What Does James 5:4 Mean in the King James?
Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
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
A wage withheld is not silent money: the verse gives it a voice that reaches the Lord of hosts.
THE MEANING
The pay earned by workers remains a claim when it is held back. The verse makes that claim audible: the wages cry, and the workers’ cries reach the Lord of hosts. This speaks now wherever labor is completed and its due is withheld.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a withheld wage becomes invisible once the worker has finished the job: the verse says the wage still cries and is heard.
THE ROOT
μισθός
misthos
GROWS FROM
μισθ
wage, pay, hire
“hire” in this verse is misthos. The shared stem holds pay, hiring, and the hired worker together. Here the wage is not detached money: it carries the laborer’s claim, and its cry makes that claim audible.
ALSO GROWS
misthoō: to hire for wages
μισθόω
The verb names the act that creates the wage relationship: a worker gives labor and is owed pay.
misthōtos: a hired worker, hireling
μισθωτός
The same stem names the person hired, keeping the wage attached to the laborer rather than treating it as a free-floating sum.
misthōma: hire, rental payment, wages
μίσθωμα
This noun carries the wage idea into the concrete payment itself, reinforcing that the cry concerns something earned and owed.
THE PATTERN
When what is due is withheld, the resulting cry is heard by God.
If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry;At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee.And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?THE THREAD
So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.Matthew uses the same Greek word μισθός (misthos, hire or pay) for what the laborers receive. There the wage is handed over; in James it is kept back and cries, making the withheld payment itself a witness.
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