Epistle of Ya’akov ~ 4:11-17

My Heart is for Israel

Warning Against Weariness ~ Part 2

We continue to explore what Ya’akov warns us about growing weary. Ya’akov returns to the specific worldly behavior his readers are following ~ violent speech (see also 3:1–12). He either addresses social stratification within the Messianic community or, more likely, uses brothers in its more common Jewish sense of fellow Jews. Jewish revolutionaries had already begun killing aristocrats, and inflammatory rhetoric was certainly even more common. His general principle was standard Tanakh and Jewish wisdom opposing slander, which many of his readers may not have been considering in this context. The law declared God’s love forIsra’eland commanded His people to love one another; to slander, a fellow Jew was thus to disrespect the law.^[1]

¹¹ Brothers, stop speaking against each other! Whoever speaks against a brother or judges a brother is speaking against Torah and judging Torah. And if you judge…

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