of his height.

“As the flower of the grass” draws on Isaiah 40:6–7, “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.” The Greek has no verb in the first clause; “let him rejoice” carries over from verse 9, so the rich man is told to boast in his humiliation.

“Burning heat” is kauson, which the Greek Old Testament uses for the scorching east wind of Jonah 4:8, the sirocco off the desert. The verbs are past tense in Greek, “the sun rose and withered the grass”, the way a proverb states what always happens. “Ways” can mean journeys, a hint at the travelling traders of 4:13.

“Blessed is the man” opens like Psalm 1:1. “When he is tried” means once he has passed the test, dokimos, approved like metal after assay. The crown is the stephanos, a victor’s wreath; the phrase “crown of life” returns in Revelation 2:10. “The Lord” is supplied by the translators; the Greek says only “he promised”.

Sirach 15:11–12 had warned, “Say not thou, It is through the Lord that I fell away.” “Cannot be tempted with evil” is one adjective, apeirastos, found nowhere else in the Bible, meaning untemptable or without experience of evil. The same word peirazo is used for God testing Abraham, which is why James must draw the line.

“Drawn away” and “enticed” are words from fishing and hunting: dragged out, then lured with bait, delear. “His own” is emphatic; the pull comes from inside. Jewish teaching named this the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, from the “imagination” of the heart in Genesis 6:5.

Three generations appear in one sentence: desire gives birth to sin, and sin grows up and bears death. “Finished” is apoteleo, brought to maturity, so the child comes of age before it has its own offspring. “Lust” here is epithymia, any desire, not only sexual appetite.

“Do not err” is planasthe, “be not led astray”, a formula that introduces a correction, used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:33 and Galatians 6:7, “Be not deceived”. The verse sits on a hinge, rounding off the warning about desire and opening the account of what truly comes from God.

In Greek the first half of the verse falls into a line of hexameter, the metre of epic poetry, perhaps a known saying. Two words for gift stand side by side, dosis, the giving, and dorema, the thing given. “Variableness” and “turning” were used of the heavens’ motions: the sun and moon God made wax, wane and cast shadows, and their Maker does not.

“Begat” is apokyeo, the same verb as verse 15’s “bringeth forth” of death, found only in these two places in the New Testament: James sets one birth against the other with the same word. “Of his own will” stands first in the Greek sentence. “Firstfruits” is aparche, the first sheaf offered to God before harvest (Leviticus 23:10).

Some manuscripts read “Ye know this” instead of “Wherefore”. The triple rule has a long pedigree in Jewish wisdom: Sirach 5:11 says “Be swift to hear”, and Proverbs 29:20 finds more hope for a fool than for a man hasty in his words. James extends slowness from speech to anger.

“The righteousness of God” here means the right conduct God requires, not the saving righteousness Paul means by the same phrase in Romans 1:17. “Worketh” answers verse 3: trial works patience, but anger works nothing of the kind.

“Lay apart” is apotithemi, to strip off like clothing, the verb of “put off” in Ephesians 4:22 and 1 Peter 2:1. “Filthiness” is rhyparia, dirt, and the adjective returns in 2:2 for the poor man’s “vile raiment”. “Engrafted” is emphytos, implanted, rooted in, not the grafting of branches of Romans 11.

“Hearers” is akroatai, the word for an audience at a lecture, people who listen without committing. “Deceiving” is paralogizomai, to reason falsely, a miscalculation. Paul uses the same two nouns in Romans 2:13: “not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers”.

“Natural face” is literally “the face of his birth”, the face he was born with. Mirrors were polished bronze, and Corinth was known for making them; Paul speaks of seeing “through a glass, darkly” in 1 Corinthians 13:12. A “glass” in 1611 was a looking-glass.

Three verbs, quickly: he looked, he has gone away, he forgot. The middle one is a Greek perfect, a departure that stays a departure. “What manner of man he was” is hopoios, what sort, the thing the mirror had shown him and he no longer carries.

“Looketh into” is parakypto, to stoop and peer in, the verb used of the disciples and Mary bending to look into the empty tomb (Luke 24:12, John 20:5, 11). It is a different look from the glance of verse 23. “Blessed in his deed” is literally “blessed in his doing”, poiesis, the same root as “doer”.

“Religious” is threskos, used of outward worship and observance, found only here in the New Testament; Paul uses the related noun for “our religion” as a Pharisee (Acts 26:5). “Bridleth” is chalinagogeo, to guide with a bit, a picture 3:3 develops with horses. “Vain” is mataios, the word the Greek Old Testament uses of idols.

“Pure” and “undefiled” are temple words for what may be offered, applied here to conduct. Psalm 68:5 calls God “a father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows”, which is why he is named “God and the Father” here. “Visit” is episkeptomai, the verb of Matthew 25:36, “I was sick, and ye visited me”.