James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
Ver. 1. To the twelve tribes] Once very devout, Acts 26:7; still the most nimble and mercurial wits in the world, but light, aerial, and fanatical, apt to work themselves into the fool's paradise of a sublime dotage.
Which are scattered abroad] Banished from Rome by the Emperor Claudius, Acts 18:2; (Sueton. xxv.), and called by St Peter, "strangers of the dispersion," 1 Peter 1:1. The Jews at this day are a disjected and despised people, according to Deuteronomy 28:64, having neither country nor resting place; even in Jerusalem there be not to be found at this day a hundred households of them. (Breerwood's Inq.)