Go to now, ye rich, weep, howling over your miseries that [are] coming upon [you].
James opens his last chapter with a shout, not a whisper: weep now, over trouble that has not yet arrived. Who is he shouting at, why is their money on trial, and what should the rest of us do with words this fierce?
James does not call these people "brothers," and commentators take that as deliberate. The chapter sets two groups side by side, and James tells only one of them to wail.
The two groups James speaks to stand out clearly in this final chapter of his letter. The rich oppressors are certainly not believers; they are the unbelieving rich. They are not called "brothers." Others are, in verse 7, and James urges them to be patient. Both groups, the unbelieving rich and the believing remnant, face the coming of the Lord.
Others sharpen this by asking a simple question of anyone who reads the verse as spoken to God's people:
Then in James 5 we have a solemn word for rich men, to weep and howl for their miseries that will come upon them. Will any man argue still that this means the saints of God? Are they the persons called to weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon them?
The two verbs are not repetition. The Greek forms differ, and the difference carries weight.
James 5:1 uses the aorist with a present participle. This combines weeping that starts at once with howling that keeps going, because of their sins and the Lord's speedy judgment.
The word behind "miseries" is the same family used elsewhere in Scripture for ruin and inner wretchedness — as in "in their paths are ruin and misery" (Romans 3:16, ESV) and "Wretched man that I am!" (Romans 7:24, ESV) — and the same note James had already struck a chapter earlier.
In James 4:9 we read: "Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom." In James 5:1, "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you."
The charge is not that money exists. It is that these people piled it up while others went without — and piled it up at a moment that made it worse.
When he speaks of gold and silver being tarnished and rusted, he is of course speaking of the spiritual side of things. They store wealth up and give no thought to its proper use in relieving the needs of others.
Timing is part of the charge. God had already given a solemn warning about these last days:
Heaping up treasure at any time is bad enough. To heap it up in the last days added greatly to the evil in the Lord's eyes… God's word had proclaimed the last days in a solemn warning. Heaping up treasure in days like these was indeed most offensive to Him.
These people feel no misery at all. That is why James orders them to weep now.
They had lived in pleasure on the earth and been self-indulgent. But there is more. When we live in pleasure, we do not want anyone coming to disturb our happiness. They had condemned and killed the Just One, and He had not resisted. They wanted to secure the enjoyment of the world in a false calm, which thinks neither of God, nor of judgment, nor of death.
Their possessions do more than fail them:
Their possessions will not only fail and become corrupted. They will be the means of their own destruction, just as a fire destroys… So the rich in this world get this warning: judgment is coming (verse 1), riches are failing (verse 2), men are being destroyed, body and soul, and time is passing (verse 3).
James does not only address the rich. He also has a word for the people they oppress, and it does not point to a fix in this world.
James speaks of treasures heaped together. For what time? "The last days." He then offers comfort to the oppressed. But the hope is not in new laws. It is not in labour unions. It is not in justice winning through the ministry of a church that has abandoned the faith. It is in the blessed hope of our Lord's return. "Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord."
- Two crowds. The chapter splits its readers: the rich, who must howl, and the believers of verse 7, who must wait. Both face the same coming of the Lord.
- Two tenses. "Weep" is instant, "howling" is ongoing — a cry that starts now and does not stop, because the judgment is near.
- Two clocks. Hoarding is bad in any age. Hoarding in the last days is worse, because God had already given the warning.
- Two ends for money. Money held back from people in need becomes a fire. It destroys body and soul instead of keeping them safe.
- Two hopes. The rich rest in a calm that ignores God, judgment and death. The wronged rest in the return of the Lord, not in courts, laws or movements.
Your wealth is become rotten, and your garments moth-eaten.
James has just warned the rich that miseries are coming on them. This verse gives the reason. Two questions follow: who is he speaking to, and why does he call goods that still look valuable already ruined?
The chapter opens with two very different groups in view, and the tone toward each is not the same.
The two groups James addresses stand out clearly in this last chapter of his letter. The rich oppressors are certainly not believers. They are the unbelieving rich. He does not call them "brothers". He does call others by that name in verse 7, and urges them to be patient. Both classes, the unbelieving rich and the believing remnant, are confronted by the coming of the Lord.
Commentators differ on where to draw that line. One writer applies the words to rich men, "especially to those who make some claim of having the knowledge of God." That widens the warning.
The picture is not of garments worn out by use. It is the opposite.
How temporary and empty earthly riches are! God sees them as corrupted, decaying, and quickly at an end; and the garments of wealth as moth-eaten — not worn out from use, but from hanging, unused, in a closet.
