Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

James 1:9-11

An entirely new subject is now started, which has no connection with what has preceded; such a connection can only be maintained by supplying mental links artificially, for which the text gives no warrant. James 1:9-11 deal with the subject of rich and poor; they may be interpreted in two ways; on the one hand, one may paraphrase thus: Let the brother who is “humble,” i.e., belonging to the lower classes and therefore of necessity (in those days) poor, glory in the exaltation which as a Christian he partakes of; but let him who was rich glory in the fact that, owing to his having embraced Christianity, he is humiliated (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:10-13), “let the rich brother glory in his humiliation as a Christian” (Mayor) taking ταπείνωσις, however, as having the sense of self-abasement which the rich man feels on becoming a Christian. This interpretation has its difficulties, for it is the rich man, not merely his riches, who “passes away”; so, too, in James 1:11; moreover, if it is a question of Christianity, ὕψει and ταπεινώσει cannot well both refer to it, since they are placed in contrast; this seems to have been felt by an ancient scribe who altered ταπεινώσει to πίστει in the cursive 137 (see critical note above), thinking, no doubt, of James 2:5, οὐχ ὁ θεὸς ἐξελέξατο τοὺς πτωχοὺς τῷ κόσμῳ πλουσίους ἐν πίστει … It seems wiser to take the words as they stand, and to seek to interpret them without reading in something that is not there, especially as the writer (or writers) of this Epistle is not as a rule ambiguous in what he says; in fact, one of the characteristics of the Epistle is the straightforward, transparent way in which things are put. Regarded from this point of view, these verses simply contain a wholesome piece of advice to men to do their duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call them; if the poor man becomes wealthy, there is nothing to be ashamed of, he is to be congratulated; if the rich man loses his wealth, he needs comfort, after all, there is something to be thankful for in escaping the temptations and dangers to which the rich are subject; and, as the writer points out later on in James 2:1 ff., the rich are oppressors and cruel, a fact which (it is well worth remembering) was far more true in those days than in these.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

James 1:9-11

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