One may hope that James alludes to the Jewish merchants, not Jewish
Christians. Certainly those Jewish merchants who became Christians
continued their business, though not in a godless fashion. The merchant
has one of the most useful and most honorable of all callings, but it
seems clear that some of the Jewish merchants had already brought
disfavor upon the business by their sharp practices. See Sirach 26:29.
“A merchant will hardly keep himself from doing wrong; and a huckster
will not be declared free from sin.” This piece of moralizing is
evidently occasioned by some tricks in trade indulged in by Jewish
merchants. One is bound to admit that some modern Jews retain some of
the same reputation in certain lines of trade.
But the point that James makes is a peril to Christian merchants also.
The keen competition in all kinds of business is a constant temptation
to violate the Golden Rule and to ignore God as well as the welfare of
one’s customers in order to make money and to meet a rival who is
unscrupulous in trade. The Christian businessman today can do business
on a high plane. Hustle and enterprise need not condescend to underhand
methods. It is a pleasure to note the activity of the Gideons, an
organization of Christian men who, besides doing other useful things,
have placed copies of the Bible in the rooms of most American hotels.
These men have not left God out.
In Palestine the Jews held on to the agricultural life, but in the
Diaspora they were merchants and bankers. Philo (In Flaccum VIII) gives
a picture of the Jewish merchants and bankers in Alexandria. Josephus
(Ant. XII, 2-5) alludes to the Jewish traveling merchant about 175 B.C.
One of the wonders of history is how the Jews, scattered over the world,
finally without a land of their own, have yet by their wits maintained
themselves as a race and a religion and have been leaders in business,
in art, in music, in politics, in literature.
“Come now, ye that say” is the impatient challenge of James to those who
leave God out of account in their plans for the future. The tone of
impatience is due to the conviction that one should be so conscious of
his own weakness as not to boast about the future. “To-day or tomorrow
we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get
gain.” And then we shall move on to the next town and work that with our
wares, for all the world like a modern “fire sale” or secondhand
clothing store with its bankruptcy or fire features. The picture is
drawn from life. The use of “this city” is merely typical, as if James
were pointing it out on the map (Mayor), and is more vivid than “such
and such a city.”
In James 1:11 we read that the rich man shall “fade away in his goings,”
an allusion to the travels of the rich merchants. We see the rapid
movements of the Jewish Christians illustrated by the travels of Aquila
and Priscilla, who came from Rome to Corinth (Acts 18:1 f.), then to
Ephesus (18:18), to Rome again (Rom. 16:3), and back to Ephesus (2 Tim.
4:19). The phrase “spend a year there” is literally “do a year there,”
and the idiom occurs also in Acts 15:33; 20:3 (cf. Prov. 13:23).
The wide dispersion of the Jews all over the Roman Empire gave them
business connections that made it easy to get new business and to hold
the old trade. The very word here for “trade” means to travel into a
region to get business, just like a modern commercial traveler. Our word
“emporium” is just this word. The Jews made the very Temple itself “a
house of merchandise.” So then trading implied traveling for business
(Matt. 22:5).
In 2 Peter 2:3 a somber light is thrown by this same word: “And in
covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you.”
“And get gain.” This is the climax of the whole, the aim of the journeys
and the trading. “The frequent conjunctions separate the different items
of the plan, which are rehearsed thus one by one with manifest
satisfaction. The speakers gloat over the different steps of the
programme which they have arranged for themselves” (Plummer). There is
no harm in planning to make money or in travel for that purpose. The
harm lies in the complete ignoring of God in all their plans.
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow,”[89] “you who know
nothing about to-morrow” (Moffatt). James has ample authority in this
statement. “Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a
day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1). The prohibition implies a
carelessness about the future that grew out of indifference to God.
There is a rabbinical saying (_Sanhed._ 100_b_) to this effect: “Care
not for the morrow, for ye know not what a day may bring forth.” James
is condemning those who make their plans for the future with God left
out, as if all were in their own hands. Jesus spoke the wonderful
parable of the rich fool for the benefit of two brothers who were
quarreling over the estate: “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many
years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry” (Luke 12:19).
