James 5:4 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
James 5:4
Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
properly · verb — present active indicative, 3rd person singular
and
καὶkai
G2532
and · conjunction
cries
βοαὶboai
G995
a halloo · noun — nominative plural feminine
them
τῶνtōn
G3588
the (sometimes to be supplied · article — genitive plural masculine
reaped
θερισάντωνtherisantōn
G2325
to harvest · verb — aorist active participle, genitive plural masculine
entered
εἰσεληλύθασιν.eiselēluthasin
G1525
to enter (literally or figuratively) · verb — second perfect active indicative, 3rd person plural
into
εἰςeis
G1519
to or into (indicating the point reached or entered) · preposition
ears
ὦταōta
G3775
the ear (physically or mentally) · noun — accusative plural neuter
Lord
κυρίουkuriou
G2962
supreme in authority · noun — genitive singular masculine, a title
sabaoth
σαβαὼθsabaōth
G4519
armies · noun — genitive plural masculine, a title
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
Leviticus 19:13 Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.
Jeremiah 22:13 Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour’s service without wages, and gi…
Deuteronomy 24:14-15 Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land with…
Romans 9:29 And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.
Malachi 3:5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false…
Job 24:10-11 They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry;
Exodus 22:27 For that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, th…
Genesis 4:10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
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…
Behold--calling attention to their coming doom as no vain threat.
labourers--literally "workmen."
of you kept back--So English Version rightly. Not as ALFORD, "crieth out from you." The "keeping back of the hire" was, on the part OF the rich, virtually an act of "fraud," because the poor laborers were not immediately paid. The phrase is therefore not, "kept back by you," but "of you"; the latter implying virtual, rather than overt, fraud. James refers to Deu 24:14-15, "At this day . . . give his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it, lest he CRY against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee." Many sins "cry" to heaven for vengeance which men tacitly take no account of, as unc…
The hire of the laborers - The law, Lev 19:13, had ordered: The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning, every day's labor being paid for as soon as ended. This is more clearly stated in another law, Deu 24:15 : At his day thou shalt give him his hire; neither shall the sun go down upon it; - lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee. And that God particularly resented this defrauding of the hireling we see from Mal 3:5 : I will come near to you in judgment, and will be a swift witness against those who oppress the hireling in his wages. And on these laws and threatenings is built what we read in Synopsis Sohar, p. 100, l. 45: "W…
The Church Fathers
What James means here is not that God has ears but that he can use his power to put right the wrongs which exist on earth.
Behold, the wages of the workers who have reaped your fields, which were withheld by you, cry out. How great is the iniquity of the proud, who, although they have sufficient wealth, not only disdain to welcome and refresh the poor coming everywhere, but also refuse to give the due wages of their work to the laborers or their servants. This fault of impiety the blessed Job indicates that he took great care to avoid, as he says: If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together, if I have eaten its fruits without money, and afflicted the soul of its tillers, let thorns grow instead of wheat, and thistles instead of barley (Job 31). And their cry has entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts. He calls the Lord of Hosts to instill fear in those who think that the poor have no protector. But to this place suits that of the Psalmist: "For the poor are left to you, you will be a helper to the orphan" (Psa. Heb. 10). And what is written in the book of the blessed Job: "For God will not hear in vain, and the Almighty will consider the causes of each one" (Job 35). You have feasted on the earth. Having neglected the heavenly joys to which you could have come through afflictions and fasts, you only love carnal feasts, which will be followed by such great hunger and thirst in the future, that not even a single drop of water can then be obtained from elsewhere to cool your burning tongue.
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
Sabaoth — The transliteration of the Hebrew word tsebha’oth, meaning “hosts,” “armies” (Rom. 9:29; James 5:4). In the LXX. the Hebrew word is rendered by “Almighty.” (See Rev. 4:8; comp. Isa. 6:3.) It may…
Sabaoth, The Lord Of — occurs in (Romans 9:29; James 5:4) but is more familiar through its occurrence in the Sanctus of Te Deum—“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.” Sabaoth is the Greek form of the Hebrew word tsebaoth…
Wages — Rate of (mention only in Matt. 20:2); to be punctually paid (Lev. 19:13; Deut. 24:14, 15); judgements threatened against the withholding of (Jer. 22:13; Mal. 3:5; comp. James 5:4); paid in money…
Behold the hire of the labourers, which have reaped down your fields,.... The wages agreed for by the day, with the labourers in their fields, particularly their reapers; which one instance serves for many others; and is the rather mentioned, because reaping is a laborious work, and those who are employed in it have nothing to live upon but their hand labour; and especially because they are made use of in cutting down the corn when it is fully ripe, and in great plenty; wherefore, to detain their just wages from them argues great inhumanity and wickedness; and yet this was what was done by rich men:
which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; unto God for vengeance, as the blood of Abel did…
James 5:1-6
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you
1 Agedum nunc divites, plorate, ululantes super miseriis vestris quae advenient vobis.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
2 Divitiae vestrae putrefactae sunt, vestimenta vestra a tineis excesa sunt.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
3 Aurum et argentum vestrum aerugine corruptum est; et aerugo eorum in testimonium vobis erit, et exedet carnes vestras sicut ignis: thesaurum congessistis in extremis diebus.
4 Behold, th…
These rich people (5:1) were exploitive landowners. Like those in 2:6 who oppressed and dragged Christians into court, they were exploiting the day laborers whose work was to harvest their fields. • cries . . . have reached the ears of the Lord: God hears the prayers of the oppressed (see Deut 24:14-15). Even while the laborers are still suffering, the Lord has heard (see Exod 3:7). • the Lord of Heaven’s Armies (1 Sam 17:45; Ps 103:20-21; Rom 9:29): This title emphasizes God’s power to act when the oppressed cannot.
Poor, The · Guilt of defrauding — Guilt of defrauding
Reaping · Persons engaged in: Received wages — Persons engaged in: Received wages
Riches · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Servants · Hired: Often oppressed and their wages kept back — Hired: Often oppressed and their wages kept back
Theft · Includes fraud concerning wages — Includes fraud concerning wages
Wages · UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO — UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO
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).
