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James

About this book
Chapter 5

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.⁠ 5 You have lived indulgently and luxuriously on the earth. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.⁠ 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person, although he does not resist you. 7 So be patient, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s return. Think of how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the ground and is patient for it until it receives the early and late rains. 8 You also be patient and strengthen your hearts, for the Lord’s return is near. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be judged.⁠ See, the judge stands before the gates! 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the Lord’s name. 11 Think of how we regard as blessed those who have endured. You have heard of Job’s endurance and you have seen the Lord’s purpose, that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. 12 And above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath. But let your “Yes” be yes and your “No” be no, so that you may not fall into judgment.⁠ 13 Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone in good spirits? He should sing praises. 14 Is anyone among you ill? He should summon the elders of the church, and they should pray for him and anoint him with olive oil in the name of the Lord.⁠ 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up—and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness.⁠ 17 Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and there was no rain on the land for three years and six months!⁠ 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land sprouted with a harvest. 19 My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back,⁠ 20 he should know that the one who turns a sinner back from his wandering path will save that person’s soul from death⁠ and will cover a multitude of sins.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare 4 Ezra 7:109 and James 5:17

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

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Summary

James 5 links Elijah’s prayers with stopping and starting rain, a detail absent from the Hebrew text but found in later Jewish traditions. 4 Ezra shares this view and shows Elijah praying for rain and for the dead to rise.

Passages

4 Ezra 7:109

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · 2 Esdras
107 and Joshua after him for Israel in the days of Achan, 108 and Samuel in the days of Saul, and David for the plague, and Solomon for those who would worship in the sanctuary, 109 and Elijah for those that received rain, and for the dead, that he might live, 110 and Hezekiah for the people in the days of Sennacherib, and many others prayed for many? 111 If therefore now, when corruption has grown and unrighteousness increased, the righteous have prayed for the ungodly, why will it not be so then also?”
70–132 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 4 Ezra

James 5:17

New Testament
15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up—and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness. 17 Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and there was no rain on the land for three years and six months! 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land sprouted with a harvest. 19 My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back,
80–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in James

References

"... Finally, we come to Elijah, whom James connects to prayer (James 5:17-18). While a reasonable assumption on James' part, this is something of a strange reference in that to begin the drought the canonical Elijah simply appears and makes an announcement that only by his word will rain come (1 Kings 17:1). At the end of the drought there is prayer for fire from heaven (I Kings 18:36-37) and a posture that might imply prayer for rain (I Kings 18:42), but no explicit connection of prayer and rain. Jewish tradition, however, did connect Elijah and the Carmel narrative to prayer (Mishnah Taanit 2:4). More importantly, however, 4 Ezra 7:39 (109) states in a context of intercessory prayer that 'Elijah [prayed] for those who received the rain, and for one who was dead, that he might live'. Again, we cannot claim that James actually knew and used 4 Ezra, for in all probability it was completed after James was already published, but 4 Ezra witnesses to a Jewish evaluation of Elijah that was current in James' world and colored how James interpreted the canonical account ..."
Peter H. Davids, “The Pseudepigrapha in the Catholic Epistles,” in The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical Interpretation, ed. James H. Charlesworth and Craig A. Evans, JSPSup 14 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 233.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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4 Ezra 7:109 and James 5:17

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