Albert Barnes Commentary James 4:9

"Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness." — James 4:9 (ASV)

Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep. This is, evidently, on account of your sins. The sins to which the apostle refers are those he had specified in the previous part of the chapter, and which he had spoken of as so evil in their nature and so dangerous in their tendency.

The word rendered "be afflicted" properly means to endure toil or hardship, then to endure affliction or distress. Here it means that they were to afflict themselves—that is, they were to feel distressed and sad on account of their transgressions. . The other words in this clause also express deep grief or sorrow. The language used here shows that the apostle supposed it was possible for those who had done wrong to voluntarily feel sorrow for it, and therefore, it was proper to call upon them to do so.

Let your laughter be turned to mourning. It would seem that the persons referred to, instead of suitable sorrow and humiliation on account of sin, gave themselves to joyousness, mirth, and revelry. (See a similar instance in Isaiah 22:12-13).

It is often the case that those for whom the deep sorrows of repentance would be peculiarly appropriate give themselves to mirth and vanity. The apostle here says that such mirth was not suitable for them. Sorrow, deep and unfeigned, was appropriate on account of their sins, and the sound of laughter and of revelry should be changed to notes of lamentation.

To how many assemblies of the vain, the pleasure-seeking, and the dissipated might this exhortation now be appropriately addressed!

Your joy to heaviness. The word rendered `heaviness` here occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It means `dejection`, `sorrow`.

This sorrow is not gloom, melancholy, or moroseness, but it is sorrow on account of sin. God has so made us that we should feel sorrow when we are conscious that we have done wrong, and it is appropriate that we should do so.