Submit yourselves therefore to God. (But) resist the devil. — The hardest advice of all, to a man reliant on himself, is submission to any, more especially to the Unknown. But, as a correlative to this, the Apostle shows where pride may become a stimulant for good, viz., in contest with the Evil One.
He will flee. — Or, he shall flee. “The Devil,” says the strange old book called The Shepherd of Hermas, “can tight, but he cannot conquer; if, therefore, thou dost withstand him, he will flee from thee, beaten and ashamed.”
The text is another proof of the personality of Satan; no amount of figures of speech could otherwise interpret it.