James 5:4

‘Behold, the hire of the labourers who mowed your fields,

Which is of you kept back by fraud, cries out,

And the cries of those who reaped,

Have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.'

The rich were not only storing up their treasure for themselves, but they were doing it dishonestly. They were withholding the wages of those who mowed and reaped their fields, which meant that their families starved. This was something that was forbidden (Deuteronomy 24:14, compare Malachi 3:5). But what they had forgotten was, that while these men had no influence on the present corrupt courts, their cries had an influence in Heaven. Their cries for justice had reached the ears of God (compare Genesis 4:5; Genesis 18:20).

Day labourers were paid so little that they had no means of laying aside for the morrow. If they were not paid the same day their families went without. This is a constant concern of the Scriptures. "You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy.... You shall give him his hire on the day he earns it, before the sun goes down (for he is poor, and sets his heart on it); lest he cry against you to the Lord, and it be sin in you" (Deuteronomy 24:14). "The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning" (Leviticus 19:13). "Do not withhold goods from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbour, `Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it', when you have it with you" (Proverbs 3:27). "Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbour serve him for nothing, and does not give him his wages" (Jeremiah 22:13). For God will judge "Those who oppress the hireling in his wages" (Malachi 3:5).

The Scriptures lay great emphasis on social justice. Amos condemns those who ‘store up violence and robbery in their strongholds' (Amos 3:10). He attacks those who ‘trample on the poor' while they themselves live in ‘houses of hewn stone' and possess ‘pleasant vineyards' (Amos 5:11). He speaks of those who, ‘trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end', who ‘make the measure small and the cost great', and who ‘buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes', selling them the rag ends of the wheat. Indeed God says, "I will never forget any of their doings," (Amos 8:4). Isaiah warns against those who ‘join house to house and add field to field until there is no more room' as they build up their property portfolios to the detriment of the less well off (Isaiah 5:8). And so we could go on.

‘Have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.' The title "Lord of Sabaoth", interpreted as signifying ‘the Lord of Hosts', that is, of the armies of both Heaven and earth and of all the heavenly bodies, or ‘Almighty God' (LXX) for that reason (see Isaiah 1:9; Isaiah 5:9; Romans 9:29; 2 Corinthians 6:18), puts an emphasis on the all-embracing omnipotence of God. Thus although those who were being oppressed had no one to look to on earth, their cries affected the most powerful Judge of all. James has very much in mind Isaiah 5:8 LXX which reads, ‘Woe to those who join house to house, and add field to field, that they may take away something of their neighbour's. Will you dwell alone upon the land? For these things have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, for though many houses should be built, many and fair houses will be desolate, and there will be no inhabitants in them.'