Moths feed on just that kind of clothing, and Scripture draws a lesson from it.
In the East people kept garments in large quantities, as property and for gifts. Moths do not attack the clothing that is worn; they lay their eggs in what is stored away, and the young find their food in it. From this comes the lesson to lay up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust can corrupt or destroy.
The offence is not only that they had much, but when they were piling it up. One writer reads the following verse as "you have heaped together riches in the last days," and finds the wrong sharpened by the timing.
This made their selfish ways and their indifference to others worse. It is bad enough to heap up treasure at any time. To heap it up in the last days added not a little to the evil in the Lord's eyes… God's word had announced the last days in solemn warning. Heaping up treasure in such days was indeed most offensive to Him.
The same writer names what the money was for:
When he speaks of gold and silver being corroded and rusted, he is of course speaking of the spiritual side of things. Wealth is stored up with no concern for its proper use in relieving the needs of others. It is like the case of the wicked servant, who laid up the pound his master had entrusted to him instead of putting it to use.
The rot does not stop at the goods. It reaches the owner.
Their possessions will not only fail and become corrupted. They will also be the means of their own destruction, just as a fire destroys. Riches give every opportunity to gratify desire. How often they have proved the Apostle's words true by becoming a means of destroying both body and soul… So the rich in this world are warned. Judgment is coming (verse 1), riches are failing (verse 2), men are being destroyed, body and soul, and time is passing (verse 3).
One writer turns the verse on readers today, and points to a church that lived for money.
The Laodicean assembly was marked by materialism. What about us today?… Let us not put our confidence in ourselves or in the riches we boast of. Otherwise we may fall under God's judgment: "Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten" (James 5:2). Are we indifferent to these warnings?
- Stored — The clothes are ruined by hanging unused, not by wear. The moth feeds on what is laid away, never on what is worn.
- Seen — God already counts the wealth as corrupted and decaying, even while its owners still trust it.
- Timed — Heaping up treasure is bad at any time; heaping it up in the last days, with warning already sounding, adds to the offence.
- Withheld — Hoarded wealth was meant to relieve the needs of others. Held back, it is like the pound the wicked servant buried.
- Turned — The same riches that fail their owners become the means of their destruction, body and soul, as fire consumes.
Your gold and silver is eaten away, and their canker shall be for a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have heaped up treasure in [the] last days.
James turns to the rich, and pictures wealth that rotted while it sat unused. Commentators ask who is being warned, why rust counts as proof of guilt, and what "in the last days" adds to the charge.
These verses do not correct believers. They announce judgment. James even drops the family address he uses elsewhere in the letter.
The two classes James addresses stand out very clearly in this final chapter of his letter. The rich oppressors are certainly not believers but the unbelieving rich. They are not called "brothers"; but others are in verse 7, and they are urged to be patient. Both classes, the unbelieving rich and the believing remnant, are confronted by the coming of the Lord.
Kelly presses the point with a question:
Then in James 5 we have a solemn word for rich men, to weep and howl for the miseries that will come upon them. Will anyone still argue that this means the saints of God? Are they the people called to weep and howl over the miseries that are coming on them?
The rust here is a moral picture, not a chemical one. What condemns these men is not that they had money. It is that the money sat idle while others went without.
The language here is sharp and scathing. When he speaks of gold and silver being corroded and rusted, it is of course the spiritual side of things he speaks of. Wealth is stored up with no concern for its proper use in relieving the needs of others. It is like the case of the wicked servant, who laid up the pound his master had entrusted to him instead of making use of it. Such treasure, heaped together, would be a witness against the wealthy in the last days of reckoning. And it would be like a consuming fire to their fleshly indulgence.
The verse does not stop at loss. The hoard becomes the ruin of the man who kept it, eating his flesh like fire. One writer counts four warnings running through these three verses.
Their possessions will not only fail and become corrupted. They will be the means of their own destruction, just as a fire destroys. How often have riches proved the truth of the Apostle's words! They give every chance to satisfy every lust, and so become a means to destroy both body and soul... Time will soon be over, for we are living "in the last days." So the rich in this world are warned. Judgment is coming (verse 1), riches are failing (verse 2), men are being destroyed, body and soul, and time is passing (verse 3).
Some translations read "for the last days," as if the treasure were saved up for a coming crisis. Kelly argues the phrase marks when the hoarding happened, not what it was for. The timing is what makes the sin worse.
