James 1:7-8 - Exposition

The A.V., which makes James 1:8 an independent sentence, is certainly wrong. Render, Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord, double-minded man that he is, unstable in all his ways. So Vulgate, Vir duplex animi, inconstans in omnibus viis . (The Clementine Vulgate, by reading est after inconstans , agrees with A.V) Another possible rendering is that of the R.V. margin, "Let not that man think that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, shall receive," etc. But the rendering given above is better. Double-minded ; δίψυχος occurs only here and in James 4:8 in the New Testament. It is not found in any earlier writer, and was perhaps coined by St. James to represent the idea of the Hebrew, "an heart and an heart ( בלֵוָ בלֵבְ )" ( 1 Chronicles 12:33 ). It took root at once in the vocabulary of ecclesiastical writers, being found three times in Clement of Rome, and frequently in his younger contemporary Hermas. St. James's words are apparently alluded to in the Apost. Coust., VII . 11., ΄ὴ γίνου δίψυχος ἐν προσευχῇ σου εἰ ἔσται ἢ οὑ : and cf. Clem., 'Romans,' c. 23. The same thought is also found in Ecclesiasticus 1:28, "Come not before him with a double heart ( ἐν καρδίᾳ δίσοῃ )." Unstable; ἀκατάστατος , only here and (probably) James 3:8 .