Authorship. That “James” need not further specify which James he is in 1:1 probably suggests that he is the most prominent and well-known James of the early *church, James the Lord’s brother (Acts 12:17; 15:13-21; 21:17-26; 1 Cor 15:7; Gal 2:9, 12), as in church tradition. (James was a common name, and when one spoke of a less commonly recognized individual with a common name, one usually added a qualifying title, e.g., “*Plato the comic poet,” “James the lesser” in the apostolic list, and many people in ancient business documents.) Who else would have the status in the church to write to the “dispersed twelve tribes” (James 1:1)?
The main objection to this proposal is the polished style of the Greek language of the letter, but this objection does not take account of several factors: (1) the widespread use of *rhetoric and more than sufficient time for James, the main spokesperson for the Jerusalem church, to have acquired facility in it; (2) that as the son of a carpenter he had probably had a better education than Galilean peasants; (3) the spread of Greek language and culture in Palestine (e.g., *Josephus, *Justin Martyr); (4) excavations showing that most of Galilee was not as backward as was once thought; (5) the widespread use of amanuenses (*scribes) who might, like Josephus’s editorial scribes, help a writer’s Greek. This last point would be especially appropriate for the leader of the mother church, in the one overwhelmingly Jewish city that also provided advanced education in Greek works (cf. the Greek in Acts 15:23-29).
The situation depicted in the letter best fits a period before A.D. 66 (the Jewish war with Rome), and James was killed about A.D. 62 (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200). It is also possible that James’s followers edited his material relevant to the war and re-released it in collected form after his death, in the wake of the war or tensions leading up to it. This could explain the *Diaspora audience of James 1:1 even though the material in the letter is quite relevant to a Judean setting. In any case, the material in the letter probably should be viewed as genuinely from James; *pseudepigraphic letters usually circulated long after the death of the person the author claimed to be, and a date between A.D. 62 and 66 would allow insufficient time for this letter to be a pseudepigraphic composition.
James the Just. Josephus and some later Jewish-Christian writers reported the great esteem that fellow Jerusalemites, especially the poor, had for James. Non-Christian as well as Christian Jerusalemites admired his piety, but his denunciations of abuses by the aristocracy (as in 5:1-6) undoubtedly played a large role in the aristocratic priesthood’s opposition to him. About the year A.D. 62, when the procurator Festus died, the *high priest Ananus II executed James and some other people. The public outcry was so great, however, that when the new procurator Albinus arrived, Ananus was deposed from the high priesthood over the matter (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200-203).
Genre. Greek writers, including Jewish writers enamored with Greek thought, often listed loosely related exhortations in a style called parenesis. Some modern writers have argued that James is this sort of work (some even view the letter as a *New Testament collection of proverbs), but they fail to observe the close literary connections running throughout the book. It may be that James or one of his followers has adapted his sermonic material into a letter, but the connectedness of the material demonstrates that the letter in its present form is a polished, unified work.
James reads more like an essay than a letter, but one kind of ancient letter in which moralists and skilled rhetoricians engaged was a “letter-essay,” a general letter intended more to make an argument than to communicate greetings. Writers like *Seneca and Pliny sometimes used literary epistles of this sort, which were published and meant to be appreciated by a large body of readers (1:1). The messenger(s) who delivered it would presumably provide appropriate words of explanation; like letters from Jerusalem *high priests to Diaspora *synagogues, a letter from a respected leader in the Jerusalem church would carry much weight. The letter draws on Greco-Roman rhetorical conventions, Jewish wisdom and Jesus’ teachings (especially as now found in Mt 5–7). Because its present form includes a brief epistolary introduction (Jas 1:1) this commentary will call James a “letter,” though with the recognition that apart from that introduction it reads more like an essay.
Situation. Although James’s teaching can apply to a variety of situations (and was probably so applied by the letter’s Diaspora audience), this commentary can provide the most specific background by giving special attention to how the teachings would have applied concretely in James’s immediate environment in Judea. This environment shaped the issues James had to address toward the end of his life. More than a century before this time, the Roman general Pompey had cut Judean territory and made many Jewish peasants landless; the exorbitant taxes of Herod the Great must have driven more small farmers out of business. In the first century, many peasants worked as tenants on larger, feudal estates (as elsewhere in the empire); others became landless day laborers in the marketplaces, finding work only sporadically (more was available in harvest season). Resentment against aristocratic landlords ran high in many parts of the empire, but nonpayment of promised goods to them was hardly an option; a few landowners even had their own hit squads of hired assassins to deal with uncooperative tenants. The situation was less extreme in the cities, but even there the divisions were obvious (e.g., the aristocracy in Jerusalem’s Upper City versus the poor living downwind of that city’s sewers). When the aristocratic priests began to withhold tithe income from the poorer priests, their only means of support, economic tensions increased.
In Rome, grain shortages often led to rioting. Social and economic tensions in Palestine were contained longer but eventually yielded to violence. Pursuing peace with Rome through practical politics, the Jerusalem aristocracy became an object of hatred to *Zealots and other elements of resistance, who felt that God alone should rule the land. (Josephus, who wished to minimize the anti-Roman sentiment that prevailed in Judea just before the war, tried to marginalize the Zealots as a fringe group; but other evidence in his *narrative shows clearly that revolutionary sympathies in general were widespread.) Various outbreaks of violence eventually culminated in a revolt in A.D. 66, followed by a massacre of priests and the Roman garrison on the Temple Mount. Aristocratic and proletarian patriots clashed inside the city as Roman armies surrounded it, and in A.D. 70 Jerusalem fell and its temple was destroyed. The final resistance stronghold at Masada fell in A.D. 73.
Audience. James addresses especially Jewish Christians (and probably any other Jews who would listen) caught up in the sort of social tensions that eventually produced the war of A.D. 66–70 (see comment on Acts 21:20-22). Although the situation most explicitly fits James’s own in Judea, it also addresses the kinds of social tensions that were spreading throughout the Roman world (1:1). During the Judean war of 66–70, Rome violently discarded three emperors in a single year (A.D. 69), and immediately after the Judean war resistance fighters continued to spread their views to Jews in North Africa and Cyprus. But as in the case of some other general epistles, this letter reflects especially the situation of the writer more than that of any potential readership elsewhere.