"You have heaped treasure together" — not exactly "for the last days." That would hardly make sense. There is little doubt what the Holy Spirit meant us to gather: "You have heaped together riches in the last days." This made their selfish ways and their indifference to others worse. It is bad enough to heap up treasure at any time. To heap it up in the last days added not a little to the evil in the Lord's eyes.
The remedy is a change of ownership. If what we hold belongs to someone else, we can give it away freely.
If we look on them as our own, we might be tempted to spend them on ourselves, or hoard them up — heaping treasure together in the last days, as James 5:3 says. But if we see them as wholly "another man's," we can afford to be generous in our use of them. We can lavish them on every interest of His, looking on to that scene where we shall receive our own things.
Believers are not exempt. One writer, using the older wording of the verse, names what waits at the end of the hoard:
Now, if the saints of God are content to go back to the world and its maxims, to nature and its ways, then let them hoard up with all diligence. Let them "heap treasure together for the last days." But let them remember that the moth, the canker-worm, and the rust will be the end of it all.
- Addressed. The warning targets the unbelieving rich, not believers. James never calls these men brothers.
- Rusted. The rust is a moral picture, not a chemical one. It shows wealth that sat unused while others went without.
- Witness. The hoard testifies in court. The treasure they trusted becomes the evidence that convicts them.
- Consuming. The hoard turns on its owner and eats like fire. Riches fail, judgment comes, and it destroys body and soul together.
- Timed. Hoarding in the last days makes the sin worse. The answer is to hold money as another's, and spend it on His interests now.
Behold, the wages of your labourers, who have harvested your fields, wrongfully kept back by you, cry, and the cries of those that have reaped are entered into the ears of [the] Lord of sabaoth.
James closes his letter with a scene from harvest time: the fields are reaped, the workers are unpaid, and the rich landowners are at ease. Who listens when a cheated worker has no one to appeal to?
One writer sets out the charge against these men in three parts, and names the victims.
The accusation he brings against them is threefold. First, he charges them with fraud of the most despicable kind. They took advantage of the humblest people who were least able to defend themselves. Second, they were utterly self-indulgent, thinking of little but their own luxuries. Third, they persecuted and even killed fellow believers who had taken up the faith of Christ. The passage calls these people "the just."
God had ruled on a worker's pay long before James wrote. One commentator dwells on the tenderness of that old law.
"You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning" (Leviticus 19:13, ESV). What tender care is here! The High and Mighty One who inhabits eternity can notice the thoughts and feelings that rise in the heart of a poor labourer. He knows and takes into account what such a man expects from the fruit of his day's work. He will be looking for those wages. The labourer's heart counts on them; the family meal depends on them. Oh, do not hold them back! Do not send the labourer home with a heavy heart, to make the heart of his wife and family heavy too.
These wages were a debt, not a favour. The men who owed the money never heard the workers' complaint, but God did.
Their very wealth tempts the rich to hold back the wages of the poor. Only their own affairs matter in their eyes. They put off to a convenient time the claims of people who live from hand to mouth. But the debt cries aloud to Him who always feels for the poor, as He showed who alone made Him fully known. Yes, the cries of the reapers may not have reached the rich. But they entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts, and His blow would fall when least expected.
A wrong has had a voice before, going back to the first murder.
It is a solemn truth, reader, that sin has a voice, which cries to heaven for God's righteous retribution. The word of God, in both the Old Testament and the New, confirms it. God says to Cain, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground." God then pronounces judgment on Cain. To Abraham the Lord said, "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to Me."
"Sabaoth" is a Hebrew word left untranslated in the New Testament. It names God by what stands at His command.
This carries the meaning, the LORD of hosts. It occurs over 300 times in the Old Testament. Among the different names built this way, it is the only one that appears in the New Testament (see Romans 9:29; James 5:4). This is where the word Sabaoth comes from, the Greek form of the Hebrew word Tsaba (Host). It carries the thought of mighty irresistible power and resource in the hands of the Lord.
Another writer takes that title straight to the question of work and pay: "the labour question is before Him, and the balance of justice is safe in His hands. Be patient, Christian, His coming is near" (The Bible Treasury).
James does not tell the cheated workers to fight back. He points them, and their employers, to one event.
The apostle gives the coming of the Lord as the end point of their condition. That holds both for the unbelieving rich oppressors in Israel and for the poor believing remnant. The rich have heaped up treasures for the last days; the oppressed poor are to be patient until the Lord Himself comes to deliver them. What is more, he says, deliverance would not be delayed.
- Fraud — The sin here is taking advantage of people who cannot defend themselves. It comes with self-indulgence and with the persecution of the just.
