James 1:23

James 1:23. For. The above exhortation is enforced by a comparison. A hearer of the word, who is not a doer, resembles a man seeing his face in a mirror, without its making any permanent impression upon him.

if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face: liter ally, ‘the countenance of his birth, that face with which he was born; and therefore here well translated ‘his natural face.' The word for ‘beholding' literally denotes ‘contemplating:' it does not involve the idea of a passing glance, which is suggested by what follows.

in a glass, or mirror. The ancients had no looking-glasses properly so called; their mirrors were usually made of polished metals. In them objects could be but dimly discerned: ‘Now we see through a glass darkly' (1 Corinthians 13:12).