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The ESV Global Study Bible's Study Notes

James 4:8,9

JAMES—NOTE ON James 4:8 Cleanse and purify are OT terms for ritual purity and ethical purity. Laughter shows how casually James’s readers were treating their sin. The only proper reaction to God’s coming judgment is to be wretched and mourn and weep (see Isaiah 15:2; Isaiah 22:4; Jeremiah 6:26).

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See also James 4:8,9 in other biblical comments:

  • Adam Clarke Bible Commentary

    Verse 8. _DRAW NIGH TO GOD_] Approach HIM, in the name of Jesus, by faith and prayer, and _he will draw nigh to you_-he will _meet_ you at your coming. When a soul sets out to seek God, God sets out t...

  • Albert Barnes' Bible Commentary

    DRAW NIGH TO GOD, AND HE WILL DRAW NIGH TO YOU - Compare 2 Chronicles 15:2. This declaration contains a great and important principle in religion. If we wish the favor of God, we must come to him; nor...

  • Annotated Bible by A.C. Gaebelein

    IV. FURTHER EXHORTATIONS TO RIGHT LIVING CHAPTER 4 _ 1. Fightings and worldliness rebuked (James 4:1)_ 2. The Godly walk (James 4:7) James 4:1 A strong rebuke follows the statements concerning the...

  • Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

    The climax of the last paragraph leads to a diagnosis of the disease that poisoned quarrelsome Jewish communities. Faction fights were the logical outcome of unbridled passions; they campaign against...

  • Barclay Daily Study Bible (NT)

    Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to sorrow, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourself before God an...

  • Barclay Daily Study Bible (NT)

    MAN'S PLEASURE OR GOD'S WILL? (James 4:1-3)...

  • Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes

    PURIFY. Greek. _hagnizo._ See Acts 21:24. Used of Levitical purifying four times. Used here, 1Pe 1:22. 1 John 3:3, in. spiritual sense. DOUBLE MINDED. See James 1:8....

  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

    The Call to Repentance 8. _Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you_ The "nearness to God," to which the promise is attached, is primarily that which is involved in all true and earnest prayer,...

  • Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges Commentary

    ΚΑΘΑΡΊΣΑΤΕ ΧΕΙ͂ΡΑΣ κ.τ.λ. Comp. Psalms 24:4 ἀθῶος χερσὶ καὶ καθαρὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ κ.τ.λ. and 1 Peter 1:22 τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν ἡγνικότες ἐν τῇ ὑπακοῇ τῆς�. ἉΜΑΡΤΩΛΟΊ … ΔΊΨΥΧΟΙ. Those addressed in this paragraph...

  • Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges Commentary

    CH. 4:1–12. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE DESIRES OF THE FLESH WHICH ARE THE CAUSE OF EVIL CONTENTION...

  • Charles Box Commentaries

    _DO NOT BE GUILTY OF WORLDLINESS-- JAMES 4:6-10:_ James said, "God resisteth the proud." Pride is the great hindrance to righteousness. Pride leads the list of the seven things God hates. (Proverbs 6:...

  • Charles Rose Commentaries

    ΈΓΓΊΣΑΤΕ _aor. imper. act. от_ ΈΓΓΊΖΩ (G152)) приближаться, подходить, ΈΓΓΙΕΪ́ _fut. ind. act. от_ ΈΓΓΊΖΩ. Об обороте с _imper._ и последующим FUT., как типе _conj._, _см._ James 4:7. ΚΑΘΑΡΊΣΑΤΕ _a...

  • Charles Simeon's Horae Homileticae

    DISCOURSE: 2371 REPENTANCE URGED [Note: For Ash-Wednesday.] James 4:8. _Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be af...

  • Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

    DRAW NIGH TO GOD,— This seems to be an allusion to the manner in which the Jews in general, or rather the priests, drew nigh to God, by going to the temple, while the _Shechinah,_ the glorious emblem...

  • College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

    CHAPTER VIII _CAUSE AND REMEDY OF STRIFE_ James 4:1-12 _Introduction_ Can it be possible that the church of Jesus Christ could descend to the sins mentioned here so soon after Pentecost? In less th...

  • College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

    FROM WHERE WE ARE TO WHERE WE SHOULD BE _Text 4:8b-10_ James 4:8 b. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners: and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded. James 4:9. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your...

  • College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

    DEDICATION TO GOD ALONE IS THE ONLY ANSWER _Text 4:4-8a_ James 4:4. Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the wo...

  • Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

    Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. DRAW NIGH TO GOD - so "cleave unto Him" (Deuteronomy 30:20): namely, by pra...

  • Commentary on the Minor Epistles by Caton

    VERSE 8 DRAW NIGH TO GOD, AND HE WILL DRAW NIGH TO YOU. Like the former, this is a most urgent exhortation. The duty is plainly and strongly stated. Draw nigh to God. How? In the way he has so plainl...

  • Concordant Commentary on the New Testament by A. E. Knoch

    5 This passage has puzzled the commentators, and there are many and various explanations offered to solve what seems to be one of the most difficult passages in the Scriptures. A simple explanation, w...

