James 2:4

James 2:4. This verse has given rise to a great variety of interpretation, owing to the uncertainty of its correct translation. Are ye not partial in yourselves? This version is hardly correct. Some render the words: ‘Did you not judge among yourselves,' by thus determining that the rich are to be preferred to the poor? Others: ‘Did you not discriminate or make a distinction' among those who as Christians are equal? Others: ‘Were ye not contentious among yourselves?' did ye not thus become litigants among yourselves? And others: ‘Did ye not doubt among yourselves' become wavering and unsettled in your faith? The verb in the original is the same which in the former chapter is translated to doubt or to waver (James 1:6); and therefore, although it may also admit of the above significations, it is best to give a preference to that sense in which St. James has already used it. Hence, literally translated, ‘Did you not doubt in yourselves?' Did you not, in showing this respect of persons, waver between God with whom there is no respect of persons and the world, and thus become double-minded? Did you not contradict your faith, according to which the external distinction between rich and poor is nothing? For to hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect to persons is a contradiction in terms. The Revised Version has, ‘Are ye not divided in your own mind?'

and are become judges of evil thoughts? Here also there is an equal variety of opinion. Some consider ‘the evil thoughts' as the objects of their judgments, and render the clause: ‘Are you not judges of evil disputations' of such disputations as a strife about precedence would give rise to. But it is best to take ‘the evil thoughts' in a subjective sense, as residing in the judges themselves evil-minded judges; showing themselves to be so by giving an undue preference to the rich. Just as a partial judge may be called a judge of partiality, or, in the same manner, as the unjust judge in the parable is in the Greek called the ‘judge of injustice' (Luke 18:6; see also Luke 16:8). Compare James 1:25, ‘a forgetful hearer,' literally ‘a hearer of forgetfulness.' The word here rendered ‘thoughts' also denotes reasonings, disputations; and hence some render the clause ‘judges who reason ill;' who, instead of calmly acting on principles of equity, are led astray by partiality to the rich.