James 5:5

Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. 'Ye have luxuriated ... and wantoned.' [ Etrufeesate (G5171), luxurious effeminacy; espataleesate (G4684), wantonness and prodigality.] Their luxury was at the expense of the defrauded poor (James 5:4). ON THE EARTH - the same earth, the scene of your wantonness, shall be that of the judgment coming on you: instead of earthly delights, ye shall have punishments. NOURISHED YOUR HEARTS - i:e., glutted your bodies like beasts to your heart's desire: ye live to eat, not eat to live. AS IN A DAY OF SLAUGHTER. So C. But 'Aleph (') A B, Vu...

5_In pleasure_. He comes now to another vice, even luxury and sinful gratifications; for they who abound in wealth seldom keep within the bounds of moderation, but abuse their abundance by extreme indulgences. There are, indeed, some rich men, as I have said, who pine themselves in the midst of their abundance. For it was not without reason that the poets have imagined Tantalus to be hungry near a table well furnished. There have ever been Tantalians in the world. But James, as it has been said, does not speak of all rich men. It is enough that we see this vice commonly prevailing among the rich, that they are given too much to luxuries, to pomps and superfluities. And though the Lord allows them to live freely on what they have, yet profusion ought to be avoided and frugality practiced. For it was not in vain that the Lord by his prophets severely reproved those who slept on beds of ivo...

1-6 Public troubles are most grievous to those who live in pleasure, and are secure and sensual, though all ranks suffer deeply at such times. All idolized treasures will soon perish, except as they will rise up in judgment against their possessors. Take heed of defrauding and oppressing; and avoid the very appearance of it. God does not forbid us to use lawful pleasures; but to live in pleasure, especially sinful pleasure, is a provoking sin. Is it no harm for people to unfit themselves for minding the concerns of their souls, by indulging bodily appetites? The just may be condemned and killed; but when such suffer by oppressors, this is marked by God. Above all their other crimes, the Jews had condemned and crucified that Just One who had come among them, even Jesus Christ the righteous....

Verse James 5:5. _YE HAVE LIVED IN PLEASURE_] ετρυφησατε. _Ye have_ _lived luxuriously_; feeding yourselves without fear, pampering the flesh. _AND BEEN WANTON_] εσπαταλησατε. _Ye have lived lasciviously_. Ye have indulged all your sinful and sensual appetites to the uttermost; and your lives have been scandalous. _YE HAVE NOURISHED YOUR HEARTS_] εθρεψατε. _Ye have fattened_ _your hearts_, and have rendered them incapable of _feeling, as in a_ _day of slaughter_, ημεραα φαγης, _a day of sacrifice_, where many victims are offered at once, and where the people feast upon the sacrifices; many, no doubt, turning, on that occasion, a holy ordinance into a riotous festival....

YE HAVE LIVED IN PLEASURE ON THE EARTH - One of the things to which the rich are peculiarly addicted. Their wealth is supposed to be of value, because it furnishes them the means of doing it. Compare Luke 12:19; Luke 16:19. The word translated “lived in pleasure, (τρυφάω truphaō) occurs only here in the New Testament. It means, to live delicately, luxuriously, at ease. There is not in the word essentially the idea or vicious indulgence, but that which characterizes those who live for enjoyment. They lived in ease and affluence on the avails of the labors of others; they indulged in what gratified the taste, and pleased the ear and the eye, while those who contributed the means of this were groaning under oppression. A life of mer

EXPOSITION JAMES 5:1 DENUNCIATION OF THE RICH FOR (1) GRINDING DOWN THE POOR AND KEEPING BACK THEIR WAGES; (2) LUXURY; (3) MURDER. The whole section resembles nothing so much as an utterance of one of the old Jewish prophets. It might almost be a leaf torn out of the Old Testament. JAMES 5:1 GO TO NOW (see on James 4

YE HAVE LIVED IN PLEASURE ON THE EARTH,.... This is said of other rich men; for all that is here said is not to be understood of the same individuals, but some things of one, and some of another; some made no use of their riches, either for themselves, or others; some did make use of them, and employed the poor, and then would not give them their wages; and others lived a voluptuous and luxurious life, indulged themselves in carnal lusts and pleasures, and gratified the senses by eating, drinking, gaming, and so were dead while they lived. The phrase suggests, that their pleasures were but short lived, but for a season, even while they were on earth; and that hereafter they would not live in pleasure: AND BEEN WANTON; through the abundance and plenty of good things, their delicious way of living, and the swing of pleasures which they took; the allusion is to fatted beasts, which being i...

V. THE COMING OF THE LORD AND THE LIFE OF FAITH CHAPTER 5 _ 1. The oppression by the rich and their coming doom (James 5:1)_ 2. Be patient unto the coming of the Lord (James 5:7) 3. The prayers of faith and the life of faith (James 5:13) James 5:1 The two classes whom James addresses stand out very prominently in this final chapter of his Epistle. The rich oppressors certainly are not believers but the unbelieving rich; they are not addressed as “brethren”; but others are in verse 7 and exhorted to patience. Both classes, the unbelieving rich and the believing remnant are confronted by the coming of the Lord. “Go to

From the merely careless rich James turns to the actively oppressive, the fellows of those whom he lashes in James 2:6 f. For him, of course, the prophetic Day of the Lord was more assured and more definite _than_ to the Jews he addressed; he had in thought the apocalypse of Mark 13, which was to receive a first fulfilment in the fall of Jerusalem. Even Jews of the Dispersion would feel many reflex effects of that catastrophe. James 5:2 recalls Matthew 6:19. There was a kind of fuliginous vapour arising from the Dead Sea which rusted even gold, and this may have suggested the figure. For a testimony _unto you_ is the figure of Mark 6:11. The dust

THE WORTHLESSNESS OF RICHES (James 5:1-3)...