James 5:11
Behold, we account them blessed who have endured. You have heard of the patience of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is merciful and compassionate.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Ecce beatificamus eos qui sustinuerunt. Sufferentiam Job audistis, et finem Domini vidistis, quoniam misericors Dominus est, et miserator.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- ἰδοὺ μακαρίζομεν τοὺς ὑπομείναντας· τὴν ὑπομονὴν Ἰὼβ ἠκούσατε, καὶ τὸ τέλος κυρίου εἴδετε, ὅτι πολύσπλαγχνός ἐστιν ὁ κύριος καὶ οἰκτίρμων.
Haydock's commentary
On verses 7 to 11
Be patient, &c. He now in these five following verses turns his discourse from the rich to the poor, exhorting them to patience till the coming of the Lord to judgment, which draweth near; his coming to judge every one is at his death. Imitate the patience of the husbandman, waiting for fruit after that the earth hath received the timely and early1 rain soon after the corn is sown, and again more rain, that comes later to fill the grain before it comes to be ripe. This seems to be the sense by the Greek: others expound it, till he receive the early and latter fruits. (Witham)
Behold the judge standeth before the door. This expression is synonymous with that in the foregoing verse. "The coming of the Lord is at hand." This way of speaking is not uncommon in Scripture. Thus God said to Cain: "If thou hast done evil, shall not sin forthwith be present at the door?" St. James is here speaking of the approaching ruin of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and the dispersion of the Jews by the Romans. (Calmet)
Call to mind for your encouragement the trials and constancy2 of the prophets: the patience of Job, after which God rewarded him with great blessings and property, and you have seen the end of the Lord; that is, what end the Lord was pleased to give to Job's sufferings. But St. Augustine, Ven. Bede, &c. would have these words, the end of the Lord, to be understood of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, on the cross, for which God exalted him, &c. (Witham)
1 Temporaneum et Serotinum. In most Greek manuscripts ueton proimon kai opsimon, pluviam priorem et posteriorem.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine On the Creed, Section 10
10. Scripture saith, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord.” When we read what great trials Job endured, it makes one shudder, it makes one shrink, it makes one quake. And what did he receive? The double of what he had lost. Let not a man therefore with an eye to temporal rewards be willing to have patience, and say to himself, “Let me endure loss, God will give me back sons twice as many; Job received double of all, and begat as many sons as he had buried.” Then is this not the double? Yes, precisely the double, because the former sons still lived. Let none say, “Let me bear evils, and God will repay me as He repaid Job:” that it be now no longer patience but avarice. …