--- title: "James 4 - Study King James Bible with ellicotts commentary for english readers" description: "Read James 4 with ellicotts commentary for english readers commentary. 1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and d" image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg" url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james/4" --- [ Read](/kjv/james/4)[ Commentary](/study/james/4)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/james/4) Audio 1 From whence *come* wars and fightings among you? *come they* not hence, *even* of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume *it* upon your lusts. 4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. 5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? 6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse *your* hands, *ye* sinners; and purify *your* hearts, *ye* double minded. 9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and *your* joy to heaviness. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. 11 Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of *his* brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. 12 There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another? 13 Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: 14 Whereas ye know not what *shall be* on the morrow. For what *is* your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 15 For that ye *ought* to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. 16 But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. 17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth *it* not, to him it is sin. [James 3](/study/james/3) [James 5](/study/james/5) ## Commentary To verse 1 (1) **From whence come wars . . .?**—More correctly thus. *Whence are wars, and whence fightings among you*? The perfect peace above, capable, moreover, in some ways, of commencement here below, dwelt upon at the close of [James 3:0](/kjv/james/3/0), has by inevitable reaction led the Apostle to speak suddenly, almost fiercely, of the existing state of things. He traces the conflict raging around him to the fount and origin of evil within. **Come they not . . .**—Translate, *come they not hence, even from your lusts warring in your members*? The term is really *pleasures,*but in an evil sense, and therefore “lusts.” “The desires of various sorts of pleasures are,” says Bishop Moberly, “like soldiers in the devil’s army, posted and picketed all over us, in the hope of winning our members, and so ourselves, back to his allegiance, which we have renounced in our baptism.” St. Peter ([1 Peter 2:11](/kjv/1-peter/2/11)) thus writes in the same strain of “fleshly lusts, which war against the soul”; and St. Paul knew also of this bitter strife in man, if not actually in himself, and could “see another law” in his members—the natural tendency of the flesh—“warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members” ([Romans 7:23](/kjv/romans/7/23)). See also Note on [2 Corinthians 12:7](/kjv/2-corinthians/12/7). Happily the Christian philosopher understands this; and with the very cry of wretchedness, “Who shall deliver me?” can answer, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord” ([Romans 7:24-25](/kjv/romans/7/24-25)). But the burden of this hateful depravity drove of old men like Lucretius to suicide rather than endurance; and its mantle of despair is on all the religions of India at the present time—matter itself being held to be evil, and eternal. ```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/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james/4#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/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james/4#webpage","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james/4","name":"James 4 - Study King James Bible with ellicotts commentary for english readers","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james/4#primaryimage"},"author":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/#/schema/person/e966585dde703268e7f6ae890ea98509"},"description":"Read James 4 with ellicotts commentary for english readers commentary. 1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and d","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james/4#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james/4"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james/4#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/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers","name":"ellicotts commentary for english readers"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james","name":"James"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":5,"item":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james/4","url":"https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/james/4","name":"4"}}]},{"@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"]}]} ```