James 4:2 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Ye lust; passionately and greedily desire. And have not; either soon lose, or rather cannot get, what ye so lust after. Ye kill; some copies have it, ye envy, and many suppose that to be the better reading, as agreeing with the context, and with James 3:14; envy being the cause of strife there, and joined with emulation, or a desire of having, here. We read it according to other copies, ye kill, which, if he speaketh of wars in a proper sense, James 4:1, was, no doubt, the effect of them; and if he speak only of strife and contentions, yet they might proceed so far, that the death of some (though not intended) might be the consequent of them, and occasioned by them. Or, he may mean their murderous desires, killing men in their hearts, wishing for and gaping after their death, that they might gain by it; and this agrees with what he speaks of the frustration of their greedy desires, none being more frequently disappointed of their hopes than they that hope to be gainers by other men's deaths. And disire to have; or, emulate, i.e. ambitiously affect to have what ye see others have, grieving that they should have more than you. And cannot obtain; viz; that which ye envy others having. Ye fight and war: you wrangle and quarrel with your neighbours for what they have, that ye may get it for yourselves. Yet ye have not; ye are still needy, though still craving; your lusts are infinite and insatiable in themselves, and no way helpful to you. Because ye ask not; viz. of God by prayer, who hath promised to give to them that ask, Matthew 7:7, not to them that war and fight. Instead of humble seeking to God for what ye want, ye would extort it by force or fraud from one another.