What Does James 2:6 Mean?
But you have dishonored the emptied ones. Do not the rich press down on you, and drag you before the platform of judgment?
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?THE KEY
The verse exposes the bargain of denying the poor honor while rich people use their power to drag you into court.
THE MEANING
You are shown two acts side by side: the poor person is treated as lacking honor, while wealthy people press their power against you and drag you into court. The verse makes status visible through what it permits people to do to one another; poverty does not make someone less worthy, and wealth does not make power harmless.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that poverty marks a person as less worthy of honor, while wealth marks its holder as safe or right.
THE ROOT
ἠτιμάσατε
ētimasate
GROWS FROM
τιμ- (τιμή, timē)
Honor, worth, value.
“dishonored” in this verse is ētimasate. ἠτιμάσατε comes from ἀτιμάζω (atimazō, to dishonor or treat as without honor). The charge is more than inward dislike: it names the act of withholding regard and value from a person.
ALSO GROWS
timē: Honor, worth, value.
τιμή
This is the honor and value denied when the poor are despised.
timaō: To honor, value, treat as worthy of regard.
τιμάω
Its positive sense makes clear that despising the poor is an act that strips away regard.
καταδυναστεύουσιν
katadynasteuousin
GROWS FROM
δυναστ-
dynast-
Ruling power exercised over others; in this verb, domination or oppression.
“press down on” in this verse is katadynasteuousin. The rich are described by what they do with their power: they press it down upon others and haul them before the courts. The word places their social force beside the poor person’s denied honor.
ALSO GROWS
dynastēs: A ruler or potentate, one who holds power.
δυνάστης
The word family links oppression with the exercise of authority, not merely with wealth itself.
dynamis: Power, capacity, might.
δύναμις
It makes the force behind the rich people’s action visible: power is being used against the reader.
πτωχόν
ptōchon
GROWS FROM
πτωχ- (ptōch-, πτωχός)
A beggar or materially destitute person, dependent on aid.
“emptied ones” in this verse is ptōchon. The word names material destitution and dependence; it does not name lesser worth. In this sentence, the act that strips away honor belongs to the verb “despised,” not to the word “poor.”
ALSO GROWS
ptōcheia: Poverty, destitution.
πτωχεία
The same word family names the condition the poor person lives in.
ptōcheuō: To be poor or become poor.
πτωχεύω
The shared stem connects the person described as poor with the condition of poverty, without making that condition a measure of dignity.
THE PATTERN
The treatment of poor people reveals whether wealth and power protect human dignity or strip it away.
The one who presses the emptied one taunts his Maker, but the one who gives him weight favors the poor.Therefore, since you trample the bowed low and take from them loads of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, yet you shall not settle in them; you have planted desirable vineyards, yet you shall not drink their wine.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
You who boast in instruction, through the stepping across of instruction do you strip God of worth?The verb in James, ἠτιμάσατε (ētimasate, “you dishonored”), belongs to the same τιμή (timē, “honor and value”) word family as “dishonourest” here. James names the poor being denied honor; Romans shows a claim to honor God undone by the act itself.
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