Argument. James addresses the pride of the rich (1:9-11; 2:1-9; 4:13-17), persecution by the rich (2:6-7; 5:6) and pay withheld by the rich (5:4-6). He also addresses those tempted to retaliate with violent acts (2:11; 4:2) or words (1:19-20, 26; 3:1-12; 4:11-12; 5:9). He responds with a call to wisdom (1:5; 3:14-18), faith (1:6-8; 2:14-26) and patient endurance (1:9-11; 5:7-11). Once understood in the context of the situation, his supposedly “disjointed” exhortations all fit together as essential to his argument.
Commentaries. Among commentaries with helpful background are Peter Davids, The Epistle of James, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982); Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James, AB 37A (New York: Doubleday, 1995); Sophie Laws, A Commentary on the Epistle of James, HNTC (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980); Ralph P. Martin, James, WBC 48 (Waco, TX: Word, 1988); and Scot McKnight, The Letter of James, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). On a less technical level, see also Peter Davids, James (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1989). For more specialized works, see, e.g., Richard Bauckham, James: Wisdom of James, Disciple of Jesus the Sage (New York: Routledge, 1999); Ralph P. Martin, “The Life-Setting of the Epistle of James in the Light of Jewish History,” in Biblical and Near Eastern Studies: Essays in Honor of William Sanford LaSor, ed. Gary A. Tuttle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), pp. 97-103.
In this opening section James introduces the major themes of his letter, by which he responds to the trials of poverty and oppression faced by many people in his day, including peasants in Judea and Galilee.
1:1. The three basic elements of a letter’s introduction were (1) the author’s name; (2) the name of the recipient(s); (3) a greeting (usually the same greeting as here). Because this work is, if a genuine letter of sorts, a “general letter” (cf. comment on “letter-essays” in the introduction to James under “*genre”), it proceeds immediately to the argument, without other epistolary features.
Because “James” is an English substitution for the original “Jacob” (as always in the *New Testament), some writers have surmised here a symbolic “Jacob” addressing the twelve tribes of Israel, as Jacob addressed his descendants in the testament in Genesis 49. This suggestion is often associated with the assumption of pseudonymity, but it is also possible that James would play on his own name. Plays on names were common (e.g., Mt 16:18). On the author and audience, see the introduction.
Most Jewish people believed that ten of the twelve tribes had been lost for centuries, and they would be restored only at the end of the age. They were thought to exist somewhere, however, so James’s address may just mean, “To all my Jewish brothers and sisters scattered throughout the world.” The “dispersion” or Diaspora included Jews in the Parthian as well as the Roman Empire, and James would meet Jews from many nations at the pilgrimage festivals to Jerusalem. Some commentators believe that he means the term symbolically for all Christians as spiritual Israelites, on the analogy of 1 Peter 1:1, but given the letter’s contents, James probably particularly addresses Jewish Christians.
1:2. The specific trials he addresses in this letter are the poverty and oppression experienced by the poor (1:9-11; 5:1-6; cf. 2:5-6). Addresses like “friends,” “beloved” and “brothers” were common in ancient moral exhortation; “brothers” was used both for “fellow countrymen” and for “fellow religionists.”
1:3-4. Jewish tradition repeatedly stressed the virtue of enduring testings and occasionally stressed joy in them due to faith in God’s sovereignty. (*Stoic philosophers also stressed contentment in them, because they affirmed that one could control one’s response to them, but one could not control Fate.) Lists of vices and virtues were a conventional literary form.
1:5. Jewish wisdom traditions often stressed endurance and gave practical advice concerning how to deal with trials. The prime *Old Testament example of asking God (cf. 4:2-3) for wisdom is 1 Kings 3:5 and 9 (cf. also in the *Apocrypha: Wisdom of Solomon 8:21; 9:5; Sirach 51:13-14), and God was always recognized as its source (e.g., Prov 2:6). In Jewish wisdom, upbraiding or reproaching was considered harsh and rude under normal circumstances, although reproof was honorable.
1:6. The image of being driven on the sea was common in Greek literature and occurs in Jewish wisdom texts; cf. especially Isaiah 57:20 and the saying about the insincere in Sirach 33:2. In the context of James, asking for wisdom in faith means committing oneself to obey what God reveals (Jas 2:14-26).
1:7-8. Jewish wisdom texts condemn the double-minded or double-tongued person (cf. also 1 Chron 12:33; Ps 12:2); like philosophers, Jewish sages abhorred the hypocrisy of saying one thing and living another, and speaking or living inconsistently. (See comment on Jas 4:8 for the function of this warning in James.)
1:9-11. Wealthy landowners regularly exploited the poor throughout the empire, and Palestine was no exception; such economic tensions eventually provoked a war against Rome, in the course of which less well-to-do Jewish patriots slaughtered Jewish aristocrats.
The Old Testament and Jewish wisdom literature stress that riches fade, that God vindicates the oppressed and the poor in the end, and that he judges those who keep their wealth and do not share with the poor. James’s final statement here resembles Isaiah 40:6-7 and Psalm 102:4, 11 and 16, although the idea was by this time common. The “scorching wind” (NASB) might refer to the sirocco, an especially devastating hot wind blowing into Palestine from the southern desert. But the summer sun by itself was also quite effective in wilting Palestinian flowers, which were then useless except as fuel.
1:12. James uses the beatitude form common in ancient literature, especially Jewish literature: “How happy is the person who . . . ” Distresses were viewed as temptations, providing opportunities to sin. The term translated “trials” (NASB, GNT; cf. NIV) or “testing” did not necessarily mean “temptation” (KJV, NRSV) in the modern sense, however; the tester could be interested in the distressed person’s perseverance, rather than his or her defeat. Famines, poverty and oppression were among events viewed as testings.
1:13-16. One point leading to another, yielding a list of multiple items (as here in 1:14-15; Rom 5:3-5; 2 Pet 1:5-7), was a *rhetorical form known as concatenation. God clearly “tested” people in the Bible and later Jewish literature (Gen 22:1; Deut 8:2; 13:3; Judg 2:22), but he never tested them in the sense that is implied here: seeking for them to fail instead of persevere. Jewish texts distinguished between God’s motives in testing people (in love, seeking their good) and *Satan’s motives in testing them (to make them fall). In most Jewish texts, Satan (also called Belial and Mastema) fills the role of tempter. Although James does not deny Satan’s indirect role (4:7), he emphasizes here the human element in succumbing to temptation. Many scholars think that James personifies “desire” (NIV, NRSV, GNT) or “lust” (KJV, NASB) as enticing a person, then illegitimately conceiving the child “sin,” which in turn brings forth “death”; Jewish teachers occasionally applied the rhetorical technique of personification to the “evil impulse” all people had.
