Charles Ellicott Commentary James 3:5

"So the tongue also is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how much wood is kindled by how small a fire!" — James 3:5 (ASV)

Even so . . .—Thus, like the tiny rudder of the mighty ship, upon which its course most critically depends—the tongue is a little member; for it “vaunts great words which bring about great acts of mischief.” The verb translated boasts is peculiar to this place, but occurs so often in the works of Philo that we may be almost certain Saint James had read them. And many other verses of our Epistle suggest his knowledge of this famous Alexandrian Jew.

Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!—It would be more in the spirit and temper of this imaginative passage to render it, “Behold, how great a forest a little spark kindleth!” Thus it is expressed in the Latin Vulgate; and note our own margin, “wood.” The image constantly recurs in poetry, ancient and modern; and in the writer’s mind there seems to have been the picture “of the wrapping of some vast forest in a flame, by the falling of a single spark,” and this in illustration of the far-reaching mischief resulting from a single cause. .