James 5:7

James 5:7. The connection with the preceding paragraph is obvious and direct. St. James, having pronounced the doom of the rich oppressors, now proceeds to comfort the oppressed.

Be patient: literally, ‘Be longsuffering;' an exhortation both to forbearance toward their oppressors, and to a trustful waiting on God for deliverance. Their patience must not be short-lived, but enduring.

therefore: an inference from what precedes; seeing that there is a day of vengeance when the unbelieving and ungodly rich will be punished for their injustice, luxury, and oppression, and consequently a day of deliverance to them.

brethren. St. James having, in the spirit of an Old Testament prophet, apostrophized the ungodly rich who were outside the Church, now returns to his readers, the Jewish Christians, his brethren both in the flesh and in the spirit

unto the coming of the Lord: until this period continue to exercise longsuffering. What is wrong will then be redressed; what is evil will then be removed. The night may be dark and lonely; but the longest night comes to a close. By the Lord here is meant Christ, according to the analogy of Scripture, and the general expectation of the coming of Christ by believers (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2). Though St. James applies the title ‘Lord' chiefly to God, yet he had previously applied it to Christ (James 2:1). Two different meanings have been attached to the phrase ‘coming of the Lord.' Some understand by it the coming of Christ in spirit to destroy Jerusalem, when the Romans were employed as the instruments of His vengeance upon the unbelieving Jews, and to which reference is made in the previous verses. Others, with greater probability, understand by it His coming in person to judge the world, or what is usually termed the second advent. How far the sacred writers distinguished between the destruction of Jerusalem and the future judgment the type and the antitype we have no means of ascertaining. St. James, according to his usual custom, illustrates the necessity of patience by an example taken from natural life, that of the husbandman waiting for the harvest

Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. The early and latter rain are often mentioned in the Old Testament as essential for the production of the harvest: ‘I will give you the rain in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil' (Deuteronomy 11:14). The early rain was the autumnal showers, which fell from the middle of October to the end of November, and prepared the ground for the seed. The latter rain was the spring showers, which fell in March and April, and were necessary for the ripening of the crops.