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The metaphor here used of the rich man is common enough in the Old Testament. Man "cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down," says Job, in his complaint (Job 14:2); and, "As for man, his days are as grass," etc., says the Psalmist (Psalm 103:15, 16). But elsewhere, with a closer similarity to the present passage, we have this transitory character specially attributed to the ungodly (Psalm 37:2). None of these passages, however, are so clearly in St. James's mind as the words of Isaiah (Isaiah 40:6, 7). Here the words of St. James are almost identical with those of the Septuagint. "Grass" throughout is a comprehensive term for herbage, and the "flower of grass" does not mean the bloom or blossom of grass in the narrower sense, but the wild flowers, specially abundant and brilliant in the Holy Land, which grow among the grass. "The scorching wind" (ὁ καύσων) is one of the features of the Epistle which harmonise well with the fact that the writer was an inhabitant of Palestine. It is the furnacelike blast from the arid wilderness to the east of the Jordan. The fig-tree, olives, and vine (James 3:12) are the chief fruit-trees of Palestine; and "the early and latter rain" (James 5:7) points still more clearly to the same district. It has been remarked with justice that whereas St. Paul for the most part draws his metaphors from the scenes of human activity — building, husbandry, athletic contests, and warfare — St. James prefers to take his metaphors from the scenes of nature. In this chapter we have "the surge of the sea" (ver. 6) and "the flower of the grass" (ver. 10). In the third chapter we have the "rough winds" driving the ships, the "wood kindled by a small fire," "the wheel of nature," "every kind of beasts and birds, of creeping things, and things in the sea," "the fountain sending forth sweet water," "the fig-tree and vine" (vers. 4-7, 11, 12). In the fourth chapter human life is "a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" (ver. 14). And in the last chapter, besides the moth and the rust, we have "the fruit of the earth," and "the early and latter rain" (vers. 2, 3, 7, 18). These instances are certainly very numerous, when the brevity of the Epistle is considered. The love of nature which breathes through them was no doubt learned and cherished in the village home at Nazareth, and it forms another link between St. James and his Divine Brother. Nearly every one of the natural phenomena to which St. James directs attention in this letter are used by Christ also in His teaching. In some cases the use made by St. James of these natural objects is very similar to that made by our Lord, and it may well be that what he writes is a reminiscence of what he had heard years before from Christ's lips; but in other cases the use is quite different, and must be assigned to the love of nature, and the recognition of its fitness for teaching spiritual truths, which is common to the Lord and His brother. But there is this great difference between Christ's teaching from nature and that of St. James: St. James recognises in the order and beauty of the universe a revelation of Divine truth, and makes use of the facts of the external world to teach spiritual lessons; the incarnate Word, in drawing spiritual lessons from the external world, could expound the meaning of a universe which He Himself had made. In the one case it is a disciple of nature who imparts to us the lore which he himself has learned; in the other it is the Master of nature, who points out to us the meaning of His own world, and interprets to us the voices of the winds and the waves, which obey him.

(A. Plummer, D. D.)

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KJV: Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:

WEB: But let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position;