John Calvin Commentary James 5:2

"Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten." — James 5:2 (ASV)

Your riches. The meaning may be twofold: first, that he ridicules their foolish confidence, because the riches in which they placed their happiness were entirely fading, even able to be reduced to nothing by one blast from God; or second, that he condemns as their insatiable avarice the fact that they heaped up wealth only so that it might perish without any benefit to them.

This latter meaning is the most suitable. Indeed, it is true that those rich men are insane who glory in things as fading as garments, gold, silver, and similar items, since this is nothing other than making their glory subject to rust and moths. The saying, "What is ill-gotten is soon lost," is well known, because the curse of God consumes it all; for it is not right that the ungodly or their heirs should enjoy riches which they have snatched, as it were, by violence from the hand of God.

But as James enumerates the vices by which the rich brought upon themselves the calamity he mentions, the context requires, I think, that we should say that what he condemns here is the extreme rapacity of the rich in retaining everything they could acquire, so that it might rot uselessly in their chests. For in this way, what God had created for human use, they destroyed, as though they were the enemies of humankind.

But it must be observed that the vices he mentions here do not belong to all the rich. Some of them indulge in luxury, some spend much on show and display, and some deprive themselves and live miserably in their own squalor. Let us understand, then, that he here reproves some vices in some individuals and other vices in others.

However, all those are generally condemned who unjustly accumulate riches or who foolishly abuse them. But what James now says is not only suitable for the rich who exhibit extreme hoarding (such as Euclio of Plautus), but also for those who delight in pomp and luxury, yet prefer to heap up riches rather than use them for necessary purposes. For such is the malignity of some that they begrudge others even the common sun and air.