James 2:20

The words of this and the following verses, to the end of James 2:23, belong to the argument commenced by a supposed speaker ἀλλʼ ἐρεῖ τις; it is all represented as being conducted by one man addressing another, the second person singular being used; with the ὁρᾶτε of James 2:24 the writer of the Epistle again speaks in his own name, and, as it were, sums up the previous argument. Θέλεις δὲ γνῶναι : “Dost thou desire to know,” i.e., by an incontrovertible fact; the writer then, like a skilful disputant, altogether demolishes the position of his adversary by presenting something which was on all hands regarded as axiomatic. As remarked above, the question of Abraham's faith was a subject which was one of the commonplaces of theological discussion in the Rabbinical schools as well as among Hellenistic-Jews; this is represented as having been forgotten, or at all events, as not having been taken into account, so that the adversary, on being confronted with this fact, must confess that his argument is refuted by something that he himself accepts. It is this which gives the point to ὦ ἄνθρωπε κενέ. For κενέ the Peshiṭtâ has חלשא “feeble,” in its primary sense, but also “ignorant,” which admirably expresses what the writer evidently intends. Both Mayor and Knowling speak of κενός as being equivalent to Raca (Matthew 5:22), but the two words are derived from different roots, the former from a Grk. root meaning “to be empty,” the latter from a Hebr. one meaning “to spit” [see the writer's article in the Expositor, July, 1905, pp. 28 ff.]; κενός has nothing to do with Raca. ἀργή : the reading νεκρά is strongly attested; the Corbey MS. makes a pun by reading “vacua,” after having written “o homo vacue”. Ἀργή is not so strong as νεκρά; cf. Matthew 12:36, πᾶν ῥῆμα ἀργόν.