That people “tested” God in the *Old Testament is also clear (Num 14:22; Ps 78:18, 41, 56; 95:9; Mal 3:15), but again these examples mean that they tried to put him to the test, not that they led him to succumb to temptation. James could adapt the term in the light of the Greek philosophical idea that God could not be affected or changed by human actions, nor could he cause evils in the world. But more likely James is simply working with a different nuance of the term for “test”; in the Old Testament God is clearly the direct cause of judgment (e.g., Amos 4:6-11), and he listened to human pleas (Gen 18:23-32; Ex 32:10-13). The meaning is thus as in Sirach 15:11-12 and 20: people choose to sin, and they dare not say that God is responsible for their response to testing (by contrast, Greek literature was full of people protesting that their temptation was too great to resist).
1:17. Rather than sending testing to break people (1:12-16), God sends good gifts, including creation or rebirth (v. 18). That God is author of everything good was a commonplace of Jewish and Greek wisdom. That what is in the heavens is perfect was a common belief in antiquity, and Jewish writers sometimes used “from above” to mean “from God.”
“Father of lights” could mean “Creator of the stars”; *Gentiles often viewed the stars as gods, but Jewish people viewed the stars as angels. (Scholars suggest that Canaanites at Ugarit had long before called El the “Father of lights”; the *Dead Sea Scrolls call God’s supreme angel “Ruler of lights.” Various ancient Jewish texts call stars “the lights”—cf. Gen 1:14-19; Jer 31:35.) Ancient astronomers used words like “moving shadows” to describe the irregularities of heavenly bodies; but philosophers viewed what was perfect, what was in the heavens, as changeless and without direct contact with earth. Belief in astrology and fearing the powers of the stars were on the rise in this period. James is not supporting astrology; rather, like other Jewish writers, he is declaring God lord over the stars while denying God’s inconsistency. To ancient readers his words could thus proclaim: testings are not the result of arbitrary fate; our lives are the faithful workings of a loving Father.
1:18. Whether he refers to believers’ rebirth through the *gospel (cf. 1:21; 1 Pet 1:23; see comment on Jn 3:3, 5) or to humanity’s initial creation by God’s word (Gen 1:26) is disputed; “message of truth” and “firstfruits” may favor the former meaning (the beginning of the new creation). The point is clear either way: God’s giving birth is contrasted with desire’s giving birth (1:15), and it illustrates God’s *grace toward people (1:17).
James now turns to appropriate ways to deal with testing (1:2-18). The revolutionaries’ model, which was gaining popularity in Jewish Palestine and would ultimately lead to Jerusalem’s destruction, was not the appropriate response. James condemns not only violent acts but also the violent *rhetoric that incites them.
1:19. These are by far some of the most common admonitions in Jewish wisdom, from Proverbs on (e.g., 14:29; 15:18; 16:32; 19:11); Greek parallels are no less easy to adduce. James contrasts this biblical and traditional wisdom with the spirit of revolution sweeping his land.
1:20. The militant Jewish resistance emphasized striking out at the Romans and their aristocratic vassals, supposing that they would be acting as agents of God’s righteous indignation. But James associates righteousness with peace (3:18) and nonresistance (5:7).
1:21. “Wickedness” (NASB) in this context must refer to unrighteous anger (1:20); “meekness” (KJV) is the virtue of the nonresistant.
1:22. Receiving the word (1:21) meant more than hearing it; they had to live accordingly (1:19-20). (The proposal that “the ingrafted word” refers to the Stoic concept of “innate reason,” using similar language, falters on this point: “innate” reason need not be “received.”) Although most Jewish teachers (some disagreed) valued learning the *law above practicing it—because they held that practice depended on knowledge—they all agreed that both were necessary to fulfill the law. That one must not only know but must also obey truth was common moral wisdom (pervasive in ancient sources, e.g., Diodorus Siculus 9.9.1; Diogenes Laertius 6.2.64; *Letter of Aristeas 127; Mishnah Avot 1:17; 3:17; 5:14; Avot of Rabbi Nathan 24 A), which the readers would not dispute. Hearing without obeying indicated self-delusion (cf. Ezek 33:30-32).
1:23-24. The best mirrors were of Corinthian bronze, but no mirrors of that period produced the accurate images available today (cf. 1 Cor 13:12). Those with enough resources to own mirrors used them when fixing their hair; if James alludes to such people, he portrays the forgetful hearer as stupid. Alternatively, he refers to many people who had no mirrors and saw themselves rarely, who might more naturally forget their own appearance. In this case the reference is to the ease with which one loses the memory of the word, if one does not work hard to put it into practice. (Some moralists recommended use of a mirror to emphasize moral reflection. Perhaps one who heard in the word how a new creation should live—1:18-20—but failed to practice it was forgetting what he or she had become. But the mirror analogy may imply only the quick forgetting of the word, as above.)
1:25. The mirror is an analogy for the law (as at least once in Philo; Contemplative Life 78), which was thought to bring liberty. Philosophers believed that true wisdom or knowledge freed them from worldly care; the liberty here, however, as in many Jewish sources, seems to be from sin (1:19-20). (On conceptions of freedom, see comment on Jn 8:33.)
1:26. James again (cf. 1:19) condemns uncontrolled speech, which would include recent impassioned denunciations of Roman rule likely to lead to violence.
1:27. In contrast to the violent and unruly religion of the Jewish revolutionaries, true religion involves defending the socially powerless (Ex 22:20-24; Ps 146:9; Is 1:17) and avoiding worldliness (i.e., the values and behavior of the world; see comment on 4:4). Orphans and widows had neither direct means of support nor automatic legal defenders in that society. Later Jewish sources suggest that at least in Judea, charity distributors tried to ensure that widows and orphans were cared for if they had no relatives to help them; such charity is also part of the visiting envisioned here. Greek society did look out for freeborn orphans, but not other ones. Jewish people visited the bereaved especially during the first week of their bereavement but also afterward, and they likewise visited the sick. Many Greco-Roman writers also valued visiting the sick and bereaved.
In Judea, as in most of the empire, the rich were oppressing the poor (2:6-7). But the temptation to make rich converts or inquirers feel welcome at the expense of the poor was immoral (2:4). The language of impartiality was normally applied especially to legal settings, but because *synagogues served both as houses of prayer and as community courts, this predominantly legal image naturally applies to any gatherings there.
