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Jam_4:17. With the general sentence: Whosoever knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin, James concludes what he has hitherto said.
οὖν ] is used in the sense of conclusion, but indicates that the concluding thought is the result of what has gone before.
καλὸν ποιεῖν ] belong together, dependent on εἰδότι ; not “whosoever knows the good that is to be done,” which would be to take ποιεῖν as an epexegetical infinitive. Wiesinger correctly remarks: “ καλόν is not the idea of good, in which case the article would be put, but that which is fair, in contrast to an action which in its moral nature is πονηρόν .” That the discourse is concerning a sin of omission as such, to which this sentence is commonly referred (Bengel, Jachmann, and others), is rightly contested by de Wette and Wiesinger.[212]
ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑ ΑὐΤῷ ἘΣΤΊΝ ] De Wette: “In the sense of reckoning; Joh_15:22; Luk_12:47 f.” (so already Estius, also Schneckenburger, Wiesinger, and others).
ΑὐΤῷ is here put, as frequently in the N. T., especially after the participle; comp. Mat_5:40; see Al. Buttmann, p. 125 [E. T. 143]. With regard to the connection in which this sentence stands with the preceding, most expositors understand it as enforcing that to which James has formerly exhorted his readers, and refer ΕἸΔΌΤΙ to the knowledge which they have now received by the word of James. But against this is the objection, that if this expression be referred to all the previous exhortations (Estius: jam de omnibus satis vos admonui, vobis bene nota sunt), this would not be its proper place, because later on more exhortations follow; but if it is only referred to the last remark (Grotius: moniti estis a me, ignorantiam non potestis obtendere, si quid posthac tale dixeritis, gravior erit culpa; so also Pott, Theile, de Wette, Wiesinger), we cannot see why James should have added such a remark to this exhortation, as it would be equally suitable to any other. It is accordingly better to refer ΕἸΔΌΤΙ to the already existing knowledge of the subject just treated of; namely, the uncertainty of human life is something so manifest, that those who notwithstanding talk in their presumption as if it did not exist, as if their life were not dependent on God, contrary to their own knowledge, do not that which is seemly, but that which is unseemly, and therefore this is so much the more sin unto them.[213]
[212] “Since καλόν is the antithesis of πονηρόν , and not some positive good as beneficence, the defect of which is not πονηρόν , as de Wette correctly remarks, μὴ ποιοῦντι does not merely signify a sin of omission, but the omission of καλόν is necessarily a doing of πονηρόν .”
[213] When Lange, in arguing against this explanation, maintains that the word refers to the better knowledge of the readers, of evangelical behaviour in general, the definite connection of thought, in which here the general sentence is placed, is not properly considered by him.