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Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - James 5:3

Your gold and silver is cankered - Instead of helping the poor, and thus honoring God with your substance, ye have, through the principle of covetousness, kept all to yourselves. The rust of them shall be a witness against you - Your putrefied stores, your moth-eaten garments, and your tarnished coin, are so many proofs that it was not for want of property that you assisted not the poor, but through a principle of avarice; loving money, not for the sake of what it could procure, but for... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - James 5:4

The hire of the laborers - The law, Leviticus 19:13 , had ordered: The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning, every day's labor being paid for as soon as ended. This is more clearly stated in another law, Deuteronomy 24:15 ; : At his day thou shalt give him his hire; neither shall the sun go down upon it; - lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee. And that God particularly resented this defrauding of the hireling we see... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - James 5:5

Ye have lived in pleasure - Ετρυφησατε . Ye have lived luxuriously; feeding yourselves without fear, pampering the flesh. And been wanton - Εσπαταλησατε· Ye have lived lasciviously. Ye have indulged all your sinful and sensual appetites to the uttermost; and your lives have been scandalous. Ye have nourished your hearts - Εθρεψατε· Ye have fattened your hearts, and have rendered them incapable of feeling, as in a day of slaughter, ἡμερᾳ σφαγης , a day of sacrifice, where... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - James 5:6

Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you - Several by τον δικαιον , the just one, understand Jesus Christ, who is so called, Acts 3:14 ; Acts 7:52 ; Acts 22:14 ; but the structure of the sentence, and the connection in which it stands, seem to require that we should consider this as applying to the just or righteous in general, who were persecuted and murdered by those oppressive rich men; and their death was the consequence of their dragging them before the... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - James 5:7

Be patient, therefore - Because God is coming to execute judgment on this wicked people, therefore be patient till he comes. He seems here to refer to the coming of the Lord to execute judgment on the Jewish nation, which shortly afterwards took place. The husbandman waiteth - The seed of your deliverance is already sown, and by and by the harvest of your salvation will take place. God's counsels will ripen in due time. The early and latter rain - The rain of seed time; and the rain... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - James 5:8

Be ye also patient - Wait for God's deliverance, as ye wait for his bounty in providence. Stablish your hearts - Take courage; do not sink under your trials. The coming of the Lord draweth nigh - Ηγγικε· Is at hand. He is already on his way to destroy this wicked people, to raze their city and temple, and to destroy their polity for ever; and this judgment will soon take place. read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - James 5:9

Grudge not - Μη στεναζετε· Groan not; grumble not; do not murmur through impatience; and let not any ill treatment which you receive, induce you to vent your feelings in imprecations against your oppressors. Leave all this in the hands of God. Lest ye be condemned - By giving way to a spirit of this kind, you will get under the condemnation of the wicked. The judge standeth before the door - His eye is upon every thing that is wrong in you, and every wrong that is done to you; and... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - James 5:10

Take - the prophets - The prophets who had spoken to their forefathers by the authority of God, were persecuted by the very people to whom they delivered the Divine message; but they suffered affliction and persecution with patience, commending their cause to him who judgeth righteously; therefore, imitate their example. read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - James 5:11

We count them happy which endure - According to that saying of our blessed Lord, Blessed are ye when men shall persecute and revile you - for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Matthew 5:11 , Matthew 5:12 , etc. Ye have heard of the patience of Job - Stripped of all his worldly possessions, deprived at a stroke of all his children, tortured in body with sore disease, tempted by the devil, harassed by his wife, and calumniated by his friends, he nevertheless held... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - James 5:12

Above all things - swear not - What relation this exhortation can have to the subject in question, I confess I cannot see. It may not have been designed to stand in any connection, but to be a separate piece of advice, as in the several cases which immediately follow. That the Jews were notoriously guilty of common swearing is allowed on all hands; and that swearing by heaven, earth, Jerusalem, the temple, the altar, different parts of the body, was not considered by them as binding oaths,... read more

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