James 5 James 5:1–6 Wicked rich men are warned of God’s impending judgment. James 5:7–11 The brethren are exhorted to patience, after the example of the prophets and of Job, James 5:12 to abstain from swearing, James 5:13–15 to pray in affliction and sickness, and sing psalms in prosperity, James…

Go to now: see James 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.

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,…

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.

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 Jude 14.

Ye have lived in pleasure; luxuriously and deliciously, giving up yourselves to your sensual appetites, Amos 6:4–6, Luke 16:19, Luke 16:25. On the earth; where you place your happiness without looking higher, and from whence you fetch your delights, Phil. 3:19.

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.

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, Rom.

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.

Grudge not; Greek: Groan not; the sense may be, either: Envy not one another, (or, as we translate it: Grudge not), it being the nature of envy to groan at other men’s good; or, Groan not by way of accusation or complaint to God against others, desiring him to avenge your quarrels, as if you were…

Take, my brethren, the prophets; as being most eminent among God’s people, and leaders of them; he intimates that it is an honour to suffer among the best.

We count them happy which endure; we ourselves count them happy that endure, and therefore should be patient, and not count ourselves miserable if we endure too. Which endure; viz. patiently and constantly, Matt. 5:10–11.

Because it is a great sin to swear upon every slight occasion, and it was very usual among the Jews, and it was the more difficult to bring them off from it who were so much accustomed to it; therefore the apostle commands them, that above all things they should not swear, i.e.

Is any among you afflicted? either troubled or afflicted in mind, as appears by the opposite being merry, or more generally afflicted any way. Not that we need not pray at other times, but when under afflictions God calls us more especially to it, and our own necessities put us upon it.

Is any sick? Or infirm, though not desperately and incurably. Let him call for the elders; especially teaching elders, they being usually best furnished with gifts who labour in the word and doctrine, 1 Tim. 5:17. It is in the plural number, either by an enallage for the singular; q.d.

And the prayer of faith; i.e. proceeding from faith; the cure is ascribed to prayer, the moral means, and standing ordinance, not to the anointing, which was but ceremonial and temporary; and to faith in prayer, to show that this remedy was effectual only when faith (requisite to the working of…

Confess your faults; some copies have the illative particle, therefore, in the text, but even without that here seems to be a connexion between this and the former verse: he had said, the sick man’s sins should be forgiven upon the elders’ praying; and here he adds, that they must be confessed.

Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are; both of body and mind, natural and moral; and so, though he were righteous, yet he was not perfect; though an eminent prophet, yet but a man. And he prayed earnestly; with that effectual, fervent prayer before mentioned.

And he prayed again; after the destroying the prophets of Baal. Baal-worship especially gave occasion to his former prayer, which he puts up out of his zeal to God’s glory, then laid low by the Israelites’ idolatry, and a desire to have them by some exemplary punishment for their sin awakened to…

The truth; the truth of God revealed in the gospel as the complete rule of faith and life: see the gospel called the truth by way of eminency, James 1:18, Gal. 2:5, Gal. 2:14, Gal. 3:1, Gal. 5:7, Eph. 1:13, 1 Pet. 1:22.

Of his way; of his life and actions, which is contrary to the way which God hath prescribed. Shall save; men are said to save in the same way as to convert, viz. instrumentally. A soul; the soul of him that is thus converted, 1 Tim. 4:16; soul for person, as James 1:21.