  • Darby's translation notes (1890)

    4:8 near (a-2) Cleanse (a-12) 'Have it done,' not 'be doing it;' the aorist tense. All the imperatives (ten) from vers. 7 to 10 are in the aorist....

  • Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible

    DENUNCIATION OF GREED AND LOVE OF PLEASURE 1. Lusts] better, 'pleasures.'...

  • Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible

    DOUBLE MINDED] Notice the recurrence of the keynote struck in James 1:8....

  • EasyEnglish Bible Commentaries

    WHAT *FAITH SHOULD DO JAMES _IAN MACKERVOY_ The word list at the end explains words with a *star by them. CHAPTER 4 DESIRES AND DIVISIONS 4:1-10 V1 You know where all the fights and quarrels...

  • Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

    DRAW NIGH TO GOD... — God waiteth to be gracious (Isaiah 30:18). Like the father of the prodigal son (Luke 15), He beholds us while we are “yet a great way off,” and runs, as it were, to hasten our re...

  • Expositor's Bible Commentary (Nicoll)

    CHAPTER 18 ST. JAMES AND PLATO ON LUSTS AS THE CAUSES OF STRIFE; THEIR EFFECT ON PRAYER. James 4:1 THE change from the close of the third chapter to the beginning of the fourth is startling. St. Jam...

  • Expositor's Bible Commentary (Nicoll)

    CHAPTER 20 THE POWER OF SATAN AND ITS LIMITS-HUMILITY THE FOUNDATION OF PENITENCE AND OF HOLINESS. James 4:7 SUBMISSION to God is the beginning, middle, and end of the prodigal's return from disastr...

  • Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

    ἐγγίσατε τῷ θεῷ, καὶ ἐγγίσει ὑμῖν : here, again, we have what to Christian ears sounds rather like a reversal of the order of things; we should expect the order to be that expressed in such words as,...

  • Frederick Brotherton Meyer's Commentary

    “DRAW NIGH TO GOD” James 4:1 The Apostle returns to “the jealousy and faction” of the previous chapter, James 3:14, and says that these evils are traceable to _lust_, that is, to inordinate desire. T...

  • G. Campbell Morgan's Exposition on the Whole Bible

    The writer now dealt with the effect of faith on character. Everything depends on desire. To attempt to satisfy a natural desire without reference to God is futile, and issues in internal conflict and...

  • Gary Hampton Commentaries

    THE MEANS OF OVERCOMING FLESHLY DESIRE God, in his great grace, provides a means of overcoming the fleshly desire that is the source of war and strife. He has promised to provide a way of escape from...

  • George Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

    _Purify your heart from the love of creatures, so that your affections be not divided betwixt God and this world, like persons of two minds [3] or two souls. (Witham)_ [BIBLIOGRAPHY] Duplices animo,...

  • Hawker's Poor man's commentary

    (7) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (8) Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doub...

  • Introductory Lectures - Commentary by William Kelly

    To the reader who enters on the consideration of the epistle of James from the epistles of Paul, the change is great and sudden, and by no means least of all from the epistle to the Hebrews, which, in...

  • John Calvin's Bible Commentary

    8_Draw nigh to God_. He again reminds us that the aid of God will not be wanting to us, provided we give place to him. For when he bids us to draw nigh to God, that we may know him to be near to us, h...

  • John Darby's Synopsis

    In all that follows we have still the judgment of unbridled nature, of will in its different forms: contentions that arise from the lusts of the natural heart; request made to God proceeding from the...

  • John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

    DRAW NIGH TO GOD, AND HE WILL DRAW NIGH TO YOU,.... This must be understood consistently with the perfection of God's immensity and omnipresence: the saints draw nigh to God when they present their bo...

  • John Trapp Complete Commentary

    Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse _your_ hands, _ye_ sinners; and purify _your_ hearts, _ye_ double minded. Ver. 8. _Draw nigh to God_] viz. In duty, and he will draw nigh to yo...

  • Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

    _But he_ God, _giveth more grace_ To all those who, while they shun those tempers, sincerely and earnestly pray for it. _Wherefore he saith_, [see the margins] _God, resisteth the proud_ The unhumbled...

  • Justin Edwards' Family Bible New Testament (1851)

    DRAW NIGH TO GOD; in prayer for all needed wisdom and strength to resist temptation and to persevere, whatever be the consequences, in doing right. HE WILL DRAW NIGH TO YOU; to sustain, comfort, and...

  • Kretzmann's Popular Commentary of the Bible

    DRAW NIGH TO GOD, AND HE WILL DRAW NIGH TO YOU. CLEANSE YOUR HANDS, YE SINNERS; AND PURIFY YOUR HEARTS, YE DOUBLE MINDED....

  • Kretzmann's Popular Commentary of the Bible

    A humble state of mind demanded of Christians:...

  • Leslie M. Grant's Commentary on the Bible

    This chapter, to the end of v.6, continues the subject begun in Ch.3:13. Sensual. devilish wisdom was accompanied by wars and fightings: but this proceeded from the lusts of the flesh active within th...

