Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary James 3:6

"And the tongue is a fire: the world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the wheel of nature, and is set on fire by hell." — James 3:6 (ASV)

So, James says, “The tongue also is a fire.” The inflammatory tongue has turned brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, nation against nation. The tongue is also “a world of evil.” It is as though all the wickedness in the whole world were wrapped up in that little piece of flesh. There are few sins people commit in which the tongue is not involved.

James describes the tongue’s influence as both destructive and as corrupting the whole “person” (lit., “body”; GK 5393). Since the person resides in the body and uses the body as his or her instrument, James seems to use “body” to refer to the entire person. In reality, he is not referring to the tongue of flesh but to the intelligent, communicating mind that uses the tongue as its instrument. So the mind corrupts the whole person. But the corrupting influence of the tongue reaches out in widening circles, for it “sets the whole course of his life on fire.” James is referring to the effect the tongue has on the whole of human existence. Finally, he traces the inflaming nature of the tongue back to its source. It is “set on fire by hell [GK 1147]” (see comment on Mk 9:43–48); this is James’s way of saying that it comes from the devil.