1.
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2.
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
Verse 2
In ancient times, wealth often consisted of great accumulations of perishable property.
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.
Verse 3
Cankered; tarnished and rusted.--Ye have heaped treasure together; that is, a treasure of wrath. While they had been toiling to accumulate worldly possessions, they had been really preparing for themselves stores of remorse and suffering to come, by their deeds of oppression.
4.
Behold, the hire of the labourers 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.
Verse 4
The Lord of Sabaoth; the Lord of hosts.
5.
Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
Verse 5
Nourished your hearts; nourished yourselves,--that is, given yourselves up to luxuries and pleasures.--As in a day of slaughter; as in preparation for a day of slaughter. The meaning is, that they have abandoned themselves to every gratification, like an animal fattening for the slaughter.
6.
Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.
Verse 6
Condemned and killed; that is, deprived them of the means of subsistence by their injustice and oppression.--The just; the innocent,--those who had never injured them.--He doth not resist you; being helpless and defenceless in his poverty.
7.
Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
Verse 7
Be patient therefore; that is, in enduring the oppression above described.
8.
Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
Verse 8
Stablish your hearts; be resolute and of good courage.--The coming of the Lord; the time when God shall call the oppressor to account for his sins, and vindicate the rights of the oppressed.
9.
Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
Verse 9
Grudge not; do not exercise or express morose and envious feelings --Standeth before the door; is near at hand. The meaning is, that as the time is soon coming when all the injuries which Christians may sustain will be amply redressed, they ought not to urge their complaints and agitate their controversies now.
10.
Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11.
Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
Verse 11
The end of the Lord; meaning, probably, the end or result to which the Lord brings the sufferings of his people.
12.
But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
Verse 12
This language is very similar to that used by our Savior, as recorded James 5:12; Matthew 5:34-37.--Let your yea be yea, &c.; that is, in your conversation, use the forms of simple affirmation or denial.
13.
Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.
14.
Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
Verse 14
Anointing him with oil. Whether the anointing here prescribed was intended as a rite, or as a remedy, does not appear. The oil obtained from the olive was much in use among the ancient Jews, both as an article of food, and as a medical remedy; and was also employed in many civil and religious ceremonies. The good Samaritan Is represented as employing it in the case of the wounded traveller, and the twelve, when sent out upon their original mission, anointed with oil the sick whom they were called upon to cure. (Mark 6:13.) The ceremony of extreme unction, as practised by the Catholic church, rests upon the authority of this passage. That ceremony, however, is performed as the last act of preparation for death, when all hope of recovery is gone; but, in the directions here given, the anointing, whether prescribed as a medical remedy or as a religious rite, is plainly employed as a means of restoration to health, as appears from the James 5:15.
15.
And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
16.
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
Verse 16
Confess your faults; that is, such sins as those referred to in the close of the James 5:20, which may be considered as the cause of the divine displeasure manifested in the visitation of disease.
17.
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
Verse 17
Elias. For an account of this case, see 1 Kings 17:1-46:--Subject to like passions, &c.; that is, though a prophet, he was still merely a man, sharing with us the ordinary frailties, and imperfections of humanity.--Three years and six months; represented as three years in the original account. (1 Kings 18:1.) See Luke 4:25.
18.
And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
19.
Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;
20.
Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
Verse 20
Shall hide; shall cause to be hidden. The sins which he repents of and forsakes shall be forgiven, and blotted out of remembrance forever.