James 4:1 - Exposition

Whence wars and whence fightings among you? The second "whence" ( πόθεν ) is omitted in the Received Text, after K, L, Syriac, and Vulgate; but it is supported by א , A, B, C, the Coptic, and Old Latin. Wars … fightings ( πόλεμοι … μάχαι ). To what is the reference? ΄άχαι occurs elsewhere in the New Testament only in 2 Corinthians 7:5 , "Without were fightings, within were fears;" and 2 Timothy 2:23 ; Titus 3:9 , in both of which passages it refers to disputes and questions. It is easy, therefore, to give it the same meaning here. πόλμοι , elsewhere in the New Testament, as in the LXX ., is always used of actual warfare. In behalf of its secondary meaning, "contention," Grimm ('Lexicon of New Testament Greek') appeals to Sophocles, 'Electra,' 1. 219, and Plato, 'Phaed.,' p. 66, c. But it is better justified by Clement of Rome, § 46., ινα τί ἔρεις καὶ θυμοὶ καὶ διχοστσασίαι καὶ σχίσματα πόλεμος τε ἐν ὑῖν —a passage which has almost the nature of a commentary upon St. James ' s language. There is then no need to seek an explanation of the passage in the outbreaks and insurrections which were so painfully common among the Jews. Lusts ( ἡδονῶν ); R.V., "pleasures." "An unusual sense of ἡδοναί , hardly distinguishable from ἐπιθυμίαι , in fact taken up by ἐπιθυμεῖτε " (Alford). With the expression, "that war in your members," comp. 1 Peter 2:11 , " Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul."