James 5:6

Jam 5:6 . Κατεδικάσατε , ἐφονεύσατε , ye have condemned, ye have killed ) The omission of the conjunction expresses haste.[68] Compare again App. Crit. Ed. ii. I feel grateful to Baumgarten ; for while he brings forward no reading more worthy of remark, as omitted by me, he remarkably confirms the fulness of my choice.— τὸν δίκαιον , the Just ) A distributive meaning in the singular number is admissible, denoting any just person, as the wicked get each into their power; but especially Christ Himself, the Just One , Acts 3:14 , who was slain by Jews and Gentiles; and afterwards James, the writer of this Epistle, who was surnamed by the Hebrews the Just , whose slaughter is here divinely foretold. The present tense is suitable, He doth not resist you ; by which clause, following as it does without a conjunction, it is likewise intimated that by the very patience of the Just One the wicked goad themselves to slaughter. Comp. Wis 2:10-20 . [68] Cod. Amiat. of Vulg. puts an “ et ” before “non resistit.”—E.

6. Ye have condemned … the just—The Greek aorist expresses, "Ye are accustomed to condemn … the just." Their condemnation of Christ, "the Just," is foremost in James' mind. But all the innocent blood shed, and to be shed, is included, the Holy Spirit comprehending James himself, called "the Just," who was slain in a tumult. See my [2609]Introduction. This gives a peculiar appropriateness to the expression in this verse, the same "as the righteous (just) man" (Jas 5:16). The justice or righteousness of Jesus and His people is what peculiarly provoked the ungodly great men of the world. he doth not resist you—The very patience of the Just one is abused by the wicked as an incentive to boldness in violent persecution, as if they may do as they please with impunity. God doth "resist the proud" (Jas 4:6); but Jesus as man, "as a sheep is dumb before the shearers, so He opened not His mouth": so His people are meek under persecution. The day will come when God will resist (literally, "set Himself in array against") His foes and theirs.

Ye have condemned and killed; i.e. procured by your wealth and power the passing unrighteous sentences, and thereby the destruction of the just. The just; indefinitely and collectively, the just for any just man, viz. such as were innocent and just in comparison of their persecutors. And he doth not resist you; this notes not only the patience of such in bearing injuries, but their weakness, and being destitute of human help against their adversaries’ power.

Verse 6. - The climax of their sin. Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous one. Does this allude to the death of our Lord? At first sight it may well seem so. Compare St. Peter's words in Acts 3:14 , "Ye denied the Holy One and the Just ( δίκαιον );" St. Stephen's in Acts 7:52 , "the coming of the Just One ( τοῦ δικαίου );" and St. Paul's in Acts 22:14 , "to see the Just One ( τὸν δίκαιον )." But this view is dispelled when we remember how throughout this whole passage the ideas and expressions are borrowed from the Old Testament, and when we find that in Isaiah 3:10 (LXX.) the wicked are represented as saying, Δήσωμεν τὸν δίκαιον ὅτι δύσχρηστος ἡμῖν ἐστί ( α passage which lies at the root of the remarkable section in Wisd. 2, "Let us oppress the poor righteous man .... Let us condemn him with a shameful death." It is probable, then, that passages such as these were in St. James's mind, and suggested the words, and thus that there is no direct allusion to the Crucifixion (which, indeed, could scarcely be laid to the charge of his readers), but that the singular τὸν δίκαιον is used to denote the class collectively (cf. Amos 2:6 ; Amos 5:12 ). It is a remarkable coincidence, pointed out by most commentators, that he who wrote these verses, himself styled ὁ Δίκαιος by the Jews, suffered death at their hands a very few years afterwards. He doth not resist you. According to the view commonly adopted, St.

James simply means to say that the righteous man suffered this evil at their hands without resistance. Another interpretation seems more possible, taking the clause as interrogative, "Does he not resist you?" the subject, implied but not expressed, being God; as if he would say, "Is not God against you? " - that God of whom it has already been said that he resists ( ἀντιτάσσεται ) the proud (comp. Hosea 1:6 , "I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away (LXX., ἀλλ η} ἀντιτασσόμενος ἀντιτάξομαι αὐτοῖς )") James 5:6

