ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

James 5.16

Book: James · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

14. Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15. and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him.

16. Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.

  1. Elijah was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months. 18. And he prayed again; and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. (James 5:14-18, ASV)
WEB

14. Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, 15. and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

16. Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.

  1. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18. He prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. (James 5:14-18, WEB)
KJV

14. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

16. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

  1. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. subject: of the same nature, that is, a fellow mortal earnestly: or, in his prayer 18. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. (James 5:14-18, KJV)
YLT

14. is any infirm among you? let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, having anointed him with oil, in the name of the Lord, 15. and the prayer of the faith shall save the distressed one, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if sins he may have committed, they shall be forgiven to him.

16. Be confessing to one another the trespasses, and be praying for one another, that ye may be healed; very strong is a working supplication of a righteous man;

  1. Elijah was a man like affected as we, and with prayer he did pray, not to rain, and it did not rain upon the land three years and six months; 18. and again he did pray, and the heaven did give rain, and the land did bring forth her fruit. (James 5:14-18, YLT)

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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

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much."

Mutual, not clerical. Allēlois, to one another, is reciprocal. The verse does not describe confession to an office-holder; the wider passage does involve the elders being called (verse 14), but this instruction is addressed to the congregation as a body. Both Catholic and Protestant traditions cite the passage in their sacramental and pastoral arguments, and the reciprocal pronoun is the datum both have to work with.

"So that you may be healed." Iathēte can be physical or spiritual, and the surrounding verses concern a sick person, anointing, prayer, and the forgiveness of sins together. James does not separate them, which is characteristic of a letter that refuses to divide the practical from the spiritual anywhere else either.

"Effective prayer." The Greek deēsis energoumenē is difficult; it may be middle voice ("the prayer of a righteous person, working, is very strong") or passive ("as it is energized"), and translations differ. What is clear is that the power is not attributed to technique or volume.

The example that follows. Verses 17-18 supply Elijah, and the framing is the point: "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours." James chooses the most spectacular prayer narrative in the Hebrew Bible and immediately insists the man was ordinary, which is the opposite of how such examples usually function.

See Prayer and Miracles.

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.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

People:

Lexicon:

Guides:

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.