The secret grudge is taken out in groans and murmurs. In Mark 7:34 Jesus is said to have groaned as he looked up to heaven and prayed, perhaps out of sheer weariness at the burden of sin and sorrow that was upon him. It is hard to be content and to smother resentment at known or suspected wrong. The suppressed volcano may easily break out into a violent eruption. “Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied” (Psalm 59:15, AV). The murmur of a mob is often senseless, and in all events we must bear in mind that we bring down condemnation on our own heads.
“That ye be not judged,” says James. He recurs to this point in 5:12. Probably the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:1 are recalled by James. “Behold, the judge standeth before the door.” He will hear all complaints and set everything right. The picture appears to be that in the Mishnah Ab. iv. 16: “This world is as if it were a vestibule to the future world; prepare thyself in the vestibule, that thou mayest enter the reception room.” Jesus is the Judge who stands at the door through which all must pass. The conception is eschatological and apocalyptic. See Matthew 24:33: “Know ye that he is nigh, even at the doors.” In Revelation 3:20 Jesus is represented as saying: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Let him in now, that you and he may sup together. Let him in now, else you may stand before him hereafter as culprit and helpless and hopeless. “Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and ye perish in the way” (Psalm 2:12). Treat kindly one another so that you will not need the Son to act as Judge between you.
Examples of Patience (5:10 f.)
James, like a practical preacher, loves to illustrate his points. He has a fitting one at hand in “the prophets who spake in the name of the Lord.” They spoke in the name, with the authority and with the power of the Lord. The idiom is common enough in the Septuagint and, indeed, in the papyri.[93] They spoke as the representatives of Jehovah. Mayor seems a bit perplexed over the failure of James to mention Jesus as the supreme example of suffering, as is done by Peter (1 Peter 2:21), who spoke of Christ’s leaving us an example, by Paul (Phil. 2:5-11), and by the author of Hebrews (12:1-5).
Perhaps James may have thought it was particularly pertinent for these Jewish Christians to be reminded of the prophets as an “example of suffering and of patience.” Certainly they endured evil in abundance and had great need of long-suffering. It was common enough to appeal to them for this purpose. Jesus did it with keenest irony at the mock heroic monuments built later to the memory of the martyred prophets (Matt. 5:12; 23:34, 37). Stephen did it with so sharp a tongue that the Sanhedrin stoned him to death for his courage and proved the truth of his words by their own acts (Acts 7:52). Elijah says to Jehovah, “The children of Israel have ... slain thy prophets with the sword” (1 Kings 19:10, 14). Jeremiah says also, “Your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion” (2:30). As patterns of patience take Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. These illustrate in various ways the patience of which the readers of the Epistle of James stand in sore need.
“Behold, we call them blessed that endured.” He had already done that in James 1:12. Jesus had promised salvation to the one who endured to the end (Matt. 24:13). Men usually felicitate the survivors of a catastrophe. Often they become popular heroes.
In particular, “ye have heard of the patience of Job.” Job was the most frequently quoted instance in Old Testament times and is a perfectly obvious one for James. And yet Job did have passionate outbursts of indignation at the gibes and superfluous advice of his tormenting friends, and even of his wife, when God seemed to have deserted him. But it must be remembered that Job did not curse God and die. He waited for God to speak and make it all plain. Job hardly exhibited long-suffering, but he clearly did show patience. He was not exactly meek, but he revealed the endurance of a sensitive man. Although Job is the most famous instance of patience in the Old Testament, yet he is nowhere else cited as such in the New Testament. We need not discuss the question whether Job is parable or fact, as the point is here precisely the same.
Ye “have seen the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is full of pity, and merciful.” The outcome in the case of Job proves the point. It turned out all right with Job. So he illustrates the pity and mercy of the Lord; “the end of the Lord” is seen in the conclusion, like a novel that turns out happily at last. In the midst of the stress and storm of Job’s life and his violent outbursts of emotion and exalted feeling God is sympathetic and compassionate. God has understood Job and watched his endurance all the while. The story is so well known that James does not have to tell it but can depend upon his readers to see the point of the illustration.
Profanity (5:12)
This little paragraph seems to come in rather abruptly, with no connection with what precedes. As a result, Oesterley regards it as “a fragment of a larger piece” which James here tears from its context, perhaps a saying from Jesus. But Plummer is more likely correct in thinking of it as an appendix after rounding out the epistle, coming back to the blessedness of trial, with which topic the epistle opens.