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.