  • Manly Luscombe Commentary on New Testament

    List some ways we can draw nearer to God. How does God become nearer to us? Discuss the song I come to the garden alone - “He walks with me and talks with me” Discuss the song My God and I. How do we...

  • Mark Dunagan Commentaries

    "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded."Draw near to God" -"come near, approach" (Thayer p. 164). Be impressed that...

  • Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible

    1-10 Since all wars and fightings come from the corruptions of our own hearts, it is right to mortify those lusts that war in the members. Wordly and fleshly lusts are distempers, which will not allo...

  • Matthew Poole's Concise Commentary On The Bible

    DRAW NIGH TO GOD; by faith, which is a coming to God, HEBREWS 7:25; by true repentance, which is a returning to God, HOSEA 14:1 ZECHARIAH 3:7; and by fervent prayer to him for the help of his grace,...

  • Patchworkid's Personal Study Bible Notes

    James 4:8 near G1448 (G5657) God G2316 and G2532 near G1448 (G5692) you G5213 Cleanse G2511 ...

  • Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible

    ‘Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.' Then they can once more approach God, and He will draw near to them. He will welcome them in friendship. Then they will be able to ask and He will giv...

  • Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible

    AS A CONSEQUENCE THEY ARE TO SUBJECT THEMSELVES TO GOD, RESIST THE DEVIL, AND DRAW NEAR TO GOD BY PURIFYING THEMSELVES AND TRULY REPENTING (JAMES 4:6). The condition of some of God's professed people...

  • Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary on the NT (4 vols)

    James 4:8. DRAW NIGH TO GOD: not to be limited to prayer, but to be understood of our intercourse with God generally. AND HE WILL DRAW NIGH TO YOU. Compare the words of Zechariah: ‘Turn ye unto me,...

  • Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary on the NT (4 vols)

    James 4:1-12. St. James warns his readers against those evil passions which gave rise to wars and fightings among them. They must moderate their desires, and guard against self-gratification. If they...

  • Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament

    DRAW NIGH TO GOD (εγγισατε τω θεω). First aorist active imperative of εγγιζω, late verb from εγγυς (near) as in Matthew 3:2. With dative case again of personal relation. The priests in the sanctuar...

  • Scofield's Bible Commentary

    SINNERS SIN (_ See Scofield) - (Romans 3:23). _...

  • Spurgeon's Bible Commentary

    James 4:1. _From whence come wars and fightings among you?_ Whether between nations, or parties or individuals,-if there be wars and fightings, whence do they come? James 4:1. _Come they not hence,...

  • Summarized Bible Commentary

    CONTENTS: Rebuke of worldliness and exhortation to humility before God. CHARACTERS: God, Satan. CONCLUSION: Worldly and fleshly lusts are the distemper which will not allow contentment or satisfacti...

  • Sutcliffe's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

    James 4:1. _From whence come wars and fightings among you?_ St. James saw in the Spirit the bloody and cruel wars which would rise among christian powers, much the same as among the heathen. He had a...

  • The Bible Study New Testament

    COME NEAR TO GOD. "Worship God with your life, with a deep sense of his holiness and justice, deal with others as he deals with you, and he will bless and assist you in your efforts to serve him! _Joh...

  • The Biblical Illustrator

    _Submit yourselves therefore to God_ SUBMITTING OURSELVES TO GOD I. THE DUTY OF SUBMITTING OURSELVES TO GOD. This submission has its commencement and abiding root in the reception of Christ as a Savi...

  • The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary

    _CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES_ James 4:5.—The precise rendering is doubtful. There is no passage either in the Canonical or Apocryphal Scriptures that is here referred to. The _Revised Version_ gives...

  • The Pulpit Commentaries

    EXPOSITION JAMES 4:1 REBUKE OF QUARRELS ARISING FROM PRIDE AND GREED. A terribly sadden transition from the "peace" with which James 3:1. closed....

  • Through The Bible C2000 Serie by Chuck Smith

    This chapter could be entitled how to win friends and influence people. Guard your tongue, bring your tongue under control, use it for good, use it to encourage to build up, don't use it to tear down,...

  • Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

    1 Chronicles 28:9; 1 John 3:3; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 Peter 3:21; 1 Timothy 2

  • Vincent's Word Studies in the New Testament (4 Volume Set)

    Purify [α γ ν ι σ α τ ε]. One of the three instances in the New Testament in which the word is not used of ceremonial purification. The others are 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 3:3. Double minded [δ ι ψ υ χ ο...

  • Wesley's Explanatory Notes

    Then draw nigh to God in prayer, and he will draw nigh unto you, will hear you; which that nothing may hinder, cleanse your hands — Cease from doing evil. And purify your hearts — From all spiritual a...

  • William Burkitt's Expository Notes

    Observe here, 1. Man by nature, since his fall, is afar off from God, not barely by. natural distance as. creature, but also by. moral distance as. sinner; God made man near him, but when man sinned,...

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