This was the worldly-wise view of the Cyrenaics and the Epicureans, and
it is the standpoint of multitudes of modern men who under the influence
of monism (like Haeckel) deny the existence of a personal God or who act
as if there were no God (Psalm 14:1). But God replies to the fool, “Thou
foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things
which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?” Jesus does not
contradict this position when he says: “Be not therefore anxious for the
morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof” (Matt. 6:34). He is here condemning
overanxiety, that is as distrustful of God as reckless unconcern. There
is the golden mean of calm trust in God.
We are not to live in a haphazard manner, without plan or purpose. We
are to make plans, but we must put God into our preparations. It is
cowardly to be superstitious in the anticipation of evil. Some people
knock on wood if they happen to boast a bit. Others are superstitious
about the number thirteen, about Friday, about the moon, and a hundred
other hallucinations. The point with these Jews is not worry or
superstition but irreligion. There are multitudes of practical pagans
today who fear not God nor regard man. They carry on their business with
no fear of consequences for their evil practices. They wreck a bank or a
railroad with equal nonchalance and care not for the suffering caused
thereby in the homes of the poor.
As a matter of fact, we are ignorant of the morrow. We do not know the
weather of the morrow with certainty, in spite of our gauges and
forecasts. Many railroad accidents are due to the unknown elements in
the problems of travel. A faulty rail, a broken tie, a weakened wheel, a
rolling stone, a careless brakeman, a sleeping switchman, a malicious
robber—a hundred and one things may happen, any one of which will cause
death to helpless victims. “The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang
aft a-gley.”
The uncertainty of life is one of the things that a wise man must
consider and face. A clot of blood on the brain may cause instant and
unexpected death. The heart, driven too hard, may suddenly cease to
beat. “What is your life?” He does not mean manner of life or the life
principle or eternal life. The question concerns all, the good and the
wicked alike. The question as to the character of life pertains to its
brevity and uncertainty on earth. “For ye are a vapor,” “you are but a
mist” (Moffatt). The word is common for smoke, as the “smoke of a
furnace” (Gen. 19:28), “vapor of smoke” (Acts 2:19; from Joel 2:30),
steam or breath; so our “atmosphere.” Job lamented (7:7): “Oh remember
that my life is a breath.” We are “a vapor that appeareth for a little
time, and then vanisheth away.” Aristotle (Hist. An. vi. 7) uses these
two verbs of the appearance and the disappearance of a flock of birds as
they sweep across the sky. The usage occurs also of the eclipse of the
sun. The transitoriness of human life should lead to full and hearty
recognition of God, not to careless slighting of him.
“For that ye ought to say” (more exactly, “instead of your saying”), “If
the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that.” James does not,
of course, mean that one should always say these words. That gets to be
cant or mere claptrap. It becomes repellent to hear one use the name of
God flippantly and constantly. Besides, it comes to signify little or
nothing, as one may count his beads or say his Pater Nosters with no
regard to what he is doing. There should be significance in our acts and
words of worship.
The Jews made a point not to use the name of God too familiarly. They
often used “the Name” for God, and Christians came to refer to Christ in
the same way, “for the Name” (Acts 5:41). The late Jews came, perhaps
under Mohammedan influence, to use the formula “if the Name wills” when
about to start upon a journey (Oesterley). The rabbis (Plummer) have a
story of a Jewish father who, at the circumcision of his son, boasts
that with seven-year-old wine he would celebrate for a long time the
birth of his son. That night Rabbi Simeon meets the Angel of Death and
asks him, “Why art thou thus wandering about?” The angel replies:
“Because I slay those who say, ‘We will do this or that,’ and think not
how soon death may come upon them.”
The thing that matters is for us to have the right attitude of heart
toward God, not the chattering of a formula. God does not have to be
propitiated by a charm or amulet. God should be the silent partner in
all our plans and work, to be consulted, to be followed whenever his
will is made known. Paul frequently spoke of his plans, sometimes
mentioning God, as in Acts 18:21 (God willing), 1 Corinthians 4:19 (if
the Lord will), and 1 Corinthians 16:7 (if the Lord permit); but also
with no mention of God in words, as in Acts 19:21; Romans 15:28; 1
Corinthians 16:5. But always Paul felt that his movements were “in the
Lord,” as in Philippians 2:24. He never left God out of his life.
Indeed, he practiced the presence of God.