James 5:17Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

See 3 Kgs 17:9. So that even then, tormented by hunger, they might hasten to the Master, and hunger might become for them an impulse toward salvation.

Nothing, he says, can teach like hunger, so that, being taught even in this way, we may take refuge in the Creator.

And a few words later: The prophet's word went forth, and immediately the air changed. The heaven became bronze, not by changing its nature, but by restraining its activity.

At once the elements received another appearance. The prophet's word fell like a mighty fire upon the expanses of the earth. Immediately everything dried up, everything became desolate and disappeared.

The prayer of a righteous man has great power when the one for whom he prays also assists his prayer by sorrow of soul.

For if, while others pray for us, we spend our time in luxury, softness, and lack of self-restraint, we thereby weaken the power of the prayer of the one struggling on our behalf.

Then the word of blessed Peter is fulfilled in us: "When one builds and another tears down, what will they gain for themselves except weariness?" (Sir 34:23).

Elijah performed divine works, while the apostle placed himself below the prophets. The three years and six months signify the time of the antichrist.

Or the three years signify the three preceding periods from the beginning to David. The three years correspond to the benefactions of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the apostles.

This work of miracle is centered in firmness in the struggle against the unjust. The prophet's struggle shows this. For although one man uttered the speech, he spoke with the consent of all the righteous.

Elijah prayed once, and prayed again, and received such an answer to his prayer. How much more precious, then, are the far more frequent prayers of the righteous!

But lest we, because of human weakness, doubt that we can become like the prophet who ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot, blessed James adds concerning him: "Elijah was a man like us."

Even if he yielded to no man in virtue, he was like us in the flesh. Like us, he was subject to suffering through the weakness of flesh and spirit.

By the example of the prophet Elijah, St. James here confirms the word spoken above: "For the prayer of a righteous man has great power when it is working."

Divine Scripture relates that Elijah prayed to God and said: "As the Lord God of hosts lives, the God of Israel, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew or rain in these years, except by the word of my mouth" (3 Kgs 17:1).

And, O wonder, the prayer and the word became deed.

Heaven was shut for three whole years and six months, and no rain fell at all.

After three and a half years had passed, the people in Samaria had sufficiently experienced the righteous wrath of God through a terrible famine.

They killed the priests who burned incense in the groves and were the cause of idolatry, and they repented of their evils.

"Elijah was a man of like passions with us," όμοιπαθής, subject to the same sufferings as we are.

The apostle calls Elijah a man of like passions with us in order to arouse the power of faith in his readers. It proves that the power of God is made perfect in weaknesses. See 1 Cor 12:9.

Therefore, says the apostle, to attain such a purpose as the healing of a suffering brother, one does not need to possess some especially great wonderworking power.

Elijah was an ordinary man, of like passions with us, yet by the power of prayer he performed the greatest wonders.

The apostles themselves were also people of like passions with us. See Acts 14:15. They too performed great healings.

The intensified prayer of any righteous or believing person can do the same.

"He prayed with prayer," an expression meaning intensified prayer, "that there would be no rain," and so forth.

The event to which the apostle points is described in detail in 3 Kingdoms, chapters 17 and 18.

In this account it is not stated directly and literally that, precisely by the prophet's prayer, there was no rain in the land of Israel for three and a half years.

Nor is it stated directly that the rain was again given by his prayer. Yet the narrative itself necessarily presupposes this.

The prophet says to King Ahab that there will be neither dew nor rain except by his word. See 3 Kgs 17:1.

This shows that in Elijah's word there was a power that first closed up and then opened rain and dew.

Compare 3 Kgs 18:42, 45.

The example of Elijah the prophet is a living proof of the power of the saints' intercessions before God.

If he, not yet granted full glory, could perform such great wonders as bringing famine upon the land of Israel when its king and people had given themselves over to idolatry, and then deliver them from it when they repented, then much more can others help us.

Those who have received the grace and gift of rebirth from the Holy Spirit, and have come to reign in the heavenly dwellings, can help us in all our afflictions.

The Church teaches us this hope in the saints of God when she commands us to honor their memory, pray to them, and ask their intercessions for us.