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Jam_3:6. Application of the image: Also the tongue is a fire, the world of unrighteousness; the tongue sets itself among our members, as that which defileth the whole body and kindleth the wheel (of life) revolving from birth, and is kindled of hell. As a (little) fire setteth a forest in conflagration, so also the tongue kindleth the whole life of man. Such is the destructive power of the tongue, that whosoever knows how to bridle it may with truth be called a perfect man (Jam_3:2).
Several interpreters divide the first clause: καὶ ἡ γλῶσσα πῦρ , ὁ κόσμος τῆς ἀδικίας , into two corresponding parts, supplying the idea ὕλη to ὁ κόσμος τῆς ἀδικίας ; thus Morus: igni respondet lingua, materiae seu silvae respondet mundus improbus. Manifestly wholly arbitrary; rather the words ὁ κόσμος τῆς ἀδικίας form an apposition to ἡ γλῶσσα , by which the power of the tongue similar to destructive fire is explained. κόσμος has here the same meaning as in LXX. Pro_17:6 : ὅλος κόσμος τῶν χρημάτων ;[172] thus the multitude comprehending the individual: consequently Ὁ ΚΌΣΜΟς Τῆς ἈΔΙΚΊΑς is the fulness of unrighteousness. The tongue is so called because, as the organ of ὀργή , it includes a fulness (not exactly the sum-total) of unrighteousness which from it pervades the other members ( ὅλον τὸ σῶμα ). Calvin correctly, according to the sense: acsi vocaret mare vel abyssum (Luther inaccurately: “a world full of wickedness”). This is the explanation of most expositors. Bouman correctly explains the definite article: famosus iste mundus iniquitatis. The following are other explanations:—(1) Oecumenius takes κόσμος = ornament, and explains: Ἡ ΓΛῶΣΣΑ ΚΟΣΜΕῖ ΤῊΝ ἈΔΙΚΊΑΝ ΔΙᾺ Τῆς ΤῶΝ ῬΗΤΌΡΩΝ ΕὐΓΛΏΤΤΟΥ ΔΕΙΝΌΤΗΤΟς ; similarly Wetstein, Semler, Elsner, Rosenmüller, Storr, Lange[173] (Wahl is doubtful). But κόσμος never signifies in an active sense that which puts an ornament on another, but always the ornament itself, that wherewith a person adorns himself (or another). (2) Bretschneider likewise takes the word as equivalent to ornament, but supplies ὡς , and explains: ut ornatus (mulierum) inhonestus sc. inquinat mentes, sic lingua deprehenditur inter corporis membra id quod totum corpus inquinat; yet evidently more arbitrarily than the foregoing explanation. (3) Theile retains the usual meaning of the word world, and explains: lingua (est ignis), mundus (vero est) improbitatis i.e. improbitate plenus, nimirum ob illam ipsam linguae vim; but apart from the inadmissible supplements rendered necessary, and the harshness contained in this combination of the genitive, this explanation is to be rejected, because by it the words would contain an assertion on the nature of the world, instead of on the nature of the tongue. (4) Estius, indeed, is right in his comprehension of the idea, but he arbitrarily understands it as causative: quia (lingua) peccata omnigena parit; so also Herder: “the mainspring and the cause of all unrighteousness.” Gebser introduces something foreign into the explanation, taking κόσμος = the wicked world. Clericus, Hammond, Eichhorn, Kuinoel, and Hottinger, without any sufficient reason, think that the words are to be expunged from the text as spurious.
Whilst almost all expositors refer ὁ κόσμος τῆς ἀδικίας to what precedes (to which, according to the reading of the Rec. which has οὕτως before the following ἡ γλῶσσα , it necessarily belongs), Tischendorf has put a point after πῦρ but not after ἀδικίας ;[174] and Neander translates: “As a world full of unrighteousness, the tongue is among our members;” so also Lange construes it. But this construction is not only difficult, but isolates too much the first thought ἡ γλῶσσα πῦρ , which only has a correct meaning when it is closely connected with what follows.
The new clause accordingly begins with ἡ γλῶσσα , and καθίσταται has its necessary supplement in what follows: ἡ σπιλοῦσα κ . τ . λ .
