Behold the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth: and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
ιδου ο μισθος των εργατων των αμησαντων τας χωρας υμων ο απεστερημενος αφ υμων κραζει και αι βοαι των θερισαντων εις τα ωτα κυριου σαβαωθ εισεληλυθασιν
6 Church Fathers comment on this verse
This is a rebuke and shame to the rulers of the Jews. They fed upon the poor and were sated with honors from all, while they themselves were being prepared for slaughter by the Roman authorities at their hands.
This was especially because they condemned the only Righteous One, the Lord, and killed Him when He did not resist, but cried out.
How unjust are those who hold high rank and possess sufficient wealth, yet refuse to help the poor who wander everywhere. They are unwilling even to pay their own hired men and workers the wages due them.
This, he says, is a great lawlessness that you rich men commit. What is it? Not only do you fail to give alms from the excess of your wealth, so as to supply what is lacking to your poor brothers.
You also deprive the workers who reaped your fields with great labors and sweats of their wages. These wages cry out and call above you to the Master of all and the Lord.
They are heard by Him, and they themselves will bring great wrath from God against you. He Himself commanded this in His law: “You shall not deprive the poor and needy of his wages, whether he is one of your brethren or a stranger within your cities.
On the same day you shall give him his wages. The sun shall not go down on them, for he is poor, and his hope is in them. Otherwise he will cry out against you to the Lord, and it will be sin to you” (Deut 24:14-15).
Because the poor workers and reapers of your fields have hope of receiving payment for their labor, they endure the summer heat and the winter cold.
But when they do not receive it, as relief for the labors and sweats they have given, they lose this hope and instead find great sorrow in their heart. This sorrow compels them to groan and cry out to God against you who withheld their wages.
Through the prophet Malachi the Lord says something similar to those who deprive the poor of wages: “And this thing which I hated you did. You covered the altar of the Lord with tears, and with weeping and groaning from labors” (Mal 2:13).
And again: “I will come to you for judgment, and I will be a swift witness against those who deprive the hireling of wages, against those who oppress widows and strike orphans.
The year was completed, and you brought all the fruits into the treasuries, and there will be plundering in his house” (Mal 3:5, 10).
We note that, according to some teachers, there are sins that cry out to God and demand vengeance against those who commit them: murder, sodomy, and depriving workers of wages.
Saint Ephrem also says: “Men who corrupt males, enchanters, sorcerers, magicians, and those who deprive the hireling of wages will be condemned together with murderers.” Do you see that the one who deprives a worker of wages will be condemned as a murderer?
Here there is a denunciation and condemnation of the rich, but not of all rich men or of every kind. Neither Christ nor His apostles preached equality of possessions among people, nor did they condemn wealth unconditionally.
The Apostle condemns to grievous miseries only those rich men who hoped that wealth, and not the mercy of God, could turn away from them the calamities of the days to come, “you have heaped up treasure in the last days” (v. 3).
He condemns those who withheld the wages of the workers who reaped their fields, so that the cries of the reapers reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth (v. 4).
He condemns those who lived in luxury on the earth and indulged themselves, fattening their hearts as animals are fattened for slaughter, “as in a day of slaughter” (v. 5).
He condemns those who condemned and killed the righteous man, though He did not resist them, and therefore deserved mercy all the more (v. 6).
Rich men for whom nothing is dear except their gold truly deserve strict condemnation.
“Behold, the wages,” and so forth. This is a brief and powerful depiction of the sinful actions of the rich, for which God’s judgment will overtake them in the form of the miseries awaiting them (Jas 5:1).
These riches were gained by injustice (v. 4), were a means to luxury and sensual indulgence (Jas 5:5), and inflamed them to the shedding of innocent blood (Jas 5:6).
The first sin of the rich is their injustice and hard-heartedness, especially toward those who worked for them and by whose labor they gained their wealth.
They violently withheld the wages from their workers, either by cheating them, or by not giving them the agreed pay, or by not giving them pay corresponding to their labor.
In this way they compelled the poor, who perhaps lacked daily bread, to work for them for wages unequal to their labor, since there was no other work by which they might obtain their food.
The general notion of workers is presented in the particular example of reapers, since this labor is especially hard, truly in the sweat of the face. Because of its difficulty, it is especially worthy of corresponding payment, and yet the rich withheld wages from them.
Oppression of one’s neighbor by forcibly withholding the wages he earns was strictly forbidden by the law of Moses (Lev 19:13; Deut 24:14). It was strictly denounced by the prophets (Jer 22:13; Mal 3:5; cf. Job 31:39; Tob 4:14; Sir 34:22).
The criminality of such conduct by the rich toward workers is depicted by a powerful turn of speech. The withheld wages cry out, that is, to God, for vengeance.
By this expression God Himself declares to Cain the gravity of his sin, the murder of Abel (Gen 4:10).
The same gravity of this sin of the rich is also expressed by the following saying: the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
Moses uses such an expression when speaking of the severity and cruelty of the labors imposed on the Hebrews by the Egyptian Pharaoh before their exodus from Egypt (Ex 2:23).
Thus the actions of the rich toward their workers are compared with the cruel actions of the Egyptians toward the Hebrews.
The cries of the reapers, amid the hardship of their labors and the oppressions of the hired employers, the rich, are therefore cries of sorrow. They have reached the ears, that is, they have been heard and received in heaven.
For them, vengeance from the righteous God will follow upon the rich in the miseries that will overtake them (Jas 5:1), as the judgment of God (Jas 5:2-3).
The naming of God as the Lord of Sabaoth, that is, the Lord of hosts (cf. Ps 23:10), is certainly deliberate here. It indicates to these hard-hearted men the omnipotence of God.
By this omnipotence He is able to render the due recompense for such hard-heartedness and injustice (cf. Ps 17:7; Isa 5:9).
Already in verse 3 the Apostle vividly presents the fearful end of miserly rich men. Now he depicts how, not only at the Dread Judgment, but even immediately after the oppression of the poor, as in withholding the wages due them, the cry and groaning of the laborers reach God.
And why do the rich commit their evils? Is it to fatten their flesh, as calves are fattened for slaughter, and to enjoy themselves on the earth?
What empty and aimless labor, and what vain hope! The fattened calf reaches its appointed end, but those who indulged the flesh by lack of restraint become only the possession of worms and fire.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 26 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS