What Does James 5:1 Mean in the King James?

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

James 5:1 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The verse places wealth and vulnerability in the same sentence: riches cannot put their holder beyond coming misery.

THE MEANING

If you are rich, this verse addresses you now: what is coming can still reach you. Its doubled cry, “weep and howl,” exposes how thin wealth’s promise of safety is.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie that having enough wealth can make you untouchable dissolves here: misery is still coming upon the rich.

THE ROOT

πλούσιοι

plousioi

GROWS FROM

πλοῦτος

ploutos

wealth, riches

The word “rich” belongs to the same Greek word family as “riches”; it names a person through the wealth they hold. In the next verse, that related word describes riches as corrupted, so the warning touches both the possessor and the possession.

ALSO GROWS

ploutos: wealth, riches

πλοῦτος

James 5:2 uses this noun for riches that are corrupted, bringing the warning directly to the wealth itself.

plouteō: to be rich, to possess wealth

πλουτέω

This verb expresses being rich as a condition of possessing wealth, a condition the next verse places under decay.

THE PATTERN

Accumulated wealth cannot secure a person against the reckoning that approaches.

Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death.

Proverbs 11:4 · KJVRiches that seem powerful in the present cannot protect their holder when the day of reckoning arrives.

But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

Luke 12:20 · KJVThe sudden nearness of death exposes how little stored possessions can secure.

Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;

1 Timothy 6:17 · KJVRiches are called uncertain, revealing that wealth cannot bear the weight of a person’s security.

THE THREAD

Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

James 5:2 · KJV

The address to the rich turns immediately toward their riches, linking the people to the very wealth that appears to secure them. The next verse shows those riches already decaying, bringing the coming misery close to what they possess.

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