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Selected Verse: James 4:16 - King James
Verse |
Translation |
Text |
Jas 4:16 |
King James |
But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
now--as it is.
rejoice in . . . boastings--"ye boast in arrogant presumptions," namely, vain confident fancies that the future is certain to you (Jam 4:13).
rejoicing--boasting [BENGEL]. |
Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
But now ye rejoice in your boastings - That is, probably, in your boastings of what you can do; your reliance on your own skill and sagacity. You form your plans for the future as if with consummate wisdom, and are confident of success. You do not anticipate a failure; you do not see how plans so skilfully formed can fail. You form them as if you were certain that you would live; as if secure from the numberless casualties which may defeat your schemes.
All such rejoicing is evil - It is founded on a wrong view of yourselves and of what may occur. It shows a spirit forgetful of our dependence on God; forgetful of the uncertainty of life; forgetful of the many ways by which the best-laid plans may be defeated. We should never boast of any wisdom or skill in regard to the future. A day, an hour may defeat our best-concerted plans, and show us that we have not the slightest power to control coming events. |
Vincent's Word Studies, by Marvin R. Vincent [1886] |
Ye rejoice (καυχᾶσθε)
Rev., glory. See on Jam 2:13.
Boastings (ἀλαζονείαις)
Only here and Jo1 2:16. The kindred word ἀλαζών, a boaster, is derived from ἄλη, a wandering or roaming; hence, primarily, a vagabond, a quack, a mountebank. From the empty boasts of such concerning the cures and wonders they could perform, the word passed into the sense of boaster. One may boast truthfully; but ἀλαζονεία is false and swaggering boasting. Rev. renders vauntings, and rightly, since vaunt is from the Latin vanus, empty, and therefore expresses idle or vain boasting. |
Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
But now ye rejoice in your boastings - Ye glory in your proud and self-sufficient conduct, exulting that ye are free from the trammels of superstition, and that ye can live independently of God Almighty. All such boasting is wicked, πονηρα εστιν, is impious. In an old English work, entitled, The godly man's picture drawn by a Scripture pencil, there are these words: "Some of those who despise religion say, Thank God we are not of this holy number! They who thank God for their unholiness had best go ring the bells for joy that they shall never see God." |
13 Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
13 For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.