James 1:19 - Exposition

The text requires correction. For ὥστε … ἔστω πᾶς of the Textus Receptus, read, ἴστε ἀδελφοί μοι ἀγαπητοι ἔστω δὲ πᾶς , א , A, B, C, Latt. ἴστε is probably indicative, and refers to what has gone before. "Ye know this, my beloved brethren. But let every man," etc. The verse gives us St. James's version of the proverb, "Speech is silver. Silence is golden." Similar maxims were not infrequent among the Jews. So in Ecclesiasticus 5:11, "Be swift to hear; and let thy life be sincere; and with patience give answer;" cf. 4:29, "Be not hasty in thy tongue, and in thy deeds slack and remiss." In the rabbinical work, 'Pirqe Aboth,' 1. 12., we have the following saying of Rabbi Simeon, the son of Gamaliel (who must, therefore, have been a contemporary of St. James): "All my days I have grown up amongst the wise, and have not found ought good for a man but silence; not learning but doing is the groundwork; and whoso multiplies words occasions sin." This passage is curiously like the one before us, both in the thoughts and in the expressions used.