Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
Behold - calling attention to their sin crying for judgment.
Of you kept back. Not as Alford 'crieth out from you.' The 'keeping back of the hire' was, on the part OF the rich, a virtual "fraud," because the poor workmen were not immediately paid. The phrase is 'kept back of you;' implying virtual, rather than overt, fraud, James refers to Deuteronomy 24:14-15. Many sins "cry" to heaven for vengeance which men take no account of, as unchastity and injustice (Bengel). Sins peculiarly offensive to God "cry" to Him. The rich ought to have given freely to the poor: their not doing so was sin. A still greater sin was not paying their debts. Their greatest sin was not paying the poor, whose wages is their all.
Cries of them - a double cry: both that of the hire and that of the labourers hired.
The Lord of sabaoth. Here only in the New Testament. In Romans 9:29 it is a quotation. Suited to the Jewish tone of the letter. It reminds the rich, who think the poor have no protector, that the Lord of the whole hosts in heaven is avenger of the latter. He is the "coming Lord" Jesus (James 5:7).