2:1. Jewish wisdom stressed that those who respected God should not show “favoritism” toward (literally “accept the face of”) people. The title “Lord of glory” (KJV, NASB; it means “glorious Lord”—NIV, NRSV) was normally applied to God (e.g., in *1 Enoch; cf. Ps 24:7-8).
2:2. Moralists and satirists mocked the special respect given to the wealthy, which often amounted to a self-demeaning way to seek funds or other help. Illustrations like this one could be hypothetical, which fit the writer’s *diatribe style of argument. In Rome the senatorial class wore gold rings; some members of this class sought popular support for favors shown to various groups. But rings were hardly limited to them; in the eastern Mediterranean gold rings also marked great wealth and status. Clothing likewise distinguished the wealthy, who could be ostentatious, from others; many peasants had only one cloak, which would thus often be dirty (this was true at least in Egypt; but even two cloaks would wear thin).
“Assembly” (KJV, NASB, NRSV) or “meeting” (NIV, GNT) is literally “synagogue,” either because James wants the whole Jewish community to embrace his example, or because some Jewish-Christian congregations (cf. 5:14) also considered themselves messianic synagogues.
2:3. Jewish legal texts condemn judges who make one litigant stand while another is permitted to sit; these hearings often took place in synagogues (2:2), which doubled as community centers. To avoid partiality on the basis of clothing, some second-century *rabbis required both litigants to dress in the same kind of clothes.
2:4. Roman laws explicitly favored the rich. Persons of lower class, who were thought to act from economic self-interest, could not bring accusations against persons of higher class, and the laws prescribed harsher penalties for lower-class persons convicted of offenses than for offenders from the higher class. Biblical *law, most Jewish law and traditional Greek philosophers had always rejected such distinctions as immoral. In normal times, the urban public respected the rich as public benefactors, although many of the revolutionaries recognized in the Jerusalem aristocracy pro-Roman enemies. The *Old Testament forbade partiality on the basis of economic status (Lev 19:15) and called judges among God’s people to judge impartially, as God did.
2:5. For God hearing the cries of the poor, who were also the most easily judicially oppressed, cf. texts like Deuteronomy 15:9. One line of Jewish tradition stresses the special piety of the poor, who had to depend on God alone.
2:6. Roman courts always favored the rich, who could initiate lawsuits against social inferiors, although social inferiors could not hope to win lawsuits against them. In theory, Jewish courts sought to avoid this discrimination, but as in most cultures people of means naturally had legal advantages: they were usually able to argue their cases more articulately or to hire others to do so for them.
2:7. Judaism often spoke of “the sacred name” or used other expressions rather than using the name of God; James may apply this divine title to Jesus here (cf. 2:1). In the Old Testament, being “called by someone’s name” meant that one belonged to that person in some sense; it was especially applied to belonging to God. Some of the Galilean aristocracy (such as those settled in Tiberias) were considered impious by general Jewish standards. But this accusation may apply specifically to anti-Christian opposition: much of the opposition Christians faced in Jerusalem came especially from the Sadducean aristocracy (Acts 4:1; 23:6-10).
2:8. A “royal” law, i.e., an imperial edict, was higher than the justice of the aristocracy, and because Judaism universally acknowledged God to be the supreme King, his law could be described in these terms (cf. *Philo, Posterity of Cain 102; Life of Moses 2.3-4). Christians could naturally apply it especially to Jesus’ teaching; like some other Jewish teachers, Jesus used this passage in Leviticus 19:18 to epitomize the law (cf. Mk 12:29-34).
2:9-10. Jewish teachers distinguished “heavier” from “lighter” sins, but felt that God required obedience to even the “smallest” commandments (e.g., Mishnah Avot 2:1; 4:2; Mishnah Qiddushin 1:10; Sifre Deuteronomy 76.1.1), rewarding the obedient with *eternal life and punishing transgressors with damnation. That willful violation of even a minor transgression was tantamount to rejecting the whole law was one of their most commonly repeated views (e.g., R. Meir in Babylonian Talmud Bekhorot 30a). (Ancient writers often stated principles in sharp, graphic ways but in practice showed more mercy to actual transgressors in the community.)
Traditional *Stoics (against the *Epicureans) went even farther in declaring that all sins were equal (e.g., *Epictetus, Discourses 2.21.1-7), a Stoic view widely known even among non-Stoics (e.g., *Cicero, On the Ends 4.27.74-75; Pliny, Epistles 8.2.3; Diogenes Laertius 7.1.120). Some Jewish writers agreed: rejecting the smallest commandment was equal to rejecting the largest, because in either case one rejected God’s law (*4 Maccabees 5:19-21). The point here is that rejecting the law of economic impartiality in Leviticus 19:15, or the general principle of love behind it (Lev 19:18), was rejecting the whole authority of God (Jas 2:8). Jewish teachers often used “stumbling” as a metaphor for sin.
2:11. Jewish tradition sometimes compared oppression of the poor with murder (cf. also 5:6). But James might here allude to religiously conservative revolutionaries, too religious to commit adultery, who would nevertheless not scruple at shedding the blood of Jewish aristocrats. At the time this letter was written, these “assassins” were regularly stabbing aristocrats to death in the temple (see comment on Acts 21:20-22).
2:12. Ancients could summarize a person’s behavior in terms of words and deeds; see comment on 1 John 3:18. Some scholars have pointed out that many philosophers believed themselves alone wise, free and kings, and they connect “law of liberty” here with “royal law” in 2:8. Jewish teachers believed that the law of the heavenly king freed one from the yoke of this world’s affairs. “Law of freedom,” as in 1:25, probably implies deliverance from sin.
2:13. James’s point here is that if his readers are not impartial judges, they will answer to the God who is an impartial judge; his impartiality in judgment is rehearsed throughout the Old Testament and Jewish tradition. Jewish teachers defined God’s character especially by two attributes, mercy and justice, and suggested that mercy normally won out over justice. They would have agreed with James that the merciless forfeited a right to mercy, and they had their own sayings similar to this one.
James could be reacting partly against a misinterpretation of Paul’s teaching, as some commentators have suggested, but even more he might react especially against a strain of Jewish piety that was fueling the revolutionary fervor that was leading toward war (cf. 1:26-27; 2:19). James uses words like “faith” differently from the way Paul does, but neither writer would be opposed to the other’s meaning: genuine faith is a reality on which one stakes one’s life, not merely passive assent to a doctrine. For James, expressions of faith like nondiscrimination (2:8-9) and nonviolence (2:10-12) must be lived, not merely acknowledged.
