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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - James 4:9 - 4:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
9. εἰς κατήφειαν, ‘to heaviness,’ R.V., or dejection, κατήφεια, defined to be a mixture of shame and grief, lit. with downcast eye, perhaps from κατά and φάος, but deriv. uncertain. This is the natural expression of the painfulness of shame: “There is no outrage,” says Hawthorne, “more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame, as it was the essence of this punishment (the pillory) to do.” It is a Homeric word: δυσμενέσιν μὲν χάρμα κατηφείην δέ σοι αὐτῷ, Il. III. 51, also Thuc. VII. 75 κατήφεια δέ τις ἅμα καὶ κατάμεμψις σφῶν αὐτῶν πολλὴ ἦν, Plut. Aemil. p. 267 A κατήφεια δὲ τὸ στρατόπεδον κατεῖχεν. For the thought comp. Pro 14:13 τελευταῖα δὲ χαρὰ (al. χαρᾶς) εἰς πένθος ἔρχεται, and Jer 16:9 καταλύω ἐκ τοῦ τόπου τούτου φωνὴν χαρᾶς καὶ φωνὴν εὐφροσύνης.