James 5:2

Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

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Word by word — the Greek

Word	Greek	Strong’s	Meaning
Your	ὑμῶν hymōn	G5216	of (from or concerning) you
riches	πλοῦτος ploutos	G4149	wealth (as fulness) · noun — nominative singular masculine
corrupted	σέσηπεν sesēpen	G4595	to putrefy · verb — second perfect active indicative, 3rd person singular
and	καὶ kai	G2532	and · conjunction
your	ὑμῶν hymōn	G5216	of (from or concerning) you
garments	ἱμάτια himatia	G2440	a dress (inner or outer) · noun — nominative plural neuter
are	γέγονεν· gegonen	G1096	to cause to be ("gen"-erate) · verb — second perfect active indicative, 3rd person singular
motheaten	σητόβρωτα sētobrōta	G4598	moth-eaten · adjective — nominative plural neuter

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Matthew 6:19-20 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
Job 13:28 And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.
Luke 12:33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief appr…
Isaiah 50:9 Behold, the Lord GOD will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.
Isaiah 51:8 For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvati…
1 Peter 1:4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,
Psalms 39:11 When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.
Jeremiah 17:11 As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his d…

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on James 5:1-11

The apostle is here addressing first sinners and then saints. I. Let us consider the address to sinners; and here we find James seconding what his great Master had said: Woe unto you that are rich; for you have received your consolation, Luk 6:24. The rich people to whom this word of warning was sent were not such as professed the Christian religion, but the worldly and unbelieving Jews, such as are here said to condemn and kill the just, which the Christians had no power to do; and though this epistle was written for the sake of the faithful, and was sent principally to them, yet, by an apostrophe, the infidel Jews may be well supposed here spoken to. They would not hear the word, and there…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on James 5:2

corrupted--about to be destroyed through God's curse on your oppression, whereby your riches are accumulated (Jam 5:4). CALVIN thinks the sense is, Your riches perish without being of any use either to others or even to yourselves, for instance, your garments which are moth-eaten in your chests. garments . . . moth-eaten--referring to Mat 6:19-20.

Adam Clarke on James 5:2

Your riches are corrupted - Σεσηπε· Are putrefied. The term πλουτος, riches, is to be taken here, not for gold, silver, or precious stones, (for these could not putrefy), but for the produce of the fields and flocks, the different stores of grain, wine, and oil, which they had laid up in their granaries, and the various changes of raiment which they had amassed in their wardrobes.

John Gill on James 5:2

Your riches are corrupted,.... Either through disuse of them; and so the phrase is expressive of their tenaciousness, withholding that from themselves and others which is meet, and which is keeping riches for the owners thereof, to their hurt; or these are corrupted, and are corruptible things, fading and perishing, and will stand in no stead in the day of wrath, and therefore it is great weakness to put any trust and confidence in them: and your garments are moth eaten; being neither wore by themselves, nor put upon the backs of others, as they should, but laid up in wardrobes, or in chests and coffers, and so became the repast of moths, and now good for nothing.

The Church Fathers

Riches cannot harm a good person, because he spends them kindly. Likewise they cannot help an evil person as long as he keeps them avariciously or wastes them in dissipation.
— Caesarius of Arles, SERMONS 35.4

Your riches are corrupt: and your garments are eaten by moths. Your gold and silver is rusted: and their rust shall be for a testimony to you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. You have stored to yourselves wrath in the last days. "Your riches." Or your wealth. It must be understood, that is, what wealth, as the saying goes: Your riches, which you have hidden like fire as a treasure, will exceed your flesh. "Your garments are eaten by moths." The rotting, James says, of riches and the corrosion or consumption of garments by moths, and the rust of gold and silver will bear witness against you, arguing your greed. Because of this, in the last days (the Lord says of His coming), you will find your riches hidden for you like fire for destruction: which also happened to the rich man, of whom it is told in the Gospel. (Luke 15:24)
— Oecumenius, Commentary on James

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Dress — (1.) Materials used. The earliest and simplest an apron of fig-leaves sewed together (Gen. 3:7); then skins of animals (3:21). Elijah’s dress was probably the skin of a sheep (2 Kings 1:8). The…
Condemnation · Increased by: Oppression — Increased by: Oppression
Garments · Of the rich: Often moth-eaten — Of the rich: Often moth-eaten
Moth · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
Moth, The · Destructive to garments — Destructive to garments
Rich, The · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Riches · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

James 5:2

Word by word — the Greek

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on James 5:1-11

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on James 5:2

Adam Clarke on James 5:2

John Gill on James 5:2

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

James 5:2

Word by word — the Greek

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on James 5:1-11

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on James 5:2

Adam Clarke on James 5:2

John Gill on James 5:2

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John Calvin on James 5:1-6

Tyndale Open Study Notes on James 5:2