James 3:14

Envying (ζῆλον) The word is used in the New Testament both in a bad and a good sense. For the latter, see John 2:17; Romans 10:2; 2 Corinthians 9:2. From it is our word zeal, which may be either good or bad, wise or foolish. The bad sense is predominant in the New Testament. See Acts 5:17; Romans 13:13; Galatians 5:20, and here, where the bad sense is defined and emphasized by the epithet bitter. It is often joined with ἔρις strife, as here with ἐρίθεια, intriguing or faction. The rendering envying, as A. V., more properly belongs to φθόνος, which is never used in a good sense. Emulation is the better general rendering, which does not necessarily include envy, but may be full of the spirit of self-devotion. Rev. renders jealousy. Strife (ἐριθείαν) A wrong rendering, founded on the mistaken derivation from ἔρις, strife. It is derived from ἔριθος, a hired servant, and means, primarily, labor for hire. Compare Tobit 2:11: My wife did take women's work to do (ἠριθεύετο). Thus it comes to be applied to those who serve in official positions for their own selfish interest, and who, to that end, promote party spirit and faction. So Romans 2:8 : them that are contentious (ἐξ ἐριθείας), lit., of faction. Rev., factious. Also, 2 Corinthians 12:20. Rev., here, rightly, faction.

Jam 3:14 . Ζῆλον πικρὸν , bitter emulation ) Emulation is not condemned, when exercised with kindness; nor anger, accompanied with kindness, and proceeding from faithfulness and love.— μὴ , do not ) They boast and lie against the truth, who, when they have bitter emulation, still give out that they themselves have wisdom.— μὴ κατακαυχᾶσθε ) The Alex. and others read μὴ καυχᾶσθε .[45] See App. Crit., Ed ii. [45] Κατακαυχᾶσθε is the reading of BC. Καυχᾶσθε , of A.—E.

14. if ye have—as is the case (this is implied in the Greek indicative). bitter—Eph 4:31, "bitterness." envying—rather, "emulation," or literally, "zeal": kindly, generous emulation, or zeal, is not condemned, but that which is "bitter" [Bengel]. strife—rather, "rivalry." in your hearts—from which flow your words and deeds, as from a fountain. glory not, and lie not against the truth—To boast of your wisdom is virtually a lying against the truth (the gospel), while your lives belie your glorying. Jas 3:15; Jas 1:18, "The word of truth." Ro 2:17, 23, speaks similarly of the same contentious Jewish Christians.

Verse 14. - Bitter envying , Ζῆλος in itself may be either good or bad, and therefore πικρόν is added to characterize it. Bishop Lightfoot (on Galatians 5:20 ) points out that " as it is the tendency of Christian teaching to exalt the gentler qualities and to depress their opposites, ζῆλος falls in the scale of Christian ethics (see Clem. Romans, §§ 4-6), while ταπεινότης , for instance, rises." It may, perhaps, be an incidental mark of early date that St. James finds it necessary to characterize ζῆλος as πικρόν . Where St. Paul joins it with ἐριθείαι and ἔρις there is no qualifying adjective ( Romans 13:13 ; 1 Corinthians 3:3 ; 2 Corinthians 12:20 ; Galatians 5:20 ). (On the distinction between ζῆλος and φθόνος , both of which are used by St. James, see Archbishop Trench on 'Synonyms,' § 26.). Strife ( ἐριθείαν ); better, party spirit , or faction (cf. Romans 2:8 ; 2 Corinthians 12:20 ; Galatians 5:20 ; Philippians 1:17 ; Philippians 2:3 ). The A.V. "strife" comes from a wrong derivation, as if ἐριθεία were connected with ἔρις , whereas it really comes from ἔριθος , a hired laborer, and so signifies (1) working for hire; (2) the canvassing of hired partisans; and (3) factiousness in general (see Lightfoot on Galatians 5:20 ). Glory not ; i.e. glory not of your wisdom, a boast to which your whole conduct thus gives the lie. James 3:14

Bitter envying; Greek, zeal, which he calls bitter, partly to distinguish it from that zeal which is good, whereas this he speaks of is evil, and though it pretends to be zeal, yet is really no other than envy; and partly because it commonly proceeds from an imbittered spirit. and tends to the imbittering it more. Strife; the usual effect of bitter zeal, or envy. In your hearts; the fountain whence it proceeds; or strife in the heart implies a heart propense and inclined to strife. Glory not; glory not of your zeal, or rather of your wisdom, as if you were so well able to reprehend others, but rather be humbled; what you make the matter of your glorying, being really just cause of shame. And lie not against the truth; viz. by professing yourselves wise, or zealous, when ye are really neither.

