The verse closes the indictment of the rich (5:1-6) with two asyndetic aorists and then a question. κατεδικάσατε and ἐφονεύσατε stand side by side with no connective — the same clipped construction James used at 4:2 (φονεύετε) and at 3:15, 17 — and the abruptness is the rhetoric: sentence, then killing, with nothing between them.

Three decisions carry the verse.

1. The verbs are courtroom vocabulary. κατεδικάσατε is not a general verdict of disapproval but the handing down of an adverse sentence, and it picks up the κριτήρια of 2:6 where the rich haul the poor before the bench. Whether ἐφονεύσατε is literal judicial killing or the same hyperbole as 4:2 is genuinely open and is flagged, not resolved.

2. τὸν δίκαιον is singular, articular, and unnamed. The referent is contested from antiquity: a collective type (the righteous poor of the Psalms and Wisdom), the specific righteous sufferer of Wis 2:10-20, or Christ (so several Fathers, and Acts 3:14; 7:52; 1 Pet 3:18 use ὁ δίκαιος of him). The rendering keeps the bare articular adjective and settles none of it.

3. The final clause is a question, and its subject is unexpressed. NA28 punctuates οὐκ ἀντιτάσσεται ὑμῖν as interrogative with οὐκ presupposing the answer yes. Who is arrayed against them — God, as at 4:6, or the righteous one just murdered — is left open by the Greek. The Byzantine text removes the problem by reading καὶ οὐκ ἀντιτάσσεται ὑμῖν as a statement about the victim’s non-resistance, which is the direction of smoothing to be avoided.

The eschatological present of ἀντιτάσσεται is the sting: the killing is finished, the opposition is not.

Built onna28 · bdag · metzger-tc

Proposed — pending reviewRalph P. Martin, James, Word Biblical Commentary 48 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1988)

κατά + δικάζω. The compound is forensic in every NT occurrence (Matt 12:7, 37; Jas 5:6) and in the LXX (Ps 36:33; 93:21 LXX, both of the wicked condemning the righteous): to pronounce judgment against someone, the κατά- marking the direction of the verdict.

The lexeme is not a verb of general disapproval. James had κρίνω available (and uses it at 4:11-12; 5:9), and καταλαλέω (4:11), and chose the sentencing-word. Read with 2:6 (αὐτοὶ ἕλκουσιν ὑμᾶς εἰς κριτήρια) the reference is to actual proceedings in which a wealthy plaintiff’s standing was itself a procedural advantage.

Against ‘condemn’ alone: modern English ‘condemn’ has broadened to cover moral censure of any kind, which loses the bench. The reading text uses handed down sentence; the literal tier keeps ‘condemned’ so the κατα-δικ- morphology and the concordance link to δίκαιος in the same clause stay visible.

Excluded: ‘you have found fault with’ (moralizes), ‘you have persecuted’ (that is διώκω), ‘you have exploited’ (imports καταδυναστεύω from 2:6).

Note also the δικ- root standing three words from τὸν δίκαιον. The one who is δίκαιος is κατα-δικ-ασθείς: the sentence and the standing of the man sentenced are built from the same stem, and the collision is almost certainly deliberate.

Built onbdag · muraoka-lxx

The corpus gloss for φονεύω is fixed: murder — unlawful killing specifically, the LXX equivalent of רָצַח at Exod 20:13 / Deut 5:17, not the broader Latin occidere. ‘Kill’ is confined to declared liturgical register.

James has used the verb once already, at 4:2 (φονεύετε καὶ ζηλοῦτε), where a literal reference is very difficult and hyperbole or a Matt 5:21-22-style extension is widely assumed. That precedent bears directly here.

The aorists are complexive: each act taken as a single whole. Asyndeton between them means English supplies no connective — no ‘and’, no ‘even’.

Built onbdag · muraoka-lxx

Articular masculine singular substantival adjective. The corpus keeps δίκαιος / δικαιοσύνη / δικαιόω on one English root, so the righteous one, not ‘the innocent man’ (which narrows to procedural innocence and severs the root) and not ‘innocent people’ (which pluralizes what Greek left singular).

The generic-singular idiom is thoroughly at home in the LXX Psalter and in Wisdom: ὁ δίκαιος as the type of the oppressed faithful, over against ὁ ἀσεβής (Ps 36:12, 32; 93:21 LXX; Wis 2:10-20; 3:1). James has already used the word of a class at 5:16 (δέησις δικαίου) and of Abraham’s reckoning at 2:23.

