<p>4:9 <em>Lament and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom- </em>This exhortation to weeping and the general theme of making a repentance from the heart recalls Jesus' desperate, 11th hour call to repentance to avoid judgment on Jerusalem. &quot;Turn ye even to me (cp. &quot;draw near to God&quot;) with all your heart (cp. &quot;you double minded&quot;), and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments (cp. their hypocrisy- James 3:17)... who knows if He will turn and repent (of the planned judgments on Israel, natural and spiritual)?...let the priests (cp. the ecclesial elders of James)... weep&quot; (Joel 2:12-17). Joel 2 goes on to describe the judgments of AD70 in verses 30-32- according to Peter's quotation of them in Acts 2.</p><p>The double emphasis on mourning in this verse suggests reference to Mt. 5:4 &quot;Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted&quot;. This would mean that James interpreted this group of people as those mourning in repentance for their sins, receiving the comfort (Greek <i>parakleo</i>- drawing near) of closeness to God. The idea of God drawing near has been seen in the preceding verse- &quot;Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you&quot;. Again, the encouragement James' readers got from his words was proportionate to their ability to pick up these definite connections with other passages. To him that has spiritual talents of understanding the word, more will be given. James could have said 'Jesus basically said, &quot;mourn and I will draw near to you&quot;, so mourn in repentance and this is how God through Christ will draw near to you, as I have just spoken about in v.8'. But instead we have to be sensitive to the two mentions of mourning here in v.9, recognize this is one of the many references back to the sermon on the mount, and appreciate the similarity of meaning between 'comforted' in Mt. 5:4 and &quot;draw nigh&quot; in v.8. That the connection with Mt. 5:4 is valid is confirmed by the Greek word for &quot;joy&quot; in James 4:9 only occurring elsewhere in Lk. 6:25, which is effectively repeating Mt. 5:4: &quot;Woe unto you that laugh now For you shall mourn and weep&quot;. &quot;Mourn and weep&quot; is repeated in James 4:9.</p><p>There seems fair reason to believe that the riotous merry making mentioned here occurred at the Breaking of Bread. 1 Cor.11 rebukes some at the Corinth ecclesia (which included Jews, and was probably in receipt of James' letter, therefore) for getting drunk at the communion service. Similarly Peter and Jude warn of those brethren who 'feasted' at the love feast (Breaking of Bread). The Greek in Jude 12 means to revel or be sumptuous, and describes those guilty as &quot;feeding themselves without fear&quot;. This word for &quot;feeding&quot; specifically means to shepherd- as if it were the ecclesial elders or shepherds who were particularly guilty of these abuses. Thus James is saying that they ought to be mourning and weeping in repentance at the Breaking of Bread rather than revelling. If this is what James is meaning, some important practical issues emerge. Firstly, sorrow and an apparently long face are to be expected from many of us who inevitably feel the need for repentance burning keenly as we face the supreme dedication and holiness of Christ on the cross. There seems far too much criticism of those who do &quot;weep and mourn&quot; in their souls with a spirit of heaviness (cp. Is. 61:3; James 4:9) at the memorial service. How can any of us tell another to be more happy or look more cheerful without knowing the nature of their relationship with God in the past few days? For such an intensity of self-knowledge and repentance to occur, there must be a fair period of time for reflection and self-examination- not just the odd minute as we wait for the emblems to reach us. The &quot;feast of charity&quot; referred to in Jude 12 would have been a replica of the last supper- a whole meal of fellowship followed by the specific taking of the bread and wine.</p><p>&quot;Afflicted&quot; means 'to realize ones own misery' (Strong) and only occurs elsewhere in Rom. 7:24 and Rev. 3:17. Romans 7 and 8 have been alluded to previously in the letter, and Rom. 7:24 is describing the wretchedness Paul felt due to appreciating how sinful his innate evil desires really were. This marvellously fits the context of James 4, where he is advising them to analyse their own evil hearts more and appreciate their inherent sinfulness. By doing so they would feel &quot;wretched&quot; or &quot;afflicted&quot;. The Laodiceans were perhaps another ecclesia with a Jewish element to whom James was also writing; they certainly had the same problems of materialism and a lukewarm, semi-spirituality. The Lord criticized them for not knowing that they were wretched, i.e. not examining the wretchedness of their own evil desires enough. The idea of wretchedness is similar, although not linguistically connected, to the descriptions of the rejected at the day of judgment, writhing in the pain of self-hate, realizing for the first time the degree of their inherent sinfulness. If we judge ourselves now, i.e. examine ourselves and realize we are worthy of condemnation (judgment- Mt.7:1), then we will not be judged (1 Cor.11:31). They were to &quot;turn&quot; their revelling into sorrow; a word which means basically 'to pervert'- e.g. the Judaizers perverted (same word) the Gospel of Christ (Gal.1:7). This would imply that as they had perverted the Gospel, they were to 'pervert' it back again; they had spiritually justified their laughter and revelling by this perversion.</p>