James recurs to the beasts (cf. horse and bridle) for a broader
discussion. The tongue is unbridled all too often and is the most
unmanageable of wild animals. He had just said that the tongue is set on
fire of hell. “The fact that the tongue is the one thing that defies
man’s power to control it is a sign that there is something satanic in
its bitterness” (Mayor). He uses the language of Oriental exaggeration
in giving further proof of his strong statement, a justifiable
hyperbole: “For every kind of beasts and birds, of creeping things and
things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed by mankind.” “The art
of taming is no new thing, but has belonged to the human race from the
first” (Mayor).
It is perhaps not strictly true that every conceivable animal has been
subjected by man, but no one in the light of the past and the present
can say that any animal is untamable. It is now a common enough thing to
see in a wild animal show performing tigers, leopards, lions, elephants,
monkeys, dogs, horses, parrots, seals, bears, and even serpents. It is
not merely that wild animals may be domesticated (cf. the wolf and the
dog), like the zebra and the wild turkey (America’s contribution to the
world’s barnyard), but they may be taught to do acts and tricks that
show rudimentary reasoning powers. The eye of man can subdue the lion,
the tiger, and the serpent as Jesus subdued the untamable demoniac (Mark
5:4), “and no man had strength to tame him.” Man has proved his kingship
over the other creatures as God gave him dominion (Gen. 1:26). In many
cases animals have become so domesticated that they no longer feel at
home elsewhere.
Man is proud of his lordship over beast and bird and over the forces of
nature like wind and wave and electricity. Man can swim like a fish, can
run like a deer, and can now even fly like a bird in the airplane with
its artificial wings. He can talk without wires with unseen persons over
thousands of miles. He can speed over land and sea like the wind. He can
send a message around the earth with the swiftness of light.
But he cannot control his own tongue. “But the tongue can no man tame.”
Here is the language of helplessness, as in the case of the demoniac in
Mark 5:4. Strictly speaking, of course, the tongue is merely the organ
of speech, and speech is under the control of the mind. By a bold figure
James almost personifies the tongue as a separate personality. “It
combines the ferocity of the tiger and the mockery of the ape with the
subtlety and venom of the serpent” (Plummer). It is thus the very
chimera of wild beasts!
This is the picture of the tongue in its natural state, the tongue of
the unregenerate man. The Spirit of God can cleanse a man’s mouth of
profanity and unclean speech. “Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips
from speaking guile” (Psalm 34:13). Paul puts up the bars: “Nor
filthiness, nor foolish talking, or jesting, which are not befitting”
(Eph. 5:4). Once more he says: “Let no corrupt speech proceed out of
your mouth” (4:29). Surely, if one has such an untamable little animal
in his mouth as the tongue, he needs to watch it with ceaseless care.
The evil of the tongue echoes and re-echoes through a community and
often through the ages. The evil slander can never be stopped. The lie
is fleet of foot and eludes truth in a race.
“It is a restless evil,” “plague of disorder that it is” (Moffatt), “a
disorderly evil” (Hort), _iniquitum malum_ (Vulgate). It is unstable and
unreliable, inconsistent and quixotic. It can never be trusted to the
full. It will turn on one when off guard, like the lion when the keeper
turns his eye away. It can be brought under no rules that will work.
“It is full of deadly poison.” It is “death-bringing” poison like the
poison of asps under their lips (Psalm 140:3). “Their poison is like the
poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear”
(Psalm 58:4). The poison of the serpent is deposited in a little pocket
under the mouth. So the tongue is charged with the venom of hate, as the
serpent with poison. The hiss of the serpent and the hiss of the goose
are often reproduced in the sibilant tongue of slander.