Texts in Conversation
James 5 uses the Greek Septuagint translation of Joel, where the gluttonous who drink wine are told to weep in response to loss. The language for mourning shares vocabulary associated with prophetic judgment, and James uses it to criticize the wealthy.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Joel 1:5
Septuagint
3 Tell your children concerning them, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. 4 The locust has eaten what the caterpillar left, and the palmerworm has eaten what the locust left, and the cankerworm has eaten what the palmerworm left. 5 Awake, you drunkards, from your wine, and weep: mourn, all you that drink wine to drunkenness: for joy and gladness are removed from your mouth. 6 For a strong and innumerable nation has come up against my land, their teeth are lion's teeth, and their back teeth those of a lion cub. 7 He has ruined my vine, and utterly broken my fig-trees: he has utterly searched my vine, and cast it down; he has peeled its branches.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
James 5:1
New Testament
1 Come now, you rich! Weep and cry aloud over the miseries that are coming on you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your clothing has become moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have rusted and their rust will be a witness against you. It will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have hoarded treasure! 4 Look, the pay you have held back from the workers who mowed your fields cries out against you, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
Date: 80–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... James clearly denounces the rich with prophetic language. He tells them to “weep” by “wailing”. The verb is used throughout the Septuagint to express the weeping of those suffering God’s judgment (e.g., Lamentations 1:1–2; Isaiah 15:2, 5; 33:7; Jeremiah 8:23; Hosea 12:5; Joel 1:5). The verb occurs twenty-one times in the Septuagint, always in a context of prophetic judgment. The verb occurs only here in the New Testament. James therefore uses the combination of these two words from texts of prophetic judgment to denounce the rich who are defrauding the poor of their wages ..."
Todd Scacewater, “The Dynamic and Righteous Use of Wealth in James 5:1–6,” Journal of Markets & Morality 20.2 (2017): 227–242.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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