2:14-16. God commanded his people to supply the needs of the poor (Deut 15:7-8); to fail to do so was disobedience to his *law. “Go in peace” was a Jewish farewell blessing, but Jewish people were expected to show hospitality to other Jewish people in need. “Be warmed” (NASB) alludes to how cold the homeless could become (especially relevant in a place of high elevation like Jerusalem in winter). Moralists often used such straw examples (“if someone should claim”) as part of their argument; the reader is forced to admit the logical absurdity of the conclusion of a particular line of reasoning and to agree with the author’s argument. Jewish people held Abraham to be the ultimate example of such hospitality (cf. 2:21-23 and comment on 13:2).
2:17. Writers such as *Epictetus could use “dead” the same way as here; this is a graphic way of saying “useless” (see comment on 2:26).
2:18. “Someone will say” was a common way to introduce the speech of an imaginary opponent, the answer to whose objection merely furthered the writer’s argument. The force of the objection is “One may have faith, and another works”; the answer is “Faith can be demonstrated only by works.” “Show me” was a natural demand for evidence and appears in other moralists (e.g., Epictetus, Discourses 1.4.13; 1.11.8; 3.24.75).
2:19-20. The oneness of God was the basic confession of Judaism, recited daily in the Shema (Deut 6:4 and associated texts). Thus by “faith” James means monotheism, as much of Judaism used the term (’emunah). He thus says, “You acknowledge correct basic doctrine—so what? That is meaningless by itself.” That *demons recognized the truth about God and trembled before his name was widely acknowledged, even in the magical *papyri (which specialized in what from a biblical perspective was illicit demonology; cf. also *1 Enoch). Jewish teachers would have agreed with James that the oneness of God must be declared with a genuine heart; his oneness implied that he was to be the supreme object of human affection (Deut 6:4-5).
2:21-24. James connects Genesis 15:6 with the offering of Isaac (Gen 22), as in Jewish tradition. This event was the climax of Abraham’s faith in God, not only in Jewish tradition but in the Genesis *narrative itself. (God entered into covenant with Abraham’s descendants because he loved him and made a promise to him—Deut 7:7-9—which Abraham embraced in faith and thus obeyed; God accepted this obedient faith—Gen 26:4-5. This view was not quite the same as the second-century rabbinic view that God parted the Red Sea on account of the merits of the patriarchs, but neither is it the same as one common modern conception that faith is a once-for-all prayer involving no commitment of life or purpose and is efficacious even if quickly forgotten.)
Abraham was “declared righteous” at the Aqedah, the offering of Isaac, in the sense that God again acknowledged (Gen 22:12) Abraham’s prior faith, which had been tested ultimately at this point. The *Old Testament called Abraham God’s friend (2 Chron 20:7; Is 41:8), and later Jewish writers delighted in this title for him. Abraham’s initial faith exhibited in Genesis 12 and 15 was incomplete (cf. Gen 16) but matured further over the years as part of a living relationship with God.
2:25. Like the example of Abraham, the example of Rahab would not be controversial among James’s Jewish readers. Like Abraham (see comment on 2:14-16), Rahab was known for hospitality; but her act of saving the spies saved her as well (Josh 2:1-21; 6:22-25).
2:26. Most ancient people, including most Jewish people, accepted the necessary cooperation of body and spirit or soul; all who believed in the spirit or soul agreed that when it departed, the person died.
James now returns to his warnings against inflammatory speech (1:19, 26): one ought not to curse people made in God’s image (3:9-12).
3:1. Jewish sages also warned against teaching error and recognized that teachers would be judged strictly for leading others astray. Some who wanted to be teachers of wisdom were teaching the sort of “wisdom” espoused by the Jewish revolutionaries, which led to violence (3:13-18).
3:2. That everyone sinned was standard Jewish doctrine; that one of the most common instruments of sin and harm was the human mouth was also a Jewish commonplace (as early as Proverbs, e.g., Prov 11:9; 12:18; 18:21).
3:3-4. Controlling horses with bits and ships with rudders were common illustrations in the ancient Mediterranean, because everyone except the most illiterate peasants (who would also miss many of the other allusions if they heard James read) understood them. Jewish texts often cast wisdom, reason and God in the role of ideal pilots, but James’s point here is not what should control or have power. His point is simply the power of a small instrument (v. 5).
3:5-6. Others also compared the spread of rumors to the igniting of what would rapidly become a forest fire. Here the image is that of a tongue that incites the whole body to violence. The boastful tongue plotting harm (Ps 52:1-4) and the tongue as a hurtful fire (Ps 39:1-3; 120:2-4; Prov 16:27; 26:21; Sirach 28:21-23) are old images. That the fire is sparked by “hell” suggests where it leads; Jewish pictures of *Gehenna, like Jesus’ images for the fate of the damned, typically included flame.
3:7-8. Made in God’s image (v. 9), people were appointed over all creatures (Gen 1:26). But although other creatures could be subdued as God commanded (Gen 1:28; 9:2), the tongue was like the deadliest snake, full of toxic venom (Ps 140:3; cf. 58:1-6; 1QHa 13.29 in the *Dead Sea Scrolls; and other Jewish texts). *Stoic philosophers also occasionally reflected on humanity’s rule over animals.
3:9-10. Some other Jewish teachers also noted the incongruity of blessing God while cursing other people, who were made in his image; even more often, they recognized that whatever one did to other humans, it was as if one did it to God himself, because people were made in his image. James’s readers could not easily miss his point. This text makes clear the sort of perverse speech that 3:1-12 addresses: antagonistic speech, which fits the situation the letter as a whole addresses. Whether by incendiary *rhetoric or in other ways, cursing mortal enemies was incompatible with worshiping God, no matter how embedded it had become in Jewish patriotic tradition (since the Maccabean era).
3:11-12. James produces two other common examples of impossible incongruity. Figs, olives and grapes were the three most common agricultural products of the Judean hills, and alongside wheat and barley they would have constituted the most common crops of the Mediterranean region as a whole. That everything brought forth after its kind was a matter of common observation and became proverbial in Greco-Roman circles (cf. also Gen 1:11-12, 21, 24-25).
The paradigm of violent retaliation, urged by *Zealots and other Jewish revolutionaries, claimed to be religious and wise; James urges the poor to respond by waiting on God instead (5:7-11). That James was wiser than advocates of revolution was proved in the aftermath of the Judean revolt of A.D. 66–70, when Judea was devastated, Jerusalem destroyed and Jerusalem’s survivors enslaved.
