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Jam_1:23. This exhortation is confirmed by a comparison. Therefore: ὅτι , which is not superfluous (Pott). This verse expresses the similitude; Jam_1:24 the tertium comparationis. A hearer, who is not a doer, is to be compared to a man who contemplates his bodily form in a glass. Hornejus, Rosenmüller, Semler, Pott, and others, attach to the word κατανοεῖν the additional meaning of a transitory observation, against the etymology and the linguistic use of the word (comp. Luk_12:24; Luk_12:37; Act_7:31-32; Act_11:6). The point of transitoriness, or, more correctly, of transitory contemplation, is contained not in the verb, but in the situation, which in Jam_1:24 is prominently brought forward by καὶ ἀπελήλυθεν . On the rhetorical usage of again resuming the foregoing subject (which is here expressed by εἴ τις κ . τ . λ .) by οὗτος , see Winer, p. 144 [E. T. 199]; A. Buttmann, p. 262 [E. T. 347]; on ἔοικε , see Jam_1:6; ἀνδρί , as in Jam_1:8, and frequently with James.[99]
τὸ πρόσωπον τῆς γενέσεως αὐτοῦ ] By πόρσωπον is here meant not the whole form (Baumgarten, Hensler, Pott, Schneckenburger), but the face. By τῆς γενέσεως is “more plainly indicated the sphere of mere material perception, from which the comparison is taken, as distinguished from the ethical sphere of ἀκροᾶσθαι ” (Wiesinger). γένεσις denotes not so much the natural life as the natural birth, so that the phrase is to be interpreted: the countenance which one possesses by his natural birth. See Eustathius in Od. ix. p. 663, 25.[100]
Whether ΑὐΤΟῦ belongs to the whole idea, or only to the genitive, is uncertain. Winer, p. 212, leaves it undecided; Wiesinger is for the first rendering; but the union here (as well as in Col_1:13) with the genitive appears to be more natural.
[99] The remark of Paes, approved of by Lange, is curious: viri obiter tantum solent specula intueri, muliebre autem est, curiose se ad speculum componere.
[100] Lange argues against this explanation, whilst, mingling in a most confused manner the image employed with the thing itself, he explains πρόσωπον as “the image of the inner man’s appearance according to his sinful condition.”