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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadBob Utley You Can Understand the Bible - James 4:13 - 4:17
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jas_4:13-17
13Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." 14Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." 16But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
Jas_4:13 "Come now, you who say" It is uncertain to which group of recipients this refers: (1) unbelieving Jews; (2) believing Jews; or (3) a continuing diatribe with a supposed dissenter or objector.
▣ "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit" This refers to the specific plans of Jewish businessmen who do not take God into account. It is a glaring example of practical atheism.
Jas_4:14 This seems to relate to Pro_27:1. This truth is also stated in Jesus' parable of Luk_12:16-21, called "the Rich Fool."
NASB, NKJV "vapor"
NRSV, NJB "mist"
TEV "like a puff of smoke"
We get the English word "atmosphere" from this Greek word (atmis). The frailty and fleetingness of human life is often alluded to in the Bible as:
1. a shadow (cf. Job_8:9; Job_14:2; Psa_102:11; Psa_109:23)
2. a breath (cf. Job_7:7-16)
3. a cloud (cf. Job_7:9; Job_30:15)
4. a wild flower (cf. Psa_103:15; Isa_40:6-8; 1Pe_1:24)
5. vanity or mist (cf. Ecc_1:2; Ecc_1:14; Ecc_2:1; Ecc_2:11; Ecc_2:15; Ecc_2:17; Ecc_2:19; Ecc_2:21; Ecc_2:23; Ecc_2:26; Ecc_3:19; Ecc_4:4; Ecc_4:7-8; Ecc_4:16; Ecc_5:7; Ecc_5:10; 6:2,4,9,22; Ecc_7:6; Ecc_7:15; Ecc_8:10; Ecc_8:14; Ecc_9:9; Ecc_11:8; Ecc_11:10; Ecc_12:8).
▣ "that appears for a little while and then vanishes away" These are two Present participles that sound alike: "appears" (phainomenç) and "vanishes away" (aphanizomenç). Human plans come and go; only God's plan remains.
Jas_4:15 "If" This is a third class conditional sentence, which means potential action, but with a contingency.
▣ "the Lord wills" This type of phrase is used often by NT writers (cf. Act_18:21; Rom_1:10; Rom_15:32; 1Co_4:19; 1Co_16:7; Heb_6:3; 1Pe_3:17). The biblical worldview attributes all knowledge and direction to God. This is a NT idiom affirming monotheism and should not be taken as a theological determinism. Believers know and assert that God is involved in their lives, but this does not link God to evil, tragedy, and random natural acts of violence. We live in a spiritually fallen and "cursed" world. This is not the world that God intended it to be! He is still active in His creation, but there is mystery in the how and why of individual actions and lives.
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Jas_4:16
NASB, NKJV,
NRSV "you boast in your arrogance"
TEV "you are proud and you boast"
NJB "how boastful and loud-mouthed you are"
Human plans apart from God are empty and vain as are human pride and boasting (cf. Joh_15:5; Rom_14:8).
▣ "all such boasting is evil" Paul states this same truth in 1Co_5:2; 1Co_5:6. Mankind's problem from the beginning has been a desire for independence from God. Life apart from God is sin and rebellion. See hyperlink at Jas_1:9.
Jas_4:17 This seems to be a significant independent summary statement, unrelated to the immediate context. This refers to the sins of omission (cf. Mat_25:35-40). This may reflect the cryptic sayings of Jesus on the relationship between knowledge and sin (cf. Mat_23:23; Luk_12:47; Joh_9:41; Joh_15:22; Joh_15:24). In many ways it sounds like Rom_14:23.
Robert B. Girdlestone's Synonyms of the Old Testament has an interesting remark on this verse:
"An important definition of sin is given by St. James—'to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin' (4. 17). It would seem to be implied that where there is no knowledge of what is right or wrong there is no sin; and with this agree the words of our Lord to the Pharisees, 'If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth' (Joh_9:41). The profession of knowledge involved responsibility, and caused the Pharisees to be condemned, out of their own mouth, as sinners. Absolute ignorance is excusable, even though it is a missing of the mark, but negligence is not (see Heb_2:3)" (p. 85).
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