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Jam_3:3-4. Two comparisons by which the thought εἴ τις ἐν λόγῳ κ . τ . λ . is illustrated and confirmed. It is incorrect when it is assumed that “James, with Jam_3:3-4, will primarily explain and establish by examples the importance, maintained in Jam_3:2, of power over a little thing, as the tongue, for the government of the whole” (Wiesinger), and that the tertium comparationis is “a little thing does much” (Gunkel); for neither in Jam_3:2 is the smallness of the tongue mentioned, nor in Jam_3:3 is the smallness of the bridle brought forward. The examples adduced, which are closely attached to the preceding, are rather designed to prove how by the mastery of the tongue that of the whole body is possible; it is, James will say, even as one rules the horse by the guidance of the bridle, and the ship by the guidance of the helm. Only in the second image does the smallness of that by which the steersman rules the great ship appear to James as something important, so that he dwells upon this point in what follows (so also Lange).