Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to James · About this commentary
Slow to Speak, Slow to Anger
James 1:19-21
19 So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; · WEB
Three instructions about speech open the letter's longest running subject, and the reason given is what anger fails to produce.
The three clauses are arranged in an order that is itself the argument: quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. Hearing gets the fast verb and the other two get the slow one, and the sequence describes a person who has decided in advance which way to lean.
Verse 20 supplies the reason, and it is unusually flat: the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Not that anger is always wrong — the letter does not say so — but that it does not accomplish the thing people reach for it to accomplish. It is a statement about effectiveness, aimed at readers who were speaking against one another James 4:11 and grumbling James 5:9 under real provocation.
Verse 21 then asks for two movements in one sentence. First a putting off — the verb is used of removing a garment — of filthiness and of an overflow of malice, the word suggesting something that has spilled past its container.
Then a receiving, and the manner is specified: with meekness. Meekness toward a word one is being taught is the opposite of the anger just discussed, so the two halves of the verse are the same instruction twice.
What is received is called the implanted word, already set in them rather than newly arriving — the birth of verse 18 described from another angle — and it is said to be able to save their souls.
settled What this mark means