James 1:6

let him ask in faith The prominence thus given to faith at the very outset of the Epistle must be borne in mind in connection with the subsequent teaching of ch. James 2:14-26. Faith, i.e. trust in God, as distinct from belief in a dogma, is with him, as with St Paul, of the very essence of the spiritual life.

nothing wavering Better, "nothing doubting." Another echo from our Lord's teaching (Matthew 21:21). The variations in the English version hinder us from seeing that St Paul, when he said that "Abraham staggerednot at the promise of God … but was strong in faith" (Romans 4:20), was reproducing the very thought and language of St James. The primary idea of the verb used, as here, in the middle voice, is that of the inner "debating" which implies doubt. It does not involve the absolute negation of unbelief, though, as in Romans 4:20, it tends to this, but represents the state of one who meets the question, "Will God keep His promise?" now with Yes, and now with No. The words of our own poet,

"Faith and Unfaith can ne'er be equal powers,

Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all."

Tennyson's Merlin and Vivien.

reproduce the substance of St James's teaching.

he that wavereth is like a wave Better, he that doubteth. The English play upon the word, though happy in itself, has nothing corresponding to it in the Greek. Wycliffe gives "doubt". Tyndal introduced "waver" in the previous clause, but kept "doubteth" in this.

driven with the wind and tossed Better, driven by the winds and blasts, both words describing the action of a storm at sea, the latter pointing especially to sudden gusts and squalls. The image, true at all times and for all nations, was specially forcible for a people to whom, like the Jews, the perils of the sea were comparatively unfamiliar. Comp. the description of the storm in Proverbs 23:34 and the comparison of the wicked to the "troubled sea" in Isaiah 57:20. Popular speech likens a man who has no stedfastness to a ship drifting on the troubled waves of life. St James goes one step farther and likens him to the unresting wave itself. Now he is in the depths, now uplifted high. In Ephesians 4:14 the same image describes those who are "carried about by every wind of doctrine." So far as St James wrote from personal experience we trace, perhaps, a recollection of stormy nights upon the Sea of Galilee. If we could identify him with the son of Zebedee, we might think of him as remembering such a night as that of Matthew 8:24 or John 6:18.