James 3:4

Behold, the ships also, though they are so great and driven by rough winds, are yet turned about by a very small rudder, whither the impulse of the steersman willeth.

Just as the tongue is a very small member, the rudder of a great ship is likewise a very small instrument in comparison with the whole ship; but the guidance of the entire vessel is accomplished by means of that tiny rudder. The Venerable Bede, the earliest of English translators, "understood the ships here as an image of ourselves, and the winds as impulses of our own minds, by which we are driven hither and thither."[13]

The steersman willeth ... The RSV "corrected" this to read "wherever the will of the pilot directs"; but again, this can be no better than in the ASV. Roberts pointed out that:

The word "pilot" is a substantive participle, "the one guiding straight," and not the technical word for a "pilot" or "governor" of a ship. The one who holds the rudder (the steersman) can turn the ship about and thus control it.[14]

For comment on Luke's use of the term "rudders," see in my Commentary on Acts, pp. 507-509.

The point James was making here is that a little rudder controls a great ship, there being no reference in this illustration to the damage caused by the tongue, that being outlined in the following illustration of the little fire out of control. As Lenski said:

This corrects another view that James had borrowed these figures from a book he had read, but that he confused the figures when he began to use them. These figures were independently arrived at by James himself, and he used them with keen insight and great skill.[15]

[13] E. G. Punchard, op. cit., p. 369.

[14] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 105.

[15] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 603.