Matthew Poole Commentary - James 3:6 - 3:6

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Matthew Poole Commentary - James 3:6 - 3:6


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:





The application of the similitude in the foregoing words.



The tongue is a fire, i.e. hath the force of fire, and resembles it in the mischief it doth.



A world of iniquity; a heap or aggregation of evils, (as the natural world is an aggregation of many several beings), as we say, an ocean, or a world, of troubles, meaning, a great multitude of them. And the words may be understood, earlier with an ellipsis of the word matter, expressed just before, and supplied here; and the pointing a little altered, they may be thus read, And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity (or an unrighteous world, viz. which lies in wickedness, 1Jo_5:19) is the matter, namely, which it inflames. A wicked world is fit fuel for a wicked tongue, and soon catcheth the fire which it kindles. Or rather, as they stand plainly, without any such defect: The tongue is a world of iniquity, i.e. a heap or mass of various sorts of sins; though it be but a little piece of flesh, yet it contains a whole world of wickedness in it, or is as full of evils as the world is of bodies.



It defileth the whole body; infecteth the whole man with sin, Ecc_5:6, as being the cause of sin committed by all the members of the body; for though sin begin in the soul, yet it is executed by the body, which therefore seems here put {as Jam_3:2} for the man.



And setteth on fire the course of nature; or, setteth on fire the wheel of geniture, or nativity, (in allusion to a wheel set on fire by a violent, rapid motion), meaning the course of nativity, i.e. the natural course of life, as the face of nativity or geniture, Jam_1:23, for the natural face: the sense is, it inflames with various lusts, wrath, malice, wantonness, pride, &c., the whole course of man’s life, so that there is no state nor age free from the evils of it. Whereas other vices either do not extend to the whole man, or are abated with age, or worn away with length of time; the vices of the tongue reach the whole man, and the whole time of his life.



And it is set on fire of hell; i.e. by the devil, the father of lies and slanders, and other tongue sins, Job_1:10 Joh_8:44 Rev_12:10; the tongue being the fire, the devil, by the bellows of temptations, inflames it yet more, and thereby kindles the fire of all mischiefs in the world.