The rendering keeps the bare articular adjective at every tier and supplies no identification. Capitalizing (‘the Righteous One’) would settle the christological question typographically, which §6 forbids at a genuinely contested point.

Built onbdag · muraoka-lxx

Proposed — pending reviewSophie Laws, A Commentary on the Epistle of James, Black's New Testament Commentaries (London: A. & C. Black, 1980)

Middle of τάσσω with ἀντί: to draw oneself up opposite, as troops facing an enemy or litigants on opposing sides. The corpus entry is already fixed at Jas 4:6 (ὁ θεὸς ὑπερηφάνοις ἀντιτάσσεται): set oneself against / draw up in battle array against, with the middle’s active force preserved — God takes up position.

That prior occurrence eleven verses earlier is the strongest single datum in the verse. James used this verb once, of God arraying himself against the arrogant, and now uses it again, absolutely, of the rich. A reader who has heard 4:6 supplies the subject from it.

The present tense is the point. Both preceding verbs are aorist; ἀντιτάσσεται is present and durative. The sentencing and the killing are complete; the arraying is going on as the letter is read. This is the same eschatological present that runs through the chapter — κράζει (v. 4), ἤγγικεν (v. 8), ἕστηκεν (v. 9).

Rendering: is set against / is drawn up against. Excluded: ‘resists’ (in modern English drifted toward passive endurance, and the corpus reserves resistance-language for ἀνθίστημι, Jas 4:7), ‘opposes’ (belongs to the ἀντίκειμαι family, already fixed at Phil 1:28), ‘does not fight back’ (see the syntax section — that construal depends on a different text).

Built onbdag · bdf

Greek supplies no subject. Three candidates are available, and the choice determines what kind of sentence this is.

The reading text supplies no name and renders is he not drawn up against you?, keeping the English pronoun as open as the Greek verb ending. Any rendering that names God or Christ settles the question in the reading text.

Built onbdag · bdf · na28

Proposed — pending reviewJames B. Adamson, The Epistle of James, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976)

The earliest majuscules are unpunctuated, so whether this clause is a question is an editorial judgment resting on grammatical grounds, not on manuscript evidence. NA28 punctuates it as a question.

The grounds are good. οὐκ with a finite indicative in interrogative form presupposes the answer yes (BDF §427) — the diatribe device James has used repeatedly (2:5, 6, 7, 21, 25; 4:1, 4, 5). The construction extracts a concession the hearer already holds. Per corpus policy the interrogative is retained in every tier: converting to a declarative supplies the admission the rhetoric is designed to draw out.

The dative ὑμῖν is the complement ἀντιτάσσομαι regularly takes (τῷ θεῷ, Rom 13:2; ὑπερηφάνοις, Jas 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5). It is not a dative of advantage: ‘he does not oppose you for your benefit’ is not available.

The question mark is recorded as editorial at every occurrence, on the same discipline already applied to the accentual decisions at Gal 5:11 and 6:15 and to Ἴστε at Jas 1:19.

Built onbdf · na28

κατεδικάσατε, ἐφονεύσατε stands with no connective. Corpus policy on asyndeton (fixed at Phil 3:2 for imperatival series, Phil 4:8 for adjectival lists, Gal 4:5 for ἵνα-clauses, Gal 5:4 for coordinate main clauses) applies directly: where Greek juxtaposes finite verbs with no καί or δέ, the abruptness is the data and no conjunction is supplied in English.

The effect is deliberate in a verse that follows two clauses joined by καί (v. 5) and precedes ἰδού + imperatives. The two verbs land one after the other with nothing to cushion the sequence.

That the construction was felt as rough is confirmed by the transmission: witnesses supply καί before ἐφονεύσατε, and the Latin tradition (addixistis … et occidistis) supplies it too. Reproducing that connective reproduces the smoothing rather than the text.

The asyndeton also leaves open whether the two verbs describe two stages (sentence, then execution) or one act twice named (a hendiadys of judicial murder). English punctuated with a comma keeps both hearings available.

Built onbdf · na28

The critical text reads οὐκ ἀντιτάσσεται ὑμῖν with no connective, punctuated as a question. Part of the later tradition prefixes καί, which converts the clause into a coordinated statement: ‘…and he does not resist you.’

