James 4:2

James 4:2

Pride Promotes Strife

1 Where do¹ wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure ^athat war in your members?

2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and¹ war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.

3 ^aYou ask and do not receive, ^bbecause you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

4 ¹Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that ^afriendship with the world is enmity with God? ^bWhoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, ^a“The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:
^a“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”

Humility Cures Worldliness

7 Therefore submit to God. ^aResist the devil and he will flee from you.

8 ^aDraw near to God and He will draw near to you. ^bCleanse your hands, you sinners; and ^cpurify your hearts, you double-minded.

9 ^aLament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Commentaries:

Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)

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James 4:3 >>

Ye lust (epiqumeite). Present active indicative of epiqumew, old word (from epi, qumov, yearning passion for), not necessarily evil as clearly not in Luke 22:15 of Christ, but usually so in the N.T., as here. Coveting what a man or nation does not have is the cause of war according to James.

Ye kill and covet (foneuete kai zhloute). Present active indicatives of foneuw (old verb from foneuv, murderer) and zhlow, to desire hotly to possess (I Corinthians 12:31). It is possible (perhaps probable) that a full stop should come after foneuete (ye kill) as the result of lusting and not having. Then we have the second situation: "Ye covet and cannot obtain (epituxein, second aorist active infinitive of epitugxanw), and (as a result) ye fight and war." This punctuation makes better sense than any other and is in harmony with verse James 4:1. Thus also the anticlimax in foneuete and zhloute is avoided. Mayor makes the words a hendiadys, "ye murderously envy."

Ye have not, because ye ask not (ouk exete dia to mh aiteisqai umav). James refers again to ouk exete (ye do not have) in verse James 4:2. Such sinful lusting will not obtain. "Make the service of God your supreme end, and then your desires will be such as God can fulfil in answer to your prayer" (Ropes). Cf. Matthew 6:31-33. The reason here is expressed by dia and the accusative of the articular present middle infinitive of aitew, used here of prayer to God as in Matthew 7:7 f. umav (you) is the accusative of general reference. Note the middle voice here as in aiteisqe in James 4:3. Mayor argues that the middle here, in contrast with the active, carries more the spirit of prayer, but Moulton (Prol., p. 160) regards the distinction between aitew and aiteomai often "an extinct subtlety."

**Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing James 4:2:**

James 4:2
James 4:4
James 5:6
Revelation 2:16

<< James 4:1

James 4:3 >>

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