Deuteronomy 28:54-56

28:54 The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children. 28:55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict ¹  you in your villages. 28:56 Likewise, the most ²  tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, ³  will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters,

Proverbs 23:6

23:6 Do not eat the food of a stingy person, ⁴ 

do not crave his delicacies;

Proverbs 24:9

24:9 A foolish scheme ⁵  is sin,

and the scorner is an abomination to people. ⁶ 

Proverbs 28:22

28:22 The stingy person ⁷  hastens after riches

and does not know that poverty will overtake him. ⁸ 

Matthew 20:15

20:15 Am I not ⁹  permitted to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁰ 

James 5:9

5:9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, ¹¹  so that you may not be judged. See, the judge stands before the gates! ¹² 

James 5:1

Warning to the Rich

5:1 Come now, you rich! Weep and cry aloud ¹³  over the miseries that are coming on you.

James 4:9

4:9 Grieve, mourn, ¹⁴  and weep. Turn your laughter ¹⁵  into mourning and your joy into despair.

¹ tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”

² tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sfodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.

³ tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”

⁴ tn Heb “an evil eye.” This is the opposite of the “good eye” which meant the generous man. The “evil eye” refers to a person who is out to get everything for himself (cf. NASB, NCV, CEV “selfish”). He is ill-mannered and inhospitable (e.g., Prov 28:22). He is up to no good – even though he may appear to be a host.

⁵ tn Heb “the scheme of folly” (NIV similar). The genitive functions as an attributive genitive, meaning “foolish scheme.” But it could also be interpreted as a genitive of source, the scheme that comes from folly (or from the fool if “folly” were metonymical).

⁶ tn Heb “to a man”; cf. CEV “Everyone hates senseless fools.”

⁷ tn Heb “a man with an evil eye” (as opposed to the generous man who has a “good” eye). This individual is selfish, unkind, unsympathetic to others. He looks only to his own gain. Cf. NAB “The avaricious man”; NLT “A greedy person.”

⁸ sn The one who is hasty to gain wealth is involved in sin in some way, for which he will be punished by poverty. The idea of “hastening” after riches suggests a dishonest approach to acquiring wealth.

⁹ tc ‡ Before οὐκ (ouk, “[am I] not”) a number of significant witnesses read ἤ (h, “or”; e.g., א C W 085 Ë^1,13 33 and most others). Although in later Greek the οι in σοι (oi in soi) – the last word of v. 14 – would have been pronounced like ἤ, since ἤ is lacking in early mss (B D; among later witnesses, note L Z Θ 700) and since mss were probably copied predominantly by sight rather than by sound, even into the later centuries, the omission of ἤ cannot be accounted for as easily. Thus the shorter reading is most likely original. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

¹⁰ tn Grk “Is your eye evil because I am good?”

¹¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.

¹² sn The term gates is used metaphorically here. The physical referent would be the entrances to the city, but the author uses the term to emphasize the imminence of the judge’s approach.

¹³ tn Or “wail”; Grk “crying aloud.”

¹⁴ tn This term and the following one are preceded by καί (kai) in the Greek text, but contemporary English generally uses connectives only between the last two items in such a series.

¹⁵ tn Grk “let your laughter be turned.”