The difference is substantial. With καί and a full stop, the clause describes the victim’s non-resistance — the righteous one goes to his death without fighting back, a reading with obvious attractions for a christological construal of τὸν δίκαιον and one which several early readers took. Without καί, and as a question, the clause turns on the murderers and threatens them.

Internal evidence favors the shorter, harder text. A scribe encountering an unmarked, subjectless clause after a full stop would naturally supply a connective and read it as continuing the description of the victim; the reverse change is hard to motivate. The addition also produces the smoother, less startling sentence, which is the direction transmission generally runs.

Also recorded: a minority reading supplies a subject (ὁ θεός or ὁ κύριος) — clarification, not text, and evidence that ancient readers felt the same gap modern ones do.

Built onna28 · metzger-tc

The closest verbal field is Wisdom of Solomon 2:10-20, where the ungodly plot against the δίκαιος:

• 2:10 — καταδυναστεύσωμεν πένητα δίκαιον (‘let us oppress the poor righteous man’)
• 2:12 — ἐνεδρεύσωμεν τὸν δίκαιον
• 2:20 — καταδικάσωμεν αὐτὸν θανάτῳ αἰσχρῷ

Wis 2:20 supplies both of James’s verbs in sequence: sentence, then death. James also shares Wisdom’s vapor-image (Wis 2:4; Jas 4:14) and its portrait of the self-assured rich, which makes contact with this block of Wisdom likely rather than coincidental.

Behind Wisdom stands the Psalter’s ἀσεβής/δίκαιος antithesis, and specifically Ps 93:21 LXX (καὶ αἷμα ἀθῷον καταδικάσονται) — the same compound verb with judicial killing as its object — and Ps 36:32 (κατανοεῖ ὁ ἁμαρτωλὸς τὸν δίκαιον καὶ ζητεῖ τοῦ θανατῶσαι αὐτόν).

The prophetic register of vv. 4-5 (Κύριος Σαβαώθ from Isa 5:9 LXX; ἡμέρα σφαγῆς from Jer 12:3) shows James working from these sources throughout the paragraph. The substrate does not settle the referent of τὸν δίκαιον, but it establishes that the articular singular was a ready-made idiom needing no individual behind it.

Built onmuraoka-lxx · na28

Proposed — pending reviewMartin Dibelius, James: A Commentary on the Epistle of James, rev. Heinrich Greeven, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976)

The christological reading of τὸν δίκαιον is old. Early Latin and Greek readers who took the clause with καί as a statement about the victim naturally heard the passion: the righteous one condemned, killed, and not resisting — the Isa 53:7 pattern, and language close to Acts 3:14 (τὸν ἅγιον καὶ δίκαιον ἠρνήσασθε) and 7:52 (ἀπέκτειναν).

The Latin tradition (addixistis et occidistis iustum, et non resistit vobis) has both the connective and the declarative, and so transmits that hearing to the whole Western reception.

The Greek commentators more often took the singular generically, of the poor righteous man crushed by the wealthy — continuous with 2:6 and with the withheld wages of 5:4.

Per §11 the devotional weight of the passion-reading may be named but supplies no evidence for the rendering.

Built onmetzger-tc · na28

The present tense of ἀντιτάσσεται does the paragraph’s work. Everything charged against the rich is in the aorist — hoarded (v. 3), withheld (v. 4), lived luxuriously (v. 5), sentenced, murdered (v. 6). All of it is over. What is present is the arraying, the crying wages (κράζει, v. 4), the cries already lodged in the ears of the Lord of Hosts (εἰσεληλύθασιν, perfect).

That sets up vv. 7-9 exactly. The addressees change (ἀδελφοί), the posture changes (μακροθυμήσατε), but the tense structure does not: ἤγγικεν, ἕστηκεν. The Judge is at the doors while the verdict against the righteous is already handed down.

Note also what James withholds. He issues no call to repentance to the rich — unlike 4:7-10, where the same verb ἀντιτάσσεται (4:6) is immediately followed by ὑποτάγητε. Here the indictment simply ends in a question. Whether that silence implies that the ἄγε νῦν οἱ πλούσιοι are outside the assembly, or whether the question is itself the summons, is left open; §5 requires that the referent of the πλούσιοι be flagged rather than narrowed, and it is flagged here as it was at 1:10 and 2:6.

What the verse does not do is moralize about wealth. The charges are specific and actionable: fraudulent non-payment, self-indulgence, and the use of the courts to destroy people.

Built onna28 · bdag