James 3:11

Doth a fountain, etc. The interrogative particle, mhti, which begins the sentence, expects a negative answer. Fountain has the article, "the fountain," generic. See Introduction, on James' local allusions. The Land of Promise was pictured to the Hebrew as a land of springs (Deuteronomy 8:7; Deuteronomy 11:11). "Palestine," says Dean Stanley, "was the only country where an Eastern could have been familiar with the language of the Psalmist : 'He sendeth the springs into the valleys which run among the mountains. ' Those springs, too, however short - lived, are remarkable for their copiousness and beauty. Not only not in the East, but hardly in the West, can any fountains and sources of streams be seen, so clear, so full - grown even at their birth, as those which fall into the Jordan and its lakes throughout its whole course from north to south" (" Sinai and Palestine "). The Hebrew word for a fountain or spring is ayin, meaning an eye. "The spring," says the same author, "is the bright, open source, the eye of the landscape." 31 Send forth [β ρ υ ε ι]. An expressive word, found nowhere else in the New Testament, and denoting a full, copious discharge. Primarily it means to be full to bursting; and is used therefore, of budding plants, teeming soil, etc., as in the charming picture of the sacred grove at the opening of the "Oedipus Coloneus" of Sophocles : "full [β ρ υ ω ν] of bay, olive, and vine." Hence, to burst forth or gush. Though generally intransitive, it is used transitively here.

Place [ο π η ς]. Rather, opening or hole in the earth or rock. Rev., opening. Compare caves, Hebrews 11:38. The word is pleasantly suggestive in connection with the image of the eye of the landscape. See above. Sweet water and bitter. The readers of the epistle would recall the bitter waters of Marah (Exodus 14:23), and the unwholesome spring at Jericho (2 Kings 2:19-21).