The wide dispersion of the Jews all over the Roman Empire gave them business connections that made it easy to get new business and to hold the old trade. The very word here for “trade” means to travel into a region to get business, just like a modern commercial traveler. Our word “emporium” is just this word. The Jews made the very Temple itself “a house of merchandise.” So then trading implied traveling for business (Matt. 22:5).
In 2 Peter 2:3 a somber light is thrown by this same word: “And in covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you.” “And get gain.” This is the climax of the whole, the aim of the journeys and the trading. “The frequent conjunctions separate the different items of the plan, which are rehearsed thus one by one with manifest satisfaction. The speakers gloat over the different steps of the programme which they have arranged for themselves” (Plummer). There is no harm in planning to make money or in travel for that purpose. The harm lies in the complete ignoring of God in all their plans.
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow,”[89] “you who know nothing about to-morrow” (Moffatt). James has ample authority in this statement. “Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1). The prohibition implies a carelessness about the future that grew out of indifference to God. There is a rabbinical saying (Sanhed. 100b) to this effect: “Care not for the morrow, for ye know not what a day may bring forth.” James is condemning those who make their plans for the future with God left out, as if all were in their own hands. Jesus spoke the wonderful parable of the rich fool for the benefit of two brothers who were quarreling over the estate: “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry” (Luke 12:19).
This was the worldly-wise view of the Cyrenaics and the Epicureans, and it is the standpoint of multitudes of modern men who under the influence of monism (like Haeckel) deny the existence of a personal God or who act as if there were no God (Psalm 14:1). But God replies to the fool, “Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?” Jesus does not contradict this position when he says: “Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matt. 6:34). He is here condemning overanxiety, that is as distrustful of God as reckless unconcern. There is the golden mean of calm trust in God.
We are not to live in a haphazard manner, without plan or purpose. We are to make plans, but we must put God into our preparations. It is cowardly to be superstitious in the anticipation of evil. Some people knock on wood if they happen to boast a bit. Others are superstitious about the number thirteen, about Friday, about the moon, and a hundred other hallucinations. The point with these Jews is not worry or superstition but irreligion. There are multitudes of practical pagans today who fear not God nor regard man. They carry on their business with no fear of consequences for their evil practices. They wreck a bank or a railroad with equal nonchalance and care not for the suffering caused thereby in the homes of the poor.
As a matter of fact, we are ignorant of the morrow. We do not know the weather of the morrow with certainty, in spite of our gauges and forecasts. Many railroad accidents are due to the unknown elements in the problems of travel. A faulty rail, a broken tie, a weakened wheel, a rolling stone, a careless brakeman, a sleeping switchman, a malicious robber—a hundred and one things may happen, any one of which will cause death to helpless victims. “The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley.”
The uncertainty of life is one of the things that a wise man must consider and face. A clot of blood on the brain may cause instant and unexpected death. The heart, driven too hard, may suddenly cease to beat. “What is your life?” He does not mean manner of life or the life principle or eternal life. The question concerns all, the good and the wicked alike. The question as to the character of life pertains to its brevity and uncertainty on earth. “For ye are a vapor,” “you are but a mist” (Moffatt). The word is common for smoke, as the “smoke of a furnace” (Gen. 19:28), “vapor of smoke” (Acts 2:19; from Joel 2:30), steam or breath; so our “atmosphere.” Job lamented (7:7): “Oh remember that my life is a breath.” We are “a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” Aristotle (Hist. An. vi. 7) uses these two verbs of the appearance and the disappearance of a flock of birds as they sweep across the sky. The usage occurs also of the eclipse of the sun. The transitoriness of human life should lead to full and hearty recognition of God, not to careless slighting of him.
“For that ye ought to say” (more exactly, “instead of your saying”), “If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that.” James does not, of course, mean that one should always say these words. That gets to be cant or mere claptrap. It becomes repellent to hear one use the name of God flippantly and constantly. Besides, it comes to signify little or nothing, as one may count his beads or say his Pater Nosters with no regard to what he is doing. There should be significance in our acts and words of worship.
The Jews made a point not to use the name of God too familiarly. They often used “the Name” for God, and Christians came to refer to Christ in the same way, “for the Name” (Acts 5:41). The late Jews came, perhaps under Mohammedan influence, to use the formula “if the Name wills” when about to start upon a journey (Oesterley). The rabbis (Plummer) have a story of a Jewish father who, at the circumcision of his son, boasts that with seven-year-old wine he would celebrate for a long time the birth of his son. That night Rabbi Simeon meets the Angel of Death and asks him, “Why art thou thus wandering about?” The angel replies: “Because I slay those who say, ‘We will do this or that,’ and think not how soon death may come upon them.”
The thing that matters is for us to have the right attitude of heart toward God, not the chattering of a formula. God does not have to be propitiated by a charm or amulet. God should be the silent partner in all our plans and work, to be consulted, to be followed whenever his will is made known. Paul frequently spoke of his plans, sometimes mentioning God, as in Acts 18:21 (God willing), 1 Corinthians 4:19 (if the Lord will), and 1 Corinthians 16:7 (if the Lord permit); but also with no mention of God in words, as in Acts 19:21; Romans 15:28; 1 Corinthians 16:5. But always Paul felt that his movements were “in the Lord,” as in Philippians 2:24. He never left God out of his life. Indeed, he practiced the presence of God.