(14) But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts. —Rather, it should be, bitter zeal and party-spirit. “ Above all no zeal” was the worldly caution of an astute French prelate. But that against which the Apostle inveighed had caused Jerusalem to run with blood, and afterwards helped in her last hour to add horror upon shame. The Zealots were really assassins, pledged to any iniquity; such were the forty men “who bound themselves under a curse, saying they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul” ( Acts 23:12 ; see Note there). Some of these desperadoes unluckily escaped the swords of the Romans, and fled to the fastnesses of Mount Lebanon. They were probably the nucleus of a still more infamous society, known in the middle ages as that of the Old Man of the Mountain; in fact, our word “assassin” comes from “Hassan,” their first sheik. Happily for humanity they were at length exterminated by the Turks. Glory not.—Boast not yourselves as partakers of this accursed zeal; behold already what ruin it is bringing on us as a nation and a Church. And it were well to take care even in these milder days of religious factions, that the strife of creeds be wholly different in kind from the old zealot feuds, and not merely in degree.

Able only to rend and overthrow, party-spirit will, if it be gloried and exulted in, lay down the walls of Zion “even to the ground.” But “if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy” (1Corinthians 3:17), and the words must be translated much more sternly, “If any man destroy . . .” Lie not against the truth.—This is not tautology, nor a Hebraism, but of far deeper import. “What is truth?” said jesting Pilate (John 18:38), and, as Bacon remarks in his Essay on Truth, he would not stay for an answer. Probably he put a question familiar to himself, learned in a certain school of knowledge whose wise conclusion was that mankind could not tell; and the inquirer turned away, unwitting that before him stood the incarnate Truth itself. The world of unbelief repeats the careless utterance of the Roman Governor, and holds with him in its new Agnosticism; and to its self-assurance and pride of life He, Who can only be learned in the doing of His will (John 7:17), is alike unknowable and unknown. But the words of the Apostle have a mournful significance for the ignorant of God; and a terrible one for the Christian who knows and sins against the Light. Falsehood is not the hurt of some abstract virtue, or bare rule of right and wrong, but a direct blow at the living Truth (John 14:6), Who suffered and still “endures such contradiction of sinners against Himself” (Hebrews 12:3).

14 . But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts ] Better, envy and rivalry . The latter substantive, formed from a word which means a “day-labourer”, expresses primarily the temper of competition that characterised the class, and then more generally, faction and party-spirit of any kind. It is significant that the word for “envy” is used by St Luke as specially characterising the temper of the Jews towards the Gentile converts ( Acts 13:45 ), and this, together with what we have seen of the true bearing of ch. James 2:14-26 , leads to the conclusion that St James’s warning is specially addressed to those of the Circumcision who displayed that feeling. He is shewing himself not the antagonist, but the supporter of St Paul’s work, condemning the factious spirit which was then, as afterwards at Corinth ( 2 Corinthians 12:20 ), in Galatia ( Galatians 5:20 ), and at Rome ( Php 1:15 ), his chief hindrance. The word “bitter” is perhaps added to “envy” because the Greek word “zeal” was neutral, and admitted of a good meaning. glory not ] The word expresses a relative, not an absolute glorying, a glorying over some one, on the ground of superior privileges.

This was, it is obvious, likely to be the besetting sin of the party of the Circumcision in relation to the Gentiles, and was therefore checked by St James, just as afterwards, when the prospect of the rejection of Israel was becoming a certainty, it became, in its turn, the sin of the Gentile converts, and was then checked by St Paul ( Romans 11:18 ). lie not against the truth ] It is clear that if the word “truth” were only subjective in its meaning, as meaning “truthfulness,” the precept would be open to the charge of tautology. We must therefore assume that it is used with an objective force, as the truth of God revealed in Christ. We ask what special truth thus revealed those to whom St James wrote were most in danger of denying, and the answer lies on the surface. They were claiming God as the God of the Jews only ( Romans 3:29 ), denying the brotherhood of mankind in Christ, “lying against” the very truth of which they fancied that they were the exclusive possessors.

Jam 3:14 . εἰ δὲ ζῆλον πικρὸν ἔχετε καὶ ἐριθείαν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ ὑμῶν : This makes it quite clear that what has been referred to all along is controversial strife; the bitter use of the tongue which the writer has been reprobating is the personal abuse which had been heaped upon one another by the partisans of rival schools of thought. ζῆλον is mostly used in a bad sense in the N.T., though the opposite is sometimes the case ( e.g. , 2 Corinthians 11:2 ; Galatians 1:14 ); the intensity of feeling which had been aroused among those to whom the Epistle was addressed is seen by the words ζῆλον πικρόν , with the latter word in an emphatic position; they form a striking contrast to πραΰτητι σοφίας . The word ἐριθείαν , derived from ἔριθος “a hireling,” means “party-spirit”.— μὴ κατακαυχᾶσθε : the malicious triumphing at the least point of vantage gained by one party was just the thing calculated to embitter the other side; this was a real “lying against the truth,” because such petty triumphs are often gained at the expense of truth.