--- title: "James 5 - Study King James Bible with burkitts expository notes with practical observations on the nt" description: "Read James 5 with burkitts expository notes with practical observations on the nt commentary. 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. 3 Your g" image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg" url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james/5" --- [ Read](/kjv/james/5)[ Commentary](/study/james/5)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/james/5) Audio 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. 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. 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. 5 Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. 6 Ye have condemned *and* killed the just; *and* he doth not resist you. 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. 8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. 9 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. 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. 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. 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: 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. 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. 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. [James 4](/study/james/4) [1 Peter 1](/study/1-peter/1) ## Commentary To verse 1 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. 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,** [Habakkuk 2:11](/kjv/habakkuk/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.** ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com","name":"Real Bible Believers","description":"RBB","publisher":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/search?q={search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james/5#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg","width":672,"height":448,"caption":"Real Bible Believers"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james/5#webpage","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james/5","name":"James 5 - Study King James Bible with burkitts expository notes with practical observations on the nt","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james/5#primaryimage"},"author":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"description":"Read James 5 with burkitts expository notes with practical observations on the nt commentary. 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. 3 Your g","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james/5#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james/5"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james/5#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/","name":"Home"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study","name":"Study Bible"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt","name":"burkitts expository notes with practical observations on the nt"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james","name":"James"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james/5","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/burkitts-expository-notes-with-practical-observations-on-the-nt/james/5","name":"5"}}]},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","contentUrl":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/android-chrome-512x512.png","width":512,"height":512},"logo":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#personlogo"},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/RBiblebeliever","https://www.facebook.com/RBibleBelievers"]}]} ```