James 4:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The crimes condemned in this and the following chapter were so atrocious, and of so public a nature, that we can hardly suppose them to have been committed by any who bore the name of Christians. Wherefore, as this letter was directed to the twelve tribes, (James 1:1,) it is reasonable to think that the apostle, in writing these Chapter s, had the unbelieving Jews, not only in the provinces, but in Judea, chiefly in his eye. From whence come wars and fightings among you Some time before the breaking out of the war with the Romans, which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish commonwealth, the Jews, as Josephus informs us, on pretence of defending their religion, and of procuring to themselves that freedom from foreign dominion, and that liberty which they thought themselves entitled to as the people of God, made various insurrections in Judea against the Romans, which occasioned much bloodshed and misery to their nation. The factions, likewise, into which the more zealous Jews were now split, had violent contentions among themselves, in which they killed one another, and plundered one another's goods. In the provinces likewise the Jews were become very turbulent; particularly in Alexandria, Egypt, Syria, and many other places, where they made war against the heathen, and killed numbers of them, and were themselves massacred by them in their turn. This being the state of the Jews in Judea, and in the provinces, about the time the Apostle James wrote his epistle to the twelve tribes, it can hardly be doubted that the wars, fightings, and murders, of which he here speaks, were those above described. For as he composed his letters after the confusions were begun, and as the crimes committed in these confusions, although acted under the colour of zeal for God and for truth, were a scandal to any religion, it certainly became him, who was one of the chief apostles of the circumcision, to condemn such insurrections, and to rebuke, with the greatest sharpness, the Jews who were the prime movers in them. Accordingly, this is what he hath done. And both in this and in the following chapter, using the rhetorical figure called apostrophe, he addresses the Jews as if they were present, whereby he hath given his discourse great strength and vivacity. See Macknight. Come they not hence, even of your lusts Greek, ηδονων, pleasures; that is, your greedy desire after the pleasures and enjoyments of the world; that war Against your souls; or raise tumults, as it were, and rebel both against reason and religion; in your members In your wills and affections. Here is the first seat of war. Hence proceeds the war of man with man, king with king, nation with nation; the ambition of kings and nations to extend their territories; their love of grandeur and riches; their resentments of supposed injuries; all the effect of lust, or of earthly, sensual, and devilish desires, engage them in wars.