- Cry — Withheld wages are not silent. Like Abel's blood and the outcry of Sodom, unpunished sin has a voice that reaches heaven.
- Ears — The complaint the employer never heard has already reached God. The debt itself pleads before Him.
- Hosts — "Lord of Sabaoth" means Lord of hosts. It speaks of irresistible power and resource, and it is the one title of its kind carried into the New Testament.
- Coming — One event ends both stories: judgment for the oppressor, deliverance for the oppressed. The Lord will not delay it.
Ye have lived luxuriously on the earth and indulged yourselves; ye have nourished your hearts [as] in a day of slaughter;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
ye have condemned, ye have killed the just; he does not resist you.
Verse 6 ends a list of charges against the rich with the heaviest one. Two questions follow: who is the righteous person here, and what does his silence mean for people who suffer the same way?
The opening of the chapter is not counsel for believers but a summons to men outside the faith, and one writer makes the point by asking whether the words could possibly fit God's people.
Then in James 5 we have a solemn word for rich men, to weep and howl for their miseries that shall come upon them. Will any man argue still that this means the saints of God? Are they the persons called to weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon them?
The change of audience is marked in the text itself. Verse 7 turns to a different group with a different tone.
The rich oppressors are certainly not believers but the unbelieving rich. James does not call them "brothers." He does call others by that name in verse 7, and he urges them to be patient. The coming of the Lord confronts both groups — the unbelieving rich and the believing remnant.
James moves from hoarding riches straight to a killing, and the link is startling.
"You have condemned and killed the just." What an unexpected moral link! The apostle shows that the spirit of heaping up riches in the last days is the same spirit that, in other circumstances, killed Jesus Christ the righteous… This same selfishness ran head-on into the Lord of glory, "who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich."
Another writer names the motive behind the violence. Comfort hates being disturbed.
But there is more. When we live in pleasure, we do not want anyone coming to disturb our happiness. They had condemned and killed the Just One, who had not resisted. They wanted to keep their enjoyment of the world in a false calm — a calm that thinks of neither God, nor judgment, nor death.
Commentators differ over the identity of the victim. Some read the phrase as naming Christ Himself. They point to His sinless silence as the measure of the guilt involved.
Another charge follows, still more terrible: "You condemned, you killed the just one: he does not resist you." This made their guilt even harder to excuse. "He did no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth. When He was insulted, He did not insult back. When He suffered, He did not threaten, but gave Himself up to Him who judges justly."
Others say the words reach past the cross to people who suffer the same way. They hold the wording cannot point to Christ alone.
They heaped up treasure, oppressed the poor and needy, robbed them, and lived in pleasure. That same spirit condemned and killed the Just One, the Lord Jesus Christ, who did not resist. We can hardly apply these words to our Lord alone. These unbelievers did to His true followers what they did to the Lord of glory.
Everything else in the verse is past tense; the last clause is not. One writer treats that shift as deliberate.
The writer sums it all up decisively. Still, he guards against any misuse of his words by moving to the present tense at the close: "he does not resist you."
Silence under wrong is not weakness. It hands the answer to Someone else.
If we stay silent when people insult us, it is not that evil and malice have no answer. It is that we leave the answer with God. We must never try to take vengeance on the wrongdoer. God retains all vengeance in His own hands.
The righteous man does not fight back, so the wrong stands. The next verses show who answers it. James does not point to a better system.
He then comforts the oppressed. But the hope is not in new laws. It is not in labour unions. It is not in justice winning out through the work of a church that has abandoned the faith. It is in the Blessed Hope of our Lord's return. "Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord."
Waiting for the Lord is more than holding a doctrine. It changes how a person lives under wrong.
True waiting for the Lord — not just holding the doctrine of His second coming — will keep the soul separate from the world, with its riches, its pleasures and its wild self-indulgence… It will help the soul endure through every conflict. It will help it walk in calm confidence, never insulting back when insulted, never threatening when others make it suffer wrongly — just as Christ did not resist when the rulers of this world condemned Him.
- Greed — The love of money is not a separate sin from cruelty. Hoarding in the last days is the same spirit that condemned the righteous One.
- Comfort — People living for pleasure hate any disturbance. Their false calm ignores God and judgment, and it will silence whoever threatens it.
- The Just — Commentators differ. Some read the phrase of Christ Himself. Others say His followers meet the same treatment He met.
- Silence — The last clause turns to the present tense. Staying silent is not surrender; it leaves the answer with God, who keeps all vengeance in His own hands.
- The Judge — Better laws and louder protest do not settle the wrong. The coming of the Lord does — and that is where verse 7 turns.