Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
9 Be afflicted and mourn. Christ denounces mourning on those who laugh, as a curse, (Luke 6:25;) and James, in what shortly follows, alluding to the same words, threatens the rich with mourning. But here he speaks of that salutary mourning or sorrow which leads us to repentance. He addresses those who, being inebriated in their minds, did not perceive God’s judgment.
Your wars come from lusts warring in your members, not from true zeal for God or country. What appears as righteous cause often shelters pride, malice, covetousness, and revenge; the root is worldly desire, and until you see that, you cannot stop fighting.
AI summary
Commenting on James 4:1-10
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep,.... Not in a bare external way; not by afflicting the body with fastings and scourgings, by renting of garments, and clothing with sackcloth, and putting ashes on the head, and other such outward methods of humiliation; but afflicting the soul is meant, an inward mourning and weeping over the plague of the heart, the impurity of nature, and the...