(6) Ye have condemned and killed the just. —Better thus: Ye condemned, ye slew the just —as in the speech of Peter ( Acts 3:14-15 ), or that of Stephen ( Acts 7:52 ). Such a reference, however, has been disallowed by some commentators, as conveying too harsh an accusation against the whole Jewish people ; and besides, it being unfair to forget that St. James was writing to Christian Jews, as well as to the anti-Christian. But, in a manner, all wrong and oppression tend towards the murder of the Just One, as every falsehood (see Note on James 3:13 ) is an attack on the Truth. And far beyond this, in the present case our Lord is rightly to be considered the victim of the Jews. His blood is on them and on their children ( Matthew 27:25 ); they filled up “the measure of their fathers” ( Matthew 23:32 ), that “the blood of all the righteous” might come upon them, from Abel to Zacharias ( Matthew 23:35 ): the one crowning sin made them guilty of all. And not only is this backward participation true, but there is a forward one as well. Christ Himself was persecuted by Saul in the afflictions of His servants ( Acts 9:4-5 ), and so onward ever till the martyr-roll be full. It is of strange significance that in this verse—ye condemned, ye slew the just—James the Just prophetically described his own murderers. The last words, moreover, of the Scripture, simply record the behaviour of himself, as of every real witness for Christ: He doth not resist.

No: “the servant of the Lord must not strive” (2Timothy 2:24) even in death; and by such meekness and resignation is best seen the likeness to the divine Master, Who “was brought as a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7). Comp. Wisdom Of Solomon 2:10-20 for a striking parallel, on the oppression of the righteous, which would not inaptly describe the “just man,” the “Son of God.”

6 . Ye have condemned and killed the just ] The words have been very generally understood as referring to the death of Christ, and on this view, the words “he doth not resist you” have been interpreted as meaning, “He no longer checks you in your career of guilt; He leaves you alone (comp. Hosea 4:17 ) to fill up the measure of your sin.” St James, it has been inferred, uses the term “the Just One” as Stephen had done ( Acts 7:52 ), as pointing emphatically to “Jesus Christ the righteous” ( 1 John 2:1 ). Fuller consideration, however, shews that such a meaning could hardly have come within the horizon of St James’s thoughts. (1) That single evil act of priests, and scribes, and the multitude of Jerusalem, could hardly have been thus spoken of in an Epistle addressed to the Twelve Tribes of the dispersion, without a more distinct indication of what was referred to. To see in them, as some have done, the statement that the Jews, wherever they were found, were guilty of that crime, as accepting and approving it, or as committing sins which made such an atonement necessary, is to read into them a non-natural meaning. (2) The whole context leads us to see in the words, a generic evil, a class sin, characteristic, like those of the previous verse, of the rich and powerful everywhere. (3) The meaning thus given to “he doth not resist you” seems, to say the least, strained and unnatural, especially as coming so soon after the teaching (ch.

James 4:6 ) which had declared that “God does resist the proud.” (4) The true meaning of both clauses is found, it is believed, in taking “the just” as the representative of a class, probably of the class of those, who as disciples of Christ the Just One, were reproducing His pattern of righteousness. Such an one, like his Master, and like Stephen, St James adds, takes as his law (note the change of tense from past to present) the rule of not resisting. He submits patiently, certain that in the end he will be more than conqueror. It is not without interest to note that that title was afterwards applied to St James himself (Euseb. Hist. ii. 23). The name Justus, which appears three times in the New Testament ( Acts 1:23 ; Acts 18:7 ; Colossians 4:11 ), was obviously the Latin equivalent of this epithet, and it probably answered to the Chasidim or Assideans ( 1Ma 2:42 ; 1Ma 7:13 , 2Ma 14:6 ) of an earlier stage of Jewish religious history. It is as if a follower of George Fox had addressed the judges and clergy of Charles II.’s reign, and said to them, “Ye persecuted the Friend , and he does not resist you.” (5) It is in favour of this interpretation that it presents a striking parallel to a passage in the “Wisdom of Solomon,” with which this Epistle has so many affinities. There too the writer speaks of the wealthy and voluptuous as laying snares for “the just” who is also “poor,” who calls himself “the servant of the Lord,” and boasts of God as his Father ( Wis 2:12-16 ).

Jam 5:6 . κατεδικάσατε , ἐφονεύσατε τὸν δίκαιον : this expresses what must often have taken place; the prophetical books often refer to like things; there is no reason for regarding this as some specific case of judicial murder. Cf. Amos 2:6-7 ; Amos 5:12 ; Wis 2:10 ff. The antithesis between the צדיק (“righteous”) and רשׁע (“wicked”) is a commonplace in Jewish theology.— οὐκ ἀντιτάσσεται ὑμῖν : the statement of fact here, instead of the interrogative as read by some authorities, is more natural, and more in accordance with the prophetical style which is so characteristic of this whole passage. This picture of patient acquiescence in ill-treatment is really a very vivid touch, for it shows, on the one hand, that the down-trodden realised the futility of resistance; on the other, that their hopes were centred on the time to come. With the whole of this section cf. the words in The first book of Clement, which is called The Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ , 12: “The harvest is come, that the guilty may be reaped and the Judge appear suddenly and confront them with their works”.