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James 5 echoes a Jewish teaching also found in Tobit that condemns delaying payment to workers. Both demand that the wealthy pay their workers promptly, using this as a measure of justice toward others.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Tobit 4:14
Deuterocanon
13 And now, my child, love your kindred, and do not scorn in your heart your kindred and the sons and the daughters of your people so as not to take one of them; for in scornfulness is destruction and much trouble, and in idleness is decay and great want, for idleness is the mother of famine. 14 Do not let the wages of any man, which shall work for you, stay with you, but render it to him out of hand: and if you serve God, recompense shall be made to you. Take heed to yourself, my child, in all your works, and be discreet in all your behaviour. 15 And what you yourself hate, do to no man. Do not drink wine to drunkenness, and do not let drunkenness go with you on your way. 16 Give of your bread to the hungry, and of your garments to them that are naked: of all your abundance give alms; and do not let your eye be grudging when you give alms.
James 5:4
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. 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.
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Notes and References
"... In contrast to Jewish admonitions, including Jesus’, the rich that James addresses have stored up earthly treasures in order to hoard them for themselves. As Sirach says, they have stored their treasure under the stone, where it sits useless and becomes rusted and destroyed. James 5:4–6 elaborates on exactly how they have stored up these treasures. They have defrauded workers of their wages and kept the money for themselves (5:4), which was consistently denounced throughout Jewish tradition. (Leviticus 19:13; Deuteronomy 24:14–15; Job 7:1–2; 24:10; 31:13, 38–40; Jeremiah 22:13; Malachi 3:5; Sirach 7:20; 31:4; 34:21ff; Tobit 4:14; Matthew 20:8; Testament of Job 12:4; Pseudo-Phocylides 19) The rich have also lived in luxury and self-indulgence (5:5). These expenditures do not mean the rich stopped hoarding wealth, but rather that they exchanged one form of hoarded wealth for another, namely, goods and luxuries. They have wasted their wealth on these indulgences in the “day of slaughter,” which refers to the coming day of God’s eschatological wrath ..."
Scacewater, Todd
The Dynamic and Righteous Use of Wealth in James 5:1-6
(pp. 227-242) Journal of Markets & Morality Volume 20, Number 2, 2017
* 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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