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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - James 1:25 - 1:25
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Whoso looketh (ὁ παρακύψας)
Rev., more strictly, he that looketh. See on 1Pe 1:12. The verb is used of one who stoops sideways (παρά) to look attentively. The mirror is conceived as placed on a table or on the ground. Bengel quotes Wisdom of Sirach 14:23: “He that prieth in at her (Wisdom's) windows shall also hearken at her doors.” Coleridge remarks: “A more happy or forcible word could not have been chosen to express the nature and ultimate object of reflection, and to enforce the necessity of it, in order to discover the living fountain and spring-head of the evidence of the Christian faith in the believer himself, and at the same time to point out the seat and region where alone it is to be found” (“Aphorisms”).
Into (εἰς)
Denoting the penetration of the look into the very essence of the law.
The perfect law of liberty (νόμον τέλειον τὸν τῆς ἐλευθερίας)
Lit., the perfect law, the law of liberty. So Rev. The law of liberty is added as defining the perfect law.
Continueth therein
Better, Rev., so continueth; i.e., continues looking.
Forgetful hearer (ἀκροατὴς ἐπιλησμονῆς)
The latter word only here in New Testament. Lit., a hearer of forgetfulness; whom forgetfulness characterizes. Rev., very happily, a hearer that forgetteth; a rendering which gives the proper sense of forgetfulness as a characteristic better than A. V., a forgetful hearer.
Doer of the work
Lit., of work, as the noun has no article. Rev., a doer that worketh.
In his deed (ἐν τῇ ποιήσει αὐτοῦ)
More correctly, as Rev., in his doing. Only here in New Testament. The preposition ἐν (in) marks the inner connection between doing and blessedness. “The life of obedience is the element wherein the blessedness is found and consists” (Alford).