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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - James 4:2 - 4:2
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Ye lust (epithumeite). Present active indicative of epithumeō, old word (from epi, thumos, yearning passion for), not necessarily evil as clearly not in Luk 22:15 of Christ, but usually so in the N.T., as here. Coveting what a man or nation does not have is the cause of war according to James.
Ye kill and covet (phoneuete kai zēloute). Present active indicatives of phoneuō (old verb from phoneus, murderer) and zēloō, to desire hotly to possess (1Co 12:31). It is possible (perhaps probable) that a full stop should come after phoneuete (ye kill) as the result of lusting and not having. Then we have the second situation: “Ye covet and cannot obtain (epituchein, second aorist active infinitive of epitugchanō), and (as a result) ye fight and war.” This punctuation makes better sense than any other and is in harmony with Jam 4:1. Thus also the anticlimax in phoneuete and zēloute is avoided. Mayor makes the words a hendiadys, “ye murderously envy.”
Ye have not, because ye ask not (ouk echete dia to mē aiteisthai humas). James refers again to ouk echete (ye do not have) in Jam 4:2. Such sinful lusting will not obtain. “Make the service of God your supreme end, and then your desires will be such as God can fulfil in answer to your prayer” (Ropes). Cf. Mat 6:31-33. The reason here is expressed by dia and the accusative of the articular present middle infinitive of aiteō, used here of prayer to God as in Mat 7:7. Humās (you) is the accusative of general reference. Note the middle voice here as in aiteisthe in Jam 4:3. Mayor argues that the middle here, in contrast with the active, carries more the spirit of prayer, but Moulton (Prol., p. 160) regards the distinction between aiteō and aiteomai often “an extinct subtlety.”