James 5:5

Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton Better, Ye lived luxuriously and spent wantonly, the latter word emphasising the lavish and profligate expenditure by which the luxury which the former expresses was maintained.

ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter Many of the best MSS. omit the particle of comparison, ye nourished your heart in the day of slaughter. With this reading, the "day of slaughter" is that of the carnage and bloodshed of war, such a "sacrifice" as that which the Lord of Hosts had, of old, by the river Euphrates (Jeremiah 46:10), or the "great slaughter" in the land of Idumæa (Isaiah 34:6). The "rich men" of Judæa, in their pampered luxury, were but fattening themselves, all unconscious of their doom, as beasts are fattened, for the slaughter. The insertion of the particle of comparison suggests a different aspect of the same thought. A sacrifice was commonly followed by a sumptuous feast upon what had been offered. Comp. the union of the two thoughts in the harlot's words ("I have peace-offerings with me; this day have I paid my vows") in Proverbs 7:14. Taking this view St James reproaches the self-indulgent rich with making their life one long continuous feast. The former interpretation seems preferable, both on critical and exegetical grounds.