James 5:3

James 5:3

Rich Oppressors Will Be Judged

1 Come now, you ^arich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you!

2 Your ^ariches are corrupted, and ^byour garments are moth-eaten.

3 Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. ^aYou have heaped up treasure in the last days.

4 Indeed ^athe wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and ^bthe cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of¹ Sabaoth.

5 You have lived on the earth in pleasure and¹ luxury; you have fattened your hearts³ as in a day of slaughter.

6 You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.

Be Patient and Persevering

7 Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain.

Commentaries:

Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)

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Are rusted (katiwtai). Perfect passive indicative (singular for xrusov and argurov are grouped as one) of katiow, late verb (from iov, rust) with perfective sense of kata, to rust through (down to the bottom), found only here, Sirach 12:11, Epictetus (Diss. 4, 6, 14).

Rust (iov). Poison in James 3:8; Romans 3:13 (only N.T. examples of old word). Silver does corrode and gold will tarnish. Dioscorides (V.91) tells about gold being rusted by chemicals. Modern chemists can even transmute metals as the alchemists claimed.

For a testimony (eiv marturion). Common idiom as in Matthew 8:4 (use of eiv with accusative in predicate).

Against you (umin). Dative of disadvantage as in Mark 6:11 (eiv marturion autoiv) where in the parallel passage (Luke 9:5) we have eiv marturion ep autouv. "To you" will make sense, as in Matthew 8:4; Matthew 10:18, but "against" is the idea here as in Luke 21:13.

Shall eat (fagetai). Future middle (late form from efagon) of defective verb esqiw, to eat.

Your flesh (tav sarkav). The plural is used for the fleshy parts of the body like pieces of flesh (Revelation 17:16; Revelation 19:18, Revelation 19:21). Rust eats like a canker, like cancer in the body.

As fire (wv pur). Editors differ here whether to connect this phrase with fagetai, just before (as Mayor), for fire eats up more rapidly than rust, or with the following, as Westcott and Hort and Ropes, that is the eternal fire of Gehenna which awaits them (Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:44). This interpretation makes a more vivid picture for eqhsaurisate (ye have laid up, first aorist active indicative of qhsaurizw, Matthew 6:19 and see Proverbs 16:27), but it is more natural to take it with fagetai.

**Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing James 5:3:**

Luke 6:24
Romans 3:13
2 Corinthians 12:14
2 Timothy 3:1
James 3:8
James 4:6
James 5:1
James 5:7
1 Peter 1:5
Revelation 17:16

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