καθίσταται ] can neither here nor in chap. Jam_4:4 mean it stands: the perfect only has this meaning, but not the present; it means: it sets itself, it appears (Wiesinger). Also the explanations are false: “it is so placed” (Pott); collocata est (Beza, Piscator, Schneckenburger); “it becomes (such)” (de Wette, appealing to Rom_5:19), and “it rules” (Lange, appealing to Heb_8:3). Theile arbitrarily completes the idea: hand raro. The words which follow mention how the tongue appears among the members—as that which defileth the whole body. The idea σπιλοῦν , to which certainly πῦρ is not suited, is suggested by the apposition ὁ κόσμος τῆς ἀδικίας . Only with the following participle does James carry on the image of fire; it is artificial to assume in σπιλοῦν a reference to it. Bengel: maculans, ut ignis per fumum; comp. on this passage Ecc_5:5. Neither the double καί (for how often the several καί succeed each other in a simple copulative sense!) nor the omission of the article before the two participles (comp. chap. Jam_4:11; Jam_4:14) proves that the participles which follow καὶ φλογίζουσα and καὶ φλογιζομένη are subordinated to σπιλοῦσα (Wiesinger). This construction could only be considered as correct if the two participles analyzed the idea σπιλοῦσα ὅλ . τ . σῶμα into its individual parts or confirmed it; but neither of these is the case here; they rather add to this idea two new points. The object τὸν τροχὸν τῆς γενέσεως , belonging to φλογίζουσα , has found very different explanations. The word τροχός , according to its etymology, denotes something running, and, although used of other rotatory orbs, as particularly of the potter’s wheel, it is especially used as a designation of a wheel, 1Ki_7:30 ff.; Eze_1:15; Eze_1:19-20. The word γένεσις can here be only in the same sense as in chap. Jam_1:23; the compound idea: the wheel of birth, i.e. “the wheel revolving from birth,” is a figurative designation of human life; comp. Anacreon, Od. iv. 7: τροχὸς ἅρματος γὰρ οἷα βίστος τρέχει κυλισθείς . Thus Gebser in particular correctly explains it: “the wheel which is set in motion from our birth, i.e. a poetical description of life;” so also Brückner and Bouman. The explanations of Oecumenius ( τροχός · ὁ βίος ὡς εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἀνελιττόμενος ), Calvin, Laurentius, Hornejus, Pott, Neander, amount to the same thing. Also Estius, Grotius, Carpzov, Michaelis understand life, only deriving this idea in a different manner. They explain τροχός (for which Grotius would read τρόχος ) = cursus, γένεσις = natura, and cursus naturae = vita; by this explanation, however, the figurative nature of the expression suffers. Wiesinger (with whom Rauch agrees), deviating from this explanation, prefers to understand by it the whole body ( ὅλον τὸ σῶμα ), τροχός denoting either the wheel (by which, then, τροχὸς τ . γεν . would be the revolving wheel of existence, of life, namely, of that to which the tongue belongs), or (which Wiesinger prefers) the circumference (thus τροχ . τ . γεν . would be the circumference of being, i.e. the circumference belonging to the tongue from birth, native to it). But, on the one hand, it is not to be supposed that James, after using the ordinary expression ὅλον τὸ σῶμα , should express the same thing figuratively without the least indication of the identity of meaning; and, on the other hand, it is opposed to the first interpretation that the body is not to be represented as a wheel, and to the second that τροχός is taken in a sense which it never has, for it never means the circumference, but at the most the round border which incloses something. Other expositors go beyond the restriction of the expression to the life of the individual,—which is evidently required by the foregoing ὅλον τὸ σῶμα ,—either, with Wolf, appealing to the Hebrew âÌÄìÀâÌÇì úÌåÉìÀøåÉú , explaining it: indesinens successio hominum aliorum post alios nascentium (thus Lambert, Bos, Alberti, Augusti, Stäudlin),[175] or taking ΤΡΟΧΌς = ΚΎΚΛΟς , ΓΈΝΕΣΙς = ΚΤΊΣΙς , and accordingly ΤΡΟΧ . Τ . ΓΕΝΈΣΕΩς = “the circle of creation;” thus de Wette, and among the earlier interpreters Beza (in the edition of 1565), Crusius, Coccejus. All these ideas are foreign to the context. If the first explanation drags something “foreign” into it, the second bears besides “a monstrous character” (Wiesinger). Still less is the explanation of Lange to be justified: “the wheel of the development of life, primarily of the Jewish nation, and then further of all mankind,” since ΓΈΝΕΣΙς never denotes development of life.
[172] It is to be observed that the LXX. often translate the Hebrew öÈáÈà by κόσμος ; see Gen_2:1; Deu_4:19; Deu_17:3; Isa_24:21; Isa_40:26.