3:13. Those who wished to teach others as wise sages (3:1) needed to show their wisdom by gentleness: this is the antithesis of the advocates of revolution, who were gaining popularity in the tensions stirred by poverty and oppression in the land.
3:14. The term translated “jealousy” (NASB) or “envy” (NIV, NRSV) here is the term for “zeal” also appropriated by the Zealots, who fancied themselves successors of Phinehas (Num 25:11; Ps 106:30-31) and the *Maccabees and sought to liberate Jewish Palestine from Rome by force of arms. “Strife” (KJV; “selfish ambition”—NASB, NIV, NRSV) also was related to disharmony and had been known to provoke wars.
3:15-16. “Above” was sometimes synonymous with “God” in Jewish tradition; as opposed to heavenly wisdom, the wisdom of violence (3:14) was thoroughly earthly, human and demonic (cf. similarly Mt 16:22-23). The *Dead Sea Scrolls spoke of sins as inspired by the spirit of error (1QS 3.25-26; 4.9) or spirits of Belial (CD 12.2), and folk Judaism increasingly believed that people were continually surrounded by hordes of *demons. James’s words suggest a more indirect working of demons through stirring up their own ungodly values in the world system.
3:17. Wisdom “from above,” i.e., from God (1:17; 3:15), is “pure,” not mixed with anything else (in this case, not mixed with demonic wisdom—3:14-16); it is thus also “unhypocritical.” Many Jewish wisdom texts spoke of divine wisdom coming from above. God’s genuine wisdom is nonviolent rather than given to lashing out: “peaceable,” “gentle,” “open to reason,” “full of mercy” (cf. 2:13); it was also “unwavering” (NASB), better rendered “impartial” (NIV), or “without prejudice or favoritism” (cf. 2:1-9). In Judea, such wisdom is neither that of those like *Zealots nor of those supporting the aristocracy.
3:18. The image of virtues as seeds and fruits has many parallels (e.g., Prov 11:18; Is 32:17), but James’s point in the context is this: true wisdom is the wisdom of peace, not of violence. Although many Pharisaic teachers extolled peace, many populists were advocating violence, and James’s message was in many regards countercultural.
God’s wisdom was not the populist wisdom of the revolutionaries (3:13-18); thus those whose faith was genuine (2:14-26) could not waver between the two options. James addresses here many of the poor, the oppressed, who are tempted to try to overthrow their oppressors and seize their goods.
4:1. Most Greco-Roman philosophers and many *Diaspora Jews repeatedly condemned people who were ruled by their passions, and described these desires for pleasure as “waging war.” Many writers like *Plato, *Plutarch and *Philo attributed all literal wars to bodily desires. In a somewhat similar vein, Jewish people spoke of an evil impulse, which according to later *rabbis dominated all 248 members of the body.
4:2. *Diatribe often included *hyperbole, or graphic, rhetorical exaggeration for effect. Most of James’s readers have presumably not literally killed anyone, but they are exposed to violent teachers (3:13-18) who regard murder as a satisfactory means of attaining justice and redistribution of wealth. James counsels prayer instead. Later he has much harsher words for the oppressors, however; they were guilty of exploiting their hungry workers and violently silencing those who spoke for justice (cf. 5:1-6).
4:3. Jewish prayers typically asked God to supply genuine needs; see comment on Matthew 6:11. James believes that such prayers will be answered (cf. Prov 10:24), even though the oppressed will always be worse off than they should be (cf. Prov 13:23). But requests based on envy of others’ wealth or status were meant to satisfy only their passions (see comment on 4:1).
4:4. In the *Old Testament, Israel was often called an adulteress for claiming to serve God while pursuing idols (e.g., Hos 1–3). Those who claimed to be God’s friends (Jas 2:23) but were really moral *clients of the world (friendship often applied to *patron-client relationships)—that is, they shared the world’s values (3:13-18)—were really unfaithful to God.
4:5. Here James may refer to the evil impulse that, according to Jewish tradition, God made to dwell in people; on this reading, he is saying, “This human spirit jealously longs,” as in 4:1-3. Less likely, he could mean that one’s spirit or soul longs and ought to long—but for God (Ps 42:1-2; 63:1; 84:2).
A third possibility is that he may be citing a proverbial maxim based on such texts as Exodus 20:5, Deuteronomy 32:21 and Joel 2:18, summarizing the sense of Scripture thus: “God is jealous over the spirit he gave us” and will tolerate no competition for its affection (4:4). (Like Jewish writers, *New Testament authors sometimes *midrashically meshed various texts together.) This view seems to fit the context somewhat better than other views, given that Scripture did not speak this “in vain” (4:5), though the “greater *grace” of 4:6 could support the first view above.
4:6. James cites Proverbs 3:34 almost exactly as it appeared in the common form of the *Septuagint. This idea became common in Jewish wisdom texts. Humility included appropriate submission, in this case to God’s sovereign plan for a person’s life (4:7, 10).
4:7. Ancient magical texts spoke of *demons’ fleeing before incantations, but the idea here is moral, not magical. One must choose between the values of God and those of the world (4:4), between God’s wisdom and that which is demonic (3:15, 17). The point is that a person who lives by God’s values (in this case, his way of peace) is no part of *Satan’s *kingdom (in contrast to the religious-sounding revolutionaries).
4:8. Old Testament texts exhorted priests and people in general to “draw near to God.” Purification was also necessary for priests (Ex 30:19), but the image here is not specifically priestly; those responsible for bloodshed, even if only as representatives of a corporately guilty group, were to wash their hands (Deut 21:6; cf. Jas 4:2). “Purification” often came to be used in an inward, moral sense (e.g., Jer 4:14).
Using ideas like “sinners,” James employs not only the harsh diatribe rhetoric that Greco-Roman writers used against imaginary opponents when demolishing their positions; he also uses the rhetoric of Old Testament prophets. “Double-minded” again alludes to the general ancient contempt for hypocrisy: one must act from either God’s peaceful wisdom or the devil’s hateful wisdom (3:13-18; 4:4).
4:9-10. Old Testament texts often connected mourning and self-humiliation with *repentance (Lev 23:29; 26:41), especially when confronted by divine judgment (2 Kings 22:11; Joel 1:13-14; 2:12-13). The exaltation of the humble was also a teaching of the prophets; see comment on Matthew 23:12.
