What doth it (or, is the) profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? — Some allusion here is made most probably to the Shema, the Jewish creed, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4). It was the daily protest of the devout Israelite in the midst of idolaters, and the words of his morning and evening of life, as well as of the ordinary day. A similar utterance of faith is held to be the test of the true believer in Islam, when the two inquiring angels put their awful questions to the departed soul. But the idea is much more ancient, for a similar confession was required of the just before Osiris, the Lord of the Egyptian Heaven.
Can faith save him? — The stern inquiry comes like a prophecy of woe upon the wretched man — saved, as he fancied, by covenant with God, and holding a bare assent and not a loving faith in Him.