[173] Lange, indeed, grants that κόσμος is not an active idea, but he yet thinks that we must return to the original signification of the word, and he then explains it: “the tongue is the form of the world, worldliness, or worldly culture, because it is that which sophistically, etc., gives to unrighteousness its worldly … and even splendid form.” But is not the idea so explained taken in an active sense?
[174] Lachmann and Buttmann have, by leaving out the punctuation, left the pointing to the expositor.
[175] Already the Syriac version translates: incendit proventus generationum nostrarum, quae currunt sicut rotae.
The following are other explanations which are refuted by their arbitrariness and rarity:—(1) that of Semler, who explains it ordo generandi, according to the expression occurring in Plutarch: ποταμὸν τῆς γενέσεως ἐνδελεχῶς ; (2) that of Bengel rota sive sphaera superior est ipsa natura humana rationalis; gehenna vero est pars profundior cor; lingua in medio ex inferioribus inflammatur et superiora inflammat; (3) that of Meyer (Observatt. ad ep. Jacobi), who takes the expression = sanguinis orbis seu circulato; lastly, (4) that of Kype, who assumes the rota poenalis is figuratively meant cujus radiis illigabantur rei, and accordingly φλογίζειν τὸν τροχ . τ . γενέσεως means: augere vitae hujus cruciatus.
The verb φλογίζειν is in the N. T. ἅπ . λεγ .; in the LXX. it is found in Exo_9:24; Num_21:14; Psa_97:3, and other places. The figurative expression, which refers back to πῦρ , indicates the fatal effect which the tongue, from which the pollution of the whole body proceeds, exercises on the life of man, whilst it pervades the same by its passionate heat. James so presents it, that being ὁ κόσμος τῆς ἀδικίας , and thus concentrating in itself (or in word) a fulness of unrighteousness, it forms, as it were, the axle round which the wheel of life moves, and by which it is set on fire. Morus incorrectly understands φλογίζειν “de damnis, quae lingua dat;” but the discourse is not concerning the injury which man suffers, but concerning his moral conduct; still less corresponding is the explanation of Michaelis, according to which φλογίζειν = to inflame, and that in the words of James the thought is contained: “lingua saepe alii excitantur, ut insano studio mala ingrediantur.” The representation that the tongue defiles the whole body and sets the life on fire is, as Wiesinger correctly remarks, not to be justified by the remark that all sins have their foundation in the sins of the tongue, but rests on the observation that ὀργή , before it manifests itself in other ways, first and foremost appears in word, and thus the tongue is its most direct organ.[176] The second participial sentence states whence the tongue receives this destructive power ( ΦΛΟΓΊΖΕΙΝ ), by which also the idea that it is ΚΌΣΜΟς Τῆς ἈΔΙΚΊΑς finds its justification. The participle ΦΛΟΓΙΖΟΜΈΝΗ is to be retained in the sense of the present; it has neither the meaning of the perfect, as if the tongue had been only once set on fire by γεέννα , nor is it, with Grotius, Mill, Benson, Semler, Storr, Rosenmüller, to be taken as future, and to be referred to future punishment. The expression γεέννα , except in the Synoptics, is only found here; in Mat_5:22; Mat_18:9, Mar_9:47, it is used for a more exact description of the genitive ΤΟῦ ΠΥΡΌς . The thought that the tongue is set on fire of hell is not to be explained away either by ex inferno being paraphrased by Theile by igne diabolico, and this by igne foedissimo ac funestissimo; or by being explained with Morus: tantus est ille ignis, ut ex geennae igne videatur esse incensus. James means that as ἐπιθυμία (or more precisely ὈΡΓΉ ), whose most direct organ is the tongue, has its origin from the devil, it is thus from hell (see Jam_3:15). Also in the O. T. the injurious effects of the tongue are described; see Psa_52:4; Psa_120:3-4, Pro_26:27, and other passages (Sir_5:13 ff; Sir_28:11 ff.); yet in all these passages the discourse is only on the evil which is inflicted by it on others, or on the punishment which befalls the man who misuses it. This peculiar thought of James has its counterpart in no passage of the O. T.
[176] The view that James considered the tongue as the source of all sin is erroneous, since he, however prominently he brings forward the destructive power of the tongue, yet never asserts this. The restriction to ὀργή is justified by the Epistle itself. See Jam_1:19-20; Jam_1:26, Jam_2:9-10; Jam_2:13 (the opposite ἐν πραΰτητι σοφίας ); 14, etc. According to this, in this edition the text in some places has been rectified.