4:11. James returns to the specific worldly behavior his readers are following: harsh and even violent speech (3:1-12). (He either addresses social stratification within the Christian community or, more likely, uses “brothers” in its more common Jewish sense of “fellow Jews.” Jewish revolutionaries had already begun killing aristocrats, and inflammatory rhetoric was certainly even more common.) His general principle was standard Old Testament and Jewish wisdom opposing slander, which many of his readers may not have been considering in this context. The *law declared God’s love for Israel and commanded his people to love one another (2:8); to slander a fellow Jew was thus to disrespect the law.
4:12. That God alone was the true judge was a common Jewish and New Testament teaching. In Jewish teaching, earthly courts proceeded only on his authority, and those who ruled in them had to judge by the law. Investigations had to be conducted thoroughly, with a minimum of two witnesses; acting as a false witness, slandering someone to a court without genuine firsthand information, was punishable according to the judgment the falsely accused person would have received if convicted.
Having counseled the oppressed, James quickly turns to the oppressors, denouncing their self-satisfied forgetfulness of God. Most of the wealth in the Roman Empire was accumulated by one of two means: the landed gentry, of high social class, made their wealth from land-based revenues such as crops raised by tenant farmers or slaves; the merchant class gathered great wealth without the corresponding social status. James addresses both merchants (4:13-17) and the landed aristocracy (5:1-6).
4:13. Many philosophers (especially *Stoics) and Jewish sages liked to warn their hearers that they had no control over the future. “Go now” (5:1) was a fairly common way of proceeding with an argument (e.g., Athenaeus), addressing an imaginary opponent (e.g., *Cicero, *Epictetus) or prefacing harsh words in satire (Horace, *Juvenal).
The primary markets for manufactured goods were towns and cities; projecting commitments and profits was also a normal business practice. Traders were not always wealthy, but here they are at least seeking wealth. The sin here is arrogant presumption—feeling secure enough to leave God out of one’s calculations (4:16; cf., e.g., Jer 12:1; Amos 6:1).
4:14. Here James offers common Jewish and Stoic wisdom to which few readers would theoretically object, although many were undoubtedly not heeding it.
4:15-17. “If God wills” was a conventional Greek expression (e.g., Xenophon, Hellenica 2.4.17; 5.1.14) but fit Jewish piety well (cf., e.g., *Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 2.333; 7.373; 20.267); it appears elsewhere in the New Testament (e.g., Acts 18:21; see comment on 1 Cor 16:7).
Throughout most of the rural areas of the Roman Empire, including much of rural Galilee, rich landowners profited from the toil of tenant farmers (often alongside slaves) who worked their massive estates. That feudalism, with its serfs working rich landowners’ property, arose only in medieval times is a misconception. This arrangement is simply less prominent in literature of Roman times because Roman literature concentrated on the cities, although only about ten percent of the empire is estimated to have been urban.
Most of James’s denunciation takes the form of an *Old Testament prophetic judgment oracle, paralleled also in some Jewish wisdom and *apocalyptic texts. The difference between his denunciation of the rich and the violent speech he himself condemns (1:19, 26; 3:1-12; 4:11) is that he (like some Jewish visionaries of his era) appeals to God’s judgment rather than to human retribution (4:12; cf. Deut 32:35; Prov 20:22). His *prophecy was timely; a few years later the Jewish aristocracy was virtually obliterated in the revolt against Rome.
5:1. Exhortations to weep and howl were a graphic prophetic way of saying: You will have reason to weep and howl (Joel 1:8; Mic 1:8; cf. Jas 4:9). On “come,” see comment on 4:13.
5:2. Clothing was one of the primary signs of wealth in antiquity; many peasants had only one garment.
5:3. Some other ancient writers ridiculed the rust of unused, hoarded wealth. For “rust” and “moth” (v. 2) together, compare perhaps Matthew 6:19. As Jewish sources often noted, wealth would be worthless in the impending day of God’s judgment.
5:4. The *law of Moses forbade withholding wages, even overnight; if the injured worker cried out to God, God would avenge him (Deut 24:14-15; cf., e.g., Lev 19:13; Prov 11:24; Jer 22:13; Mal 3:5). That the wrong done the oppressed would itself cry out to God against the oppressor was also an Old Testament image (Gen 4:10). In first-century Palestine, many day laborers depended on their daily wages to purchase food for themselves and their families; withholding money could mean that they and their families would go hungry.
The income absentee landlords received from agriculture was such that the wages they paid workers could not even begin to reflect the profits they accumulated. Although the rich supported public building projects (in return for attached inscriptions honoring them), they were far less inclined to pay sufficient wages to their workers. At least as early as the second century, Jewish teachers suggested that even failing to leave gleanings for the poor was robbing them (based on Lev 19:9-10; 23:22; Deut 24:19).
Most crops were harvested in or near summer, and extra laborers were often hired for the harvest. Many *Diaspora Jewish texts (literary texts, amulets, etc.) called God “Sabaoth” or “Lord of Sabaoth,” transliterating the Hebrew word for “hosts”: the God with vast armies (an epithet especially prominent in the *LXX of Isaiah). If it was a bad idea to offend a powerful official, it was thus a much worse idea to secure the enmity of God.
5:5. The rich and their guests consumed much meat in a day of slaughter, i.e., at a feast (often at sheep-shearing or harvest; cf. 1 Sam 25:4, 36); once an animal was slaughtered, as much as possible was eaten at once, because the rest could be preserved only by drying and salting. Meat was generally unavailable to the poor except during public festivals.
The picture here is of the rich being fattened like cattle for the day of their own slaughter (cf., e.g., Jer 12:3; Amos 4:1-3); similar imagery appears in parts of the early apocalyptic work *1 Enoch (94:7-11; 96:8; 99:6). As often in the Old Testament (e.g., Amos 6:4-7), the sin in verse 5 is not exploitation per se (as in v. 4) but a lavish lifestyle while others go hungry or in need.
5:6. Jewish tradition recognized that the wicked plotted against the righteous (e.g., Wisdom of Solomon 2:19-20), as the sufferings of many Old Testament heroes (such as David and Jeremiah) showed. Judicial oppression of the poor, repeatedly condemned in the Old Testament, was viewed as murder in later Jewish texts; to take a person’s garment or to withhold a person’s wages was to risk that person’s life. James “the Just” himself was later martyred by the *high priest for his denunciations of the behavior of the rich.
The oppressors would be punished (5:1-6), but the oppressed have to wait on God (cf. 1:4) rather than take matters violently into their own hands. This exhortation did not mean that they could not speak out against injustice (5:1-6); it only forbade violence and personally hostile speech (5:9) as an appropriate solution to injustice.
