James 1:11

For the sun is no sooner risen … but it withereth Better, for the sun arose and withered. The Greek has nothing that answers to "no sooner," and the verbs are throughout in the past tense as in a narrative. It is as though St James were using the form not of a similitude, but of a parable, apparently not without a reminiscence of some features of the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:6) and of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:30).

with a burning heat Better, with the scorching heat, probably the Simoom, or hot wind that blows from the desert in the early morning, as in Luke 12:55. The whole description comes, as above, from Isaiah 40:6. Comp. also Jonah 4:8.

falleth … perisheth Better, as continuing the narrative, fell perished.

fade away Better, perhaps, as expressing the force of the Greek passive, be blighted. The Greek verb is not found elsewhere in the New Testament, but meets us in the Wisd. of Song of Solomon 2:8, in a passage which may well have been present to the mind of the writer. An adjective derived from it is found in the "crown that fadeth not away," literally, the amaranthine crown, of 1 Peter 5:4. See also 1 Peter 1:4. The idea of the "fading" of earthly riches, the "unfading" character of heavenly, was another thought common to the two writers.

the grace of the fashion of it Better, the goodliness of its form, literally, of its face. The first substantive is not found elsewhere in the New Testament.

in his ways Literally, in his goings or journeyings, as in Luke 13:22, perhaps with a special reference to the restlessness in trading which shewed itself in the money-making Jews of Palestine. "Going" and "getting" (poreuomaiand emporeuomai) made up the sum total of their ideal of life. Comp. chap. James 4:13. A various reading gives "in his gettings" here, as a possible meaning, but the balance of evidence is in favour of "goings."