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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - James 1:2 - 1:2
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Count it (hēgēsasthe). First aorist middle imperative of hēgeomai, old verb to consider. Do it now and once for all.
All joy (pāsan charan). “Whole joy,” “unmixed joy,” as in Phi 2:29. Not just “some joy” along with much grief.
When (hotan). “Whenever,” indefinite temporal conjunction.
Ye fall into (peripesēte). Second aorist active subjunctive (with the indefinite hotan) from peripiptō, literally to fall around (into the midst of), to fall among as in Luk 10:30 lēistais periepesen (he fell among robbers). Only other N.T. example of this old compound is in Act 27:41. Thucydides uses it of falling into affliction. It is the picture of being surrounded (peri) by trials.
Manifold temptations (peirasmois poikilois). Associative instrumental case. The English word temptation is Latin and originally meant trials whether good or bad, but the evil sense has monopolized the word in our modern English, though we still say “attempt.” The word peirasmos (from peirazō, late form for the old peiraō as in Act 26:21, both in good sense as in Joh 6:6, and in bad sense as in Mat 16:1) does not occur outside of the lxx and the N.T. except in Dioscorides (a.d. 100?) of experiments on diseases. “Trials” is clearly the meaning here, but the evil sense appears in Jam 1:12 (clearly in peirazō in Jam 1:13) and so in Heb 3:8. Trials rightly faced are harmless, but wrongly met become temptations to evil. The adjective poikilos (manifold) is as old as Homer and means variegated, many coloured as in Mat 4:24; 2Ti 3:6; Heb 2:4. In 1Pe 1:6 we have this same phrase. It is a bold demand that James here makes.