James 3:1-12

Do not crowd into the ranks of the teachers, my brothers. You know that we teachers shall be judged more severely than other men; and there are many things in which all of us stumble. This leads to the discussion of the snare of speech, into which those who talk much are peculiarly liable to fall. The words rendered now if (James 3:3) should be taken as one word meaning see, and the conjunction for inserted. Now with horses, for example, it is in their mouths, look you, that we put the bit when we want them to obey us. In James 3:4 the word impulse may be the pressure of the steersman's hand on the tiller. To the small bridle and the small rudder the tongue is compared as an insignificant part of man's equipment, but one that can boast of great power. See what a spark it takes to kindle what a mass of wood! And the tongue is fire: the world of wrong is represented among our members by the tongue, which defiles the whole body, kindles the wheel of life, and is itself kindled from Gehenna. In many primitive rituals a wooden wheel is rapidly rotated on a wooden axle to produce fire. The image here is that of a flame spreading from the centre down all the radiating spokes. It is the wheel we should probably say sphereof birth (mg.), like the face of birth in James 1:23, the whole round of changing earthly circumstance. To tame the tongue is beyond the power of man the word is emphatic: it is a restless plague, it is charged with deadly poison. We use it for pious ejaculations (without which correct Jews would not name God) and for curses on God's image around us. But just as bitter water, like that of the Dead Sea, would spoil the sweetness of any water in which it mingled, so the curses embitter all blessing: to curse God would be more honest, and quite as acceptable to Him! For the first figure we should not have expected two different good fruits (contrast Matthew 7:16). James is, however, using a common proverb.