5:7-8. Harvest here (cf. v. 4) becomes an image of the day of judgment, as elsewhere in Jewish literature (especially *4 Ezra; Mt 13). Palestine’s autumn rains came in October and November, and winter rains (roughly three-quarters of the year’s rainfall) in December and January. But residents of Syria-Palestine eagerly anticipated the late rains of March and April, which were necessary to ready their late spring and early summer crops. The main wheat harvest there ran from mid-April through the end of May; the barley harvest was in March. The main grain harvest came in June in Greece, July in Italy. Farmers’ families were entirely dependent on good harvests; thus James speaks of the “precious” (or “valuable”—NIV) fruit of the earth.
5:9. On this kind of speech, see comment on 4:11-12.
5:10. Most *Old Testament prophets faced great opposition for their preaching; some faced death. Jewish tradition had amplified accounts of their martyrdom even further, hence no one would dispute James’s claim. Virtuous examples were an important part of ancient argumentation (*Stoic philosophers often used like-minded sages as models of endurance).
5:11. The entire structure of the book of Job may have been meant to encourage Israel after the exile; although God’s justice seemed far away and they were mocked by the nations, God would ultimately vindicate them and end their captivity (cf. the Hebrew of Job 42:10). *Hellenistic Jewish tradition further celebrated Job’s endurance (e.g., the *Testament of Job, and Aristeas the Exegete). (Various later *rabbis evaluated him differently, some positively, some negatively. The Testament of Job includes Stoic language for the virtue of endurance and transfers some earlier depictions of Abraham to Job; this transferral may have been the source of one later rabbi’s rare conclusion that Job was greater than Abraham.)
5:12. Oaths were verbal confirmations guaranteed by appeal to a divine witness; violation of an oath in God’s name broke the third commandment (Ex 20:7; Deut 5:11). Like some groups of Greek philosophers, some kinds of *Essenes would not swear any further oaths after they had completed their initiatory oaths (according to *Josephus, Jewish War 2.135, in contrast to the Essenes who wrote the *Dead Sea Scrolls); the *Pharisees, however, allowed oaths. On swearing by various items as lesser surrogates for God, see comment on Matthew 5:33-37. Oaths generally called on the gods to witness the veracity of one’s intention and had to be kept, or invited a curse on the one who had spoken the untruth. Vows were a more specific category of oaths to undertake some duty or abstain from something for a particular period of time.
The difficulty is ascertaining what sort of swearing is in view in the context. Some scholars have suggested a warning against taking a *Zealot-type oath (cf. Acts 23:12); while this could fit the context of James very well, his readers may not have recognized something so specific. The idea may be that one should not impatiently (5:7-11) swear; rather one should pray (5:13). One should pray rather than swear because the fullest form of an oath included a self-curse, which was like saying “May God kill me if I fail to do this” or (in English preadolescent idiom) “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
5:13. Nonresistance did not mean pretending that things did not matter (as the *Stoics did; see comment on Eph 5:20) or simply waiting unconsoled until the end time (as some Jewish *apocalyptic writers may have done); it meant prayer.
5:14. Wounds were anointed with oil (cf. Is 1:6; Lk 10:34), and those with headaches and those wishing to avoid some diseases were anointed with olive oil for “medicinal” purposes (from the ancient perspective; cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 17.172; Jewish War 1.657). Oil was also used to anoint priests or rulers, pouring oil over the head as a consecration to God. Christians may have combined a symbolic medicinal use with a symbol of handing one over to the power of God’s *Spirit (Mk 6:13).
A general prayer for healing was one of the blessings regularly recited in *synagogues; on “elders,” see comment on Acts 14:23; on “*church” in a Jewish context, see the glossary. Visiting the sick was an act of piety in early Judaism that Christians probably continued (cf. Mt 25:36, 43, for ailing missionaries).
5:15-16. The *Old Testament prophets often used healing from sickness as an image for healing from sin, and Jewish literature often associated sin and sickness; for instance, the eighth blessing of a Jewish daily prayer, for healing (although the emphasis is not physical healing), followed petitions for forgiveness and redemption. James does not imply a direct causal relationship between all sickness and sin, any more than Paul or the Old Testament does (see comment on Phil 2:25-30).
Jewish wisdom also recognized that God would hear the sick (Sirach 38:9) and connected this hearing with renouncing sin (38:10). But although only a very few pious Jewish teachers were normally thought able to produce such assured results in practice (cf. Jas 5:17-18), James applies this possibility of praying with faith to all believers.
5:17-18. Although all Palestinian Jews prayed for rain, few miracle workers were thought able to secure such answers to prayer (especially Josephus’s Onias, called Honi the Circle-Drawer in the many later rabbinic traditions about him; Hanina ben Dosa, in later rabbinic texts; in later traditions about earlier pietists, occasional pious men like Honi’s grandson Abba Hilkiah or Hanan ha-Nehba, Johanan ben Zakkai, Nakdimon ben Gorion, Rabbi Jonah and occasionally an anonymous person). The miracle of securing rain eventually came to be viewed as equivalent to raising the dead. The piety of these miraculous rainmakers always set them apart from others in Jewish tradition, but here James affirms that Elijah, the greatest model for such miracle workers, was a person like James’s hearers and is a model for all believers (1 Kings 17:1; 18:41-46; cf. 1 Sam 12:17-18; for Elijah’s weakness cf. 1 Kings 19:4).
The “three and a half years,” not mentioned in 1 Kings 17, reflects 1 Kings 18:1 and later tradition (cf. Lk 4:25 and a rabbinic tradition of three years), perhaps through associations with ideas about famines in the end time, which were sometimes held to last for this period of time.
5:19-20. In Jewish belief, the former righteousness of one who turned away was no longer counted in his or her favor (Ezek 18:24-25), but (in most Jewish formulations) the *repentance of the wicked canceled out his or her former wickedness (Ezek 18:21-23), if conjoined with proper *atonement. Some Jews (Dead Sea Scrolls, some rabbis) regarded some forms of apostasy as unforgivable, but James welcomes the sinner back. In this context, he might among other things invite revolutionaries to return to the fold.
“Covering a multitude of sins” comes from Proverbs 10:12. In that text, it probably refers to not spreading a bad report (cf. 11:13; 20:19), but Judaism often used similar phrases for securing forgiveness. One may compare the Jewish idea that one who converted another to the practice of Judaism was as if he or she had created that person.