Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary James 3:7

"For every kind of beasts and birds, of creeping things and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed by mankind." — James 3:7 (ASV)

James shifts almost unnoticeably from discussing the power of the tongue (vv.3–6) to a discussion of its perversity (vv.7–12). According to vv.7–8, one’s inability to tame the tongue shows the perversity of the tongue. At creation God gave human beings the dominion over the animals that they have exercised ever since (Genesis 1:28). “All kinds” of creatures of land, sea, and air have been subdued by them. To emphasize the continuing aspect of that dominance over the animals, James uses both the present and the perfect tenses—“are being tamed and have been tamed.”