13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow let's go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit."
Don't boast about tomorrow; For you don't know what a day may bring forth.
He reasoned within himself, saying, 'What will I do, because I don't have room to store my crops?' He said, 'This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns, and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. I will tell my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry."' "But God said to him, 'You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared--whose will they be?'
They said one to another, "Come, let's make brick, and burn them thoroughly." They had brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, "Come, let's build us a city, and a tower, whose top reaches to the sky, and let's make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth."
Yes, the dogs are greedy, they can never have enough; and these are shepherds who can't understand: they have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter. Come you, [say they], I will get wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as this day, [a day] great beyond measure.
The time is come, the day draws near: don't let the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for wrath is on all the multitude of it.
Come, let's go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."
I said in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with mirth: therefore enjoy pleasure;" and, behold, this also was vanity.
It shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the creditor, so with the debtor; as with the taker of interest, so with the giver of interest to him.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on James 4
Commentary on James 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
In this chapter we are directed to consider,
Jam 4:1-10
The former chapter speaks of envying one another, as the great spring of strifes and contentions; this chapter speaks of a lust after worldly things, and a setting too great a value upon worldly pleasures and friendships, as that which carried their divisions to a shameful height.
Jam 4:11-17
In this part of the chapter,