James 1:20

the wrath of man Better, A man's wrath, so as to represent the absence of the article in the original. By "the righteousness of God" the phrase is common to St James and St Paul (Rom 10:3; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 3:9) is meant the righteousness which God requires and which He also gives. The besetting sin of the Jews was to identify their own anger against what seemed sin and heresy with the Will of God, to think that they did God service by deeds of violence (John 16:2), that they were thus working out His righteousness. The teaching is again after the pattern of the purely ethical books of the Old Testament (Ecclesiastes 7:9). The MSS. give two forms of the verb rendered "work;" the commonly received one, which conveys the thought, "does not work out or bring to completeness," and that of the better MSS. which means simply, "does not work, or practise."