Passage

James 3.11

Book: James · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

9. Therewith bless we the Lord and Father; and therewith curse we men, who are made after the likeness of God: 10. out of the same mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.

11. Doth the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter?

Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a vine figs? Neither can salt water yield sweet. 13. Who is wise and understanding among you? let him show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom. (James 3:9-13, ASV)

WEB

9. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the image of God. 10. Out of the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

11. Does a spring send out from the same opening fresh and bitter water?

Can a fig tree, my brothers, yield olives, or a vine figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh water. 13. Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by his good conduct that his deeds are done in gentleness of wisdom. (James 3:9-13, WEB)

KJV

9. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. 10. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.

11. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? ^{place: or, hole}

Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. 13. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. (James 3:9-13, KJV)

YLT

9. with it we do bless the God and Father, and with it we do curse the men made according to the similitude of God; 10. out of the same mouth doth come forth blessing and cursing; it doth not need, my brethren, these things so to happen;

11. doth the fountain out of the same opening pour forth the sweet and the bitter?

is a fig-tree able, my brethren, olives to make? or a vine figs? so no fountain salt and sweet water [is able] to make. 13. Who [is] wise and intelligent among you? let him shew out of the good behaviour his works in meekness of wisdom, (James 3:9-13, YLT)

See this page's graph and discover linked topics

Setting

Speaker: James (Iakōbos), identified by the great majority of interpreters as the brother of Jesus (Galatians 1:19; Mark 6:3), leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:13; Acts 21:18). He introduces himself simply as "a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ" (James 1:1), never as a relative.
Audience: Jewish believers outside Palestine, addressed as "the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad" (James 1:1). The congregations meet in a synagōgē (James 2:2) and include both poor members and wealthy visitors.
Location: Jerusalem, from which James led the mother church.
Time period: Date disputed. An early date (c. AD 44-49) would make this the earliest surviving Christian writing; a later one places it before James's death, which Josephus dates to AD 62 (Antiquities 20.200). The letter shows no awareness of the Gentile-circumcision controversy settled in Acts 15, which many take as evidence for the early date.

Theological reading

"Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?"

One of three impossibilities. Verses 11-12 give a spring producing both fresh and bitter water, a fig tree bearing olives, and a vine bearing figs, and conclude that salt water cannot produce fresh. The rhetorical questions expect the answer no.

The argument they support. Verses 9-10: with the tongue we bless the Lord and curse men made in God's likeness, and "from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way." The nature illustrations establish that what James has just described is not merely wrong but anomalous. Sources produce according to what they are.

The local color. Bitter and brackish springs were a familiar feature of the region, including around the Dead Sea, and the contrast between a sweet spring and a bitter one would have been concrete rather than literary for the readers.

The tension James leaves standing. He does not resolve it by concluding that the blessing must be false or that the cursing must be a lapse; he says it ought not to be this way and moves on to wisdom. The letter is diagnostic here rather than systematic.

Jesus behind it. Matthew 7:16-20, grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, and Matthew 12:34, "the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart." James applies the fruit test to speech specifically, which is his distinctive contribution.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Subjective Morality Defeater

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.