Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to James · About this commentary
The Rich Man Will Fade Away
James 1:9-11
9 Let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position; · WEB
Both men are told to boast in the reversal of their situation, and the letter's economic subject opens here rather than in chapter 2.
The two instructions are deliberately symmetrical and both are strange. The brother in low circumstances is to boast in his high position. The rich man is to boast in his humiliation. Each is told to glory in what he does not currently see.
What the poor man is given is a fact about status rather than a change of circumstance. Nothing is said about his poverty ending; something is said about what he already is, which the letter will state directly in the next chapter — heirs of the kingdom James 2:5.
The rich man's case is left harder. His humiliation is not explained as a spiritual discipline, and the illustration that follows suggests what it is.
Verses 10 and 11 give the picture, and it is drawn from a landscape the readers knew. The sun comes up with a scorching wind, the grass withers within the day, and the flower's beauty is destroyed — not gradually, but by a single morning. The comparison then lands on the man rather than his money: so the rich man will fade away in his pursuits, in the middle of his going about.
That is the letter's characteristic move, and it will make it again with the traders who plan a year James 4:13–14. The problem is never wealth as such. It is a life whose durability has been miscalculated.
settled What this mark means