We need not pin James down to literal accuracy any more than to scientific classification in his zoology. His general statement is true enough for his purpose, for man has long ago tamed, and still continues to use as tamed, a crowd of animals of most diverse sorts, fierce and meek, noxious and harmless.
But, says James, in apparent contradiction to himself, there is one creature that resists all such efforts. Then what is the sense of your solemn exhortations, James, if the tongue can no man tame'? In that case he who is able to bridle it must be more than a perfect man. Yes, James believed that, though he says little about it. He would have us put emphasis on no man.' Man's impossibilities are Christ's actualities. So we have here to fall back on James's earlier word, If any of you lack, let him ask of God, and it shall be given him.' The position of man' in the Greek is emphatic, and suggests that the thought of divine help is present to the Apostle.
He adds a characterisation of the tongue, which fits in with his image of an untamable brute: It is a restless evil,' like some caged but unsubdued wild animal, ever pacing uneasily up and down its den; full of deadly poison,' like some captured rattlesnake. The venom spurted out by a calumnious tongue is more deadly than any snake poison. Blasphemous words, or obscene words, shot into the blood by one swift dart of the fangs, may corrupt its whole current, and there is no Pasteur to expel the virus.
