Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Farmer Waits
James 5:7-9
7 Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receives the early and late rain. · WEB
The instruction to the defrauded is patience, and the model chosen is a man who cannot make anything happen faster.
Be patient therefore turns from the oppressors to the oppressed, and the therefore connects the two: because that judgment is coming, this waiting is possible. The word is the one for long-suffering toward people rather than endurance under circumstances, which fits readers whose grievance has a name and an address.
The model is a farmer, and the choice is exact. He waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and there is nothing he can do to accelerate it. His patience is not a virtue he summons but the only available relation to the process. The letter is telling defrauded laborers that their situation is agricultural rather than judicial: the outcome is certain and the timing is not theirs.
The early and late rain names the two seasons a Palestinian harvest depended on — one to germinate, one to fill the grain — so the waiting described has a shape and an end.
Verse 8 applies it in two commands. Be patient; and establish your hearts, a verb for propping something so it does not fall. The reason given is that the coming of the Lord has drawn near.
Then verse 9, and it is the letter's most characteristic turn. Having addressed a genuine injustice, the instruction is not to endure the rich but do not grumble against one another. Pressure from outside had been converted into friction inside, which is what the letter has said about conflict from the beginning James 4:1.
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