What Does James 1:5 Mean?

(5) **If any of you lack wisdom.**—The Apostle passes on to the thought of heavenly wisdom; not the knowledge of the deep things of God, but that which is able to make us wise unto our latter end (Proverbs 19:20). Few may be able, save in self-conceit, to say with Isaiah (Isaiah 50:4), “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned;” and, on the other hand, the wisest and most gifted of men may truly be wanting in the wisdom descending from above. **Let him ask of God.**—But whoever, learned or unlearned, feels in his heart the need of the knowledge of God, since to know Him “is eternal life” (John 17:3), “let him ask” for it in all purity of intention, simply, *i.e.*, for His honour and service, “and it shall be given him.” **That giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.**—“Liberally” had better, perhaps, be changed to *simply—i.e., *God gives fully and directly, and *reproacheth* (or, “upbraideth”) not the utterance of such a prayer, in no way detracting from the graciousness of His gifts. How wide the difference from any generosity of man I “Yea,” wrote Dante, in exile at Verona, “. . . thou shalt learn how salt his food, who fares Upon another’s bread.—how steep his path, Who treadeth up and down another’s stairs.” “The fool,” said the wise son of Sirach, “giveth little, and upbraideth much . . ., and is hated of God and man” (Ecclesiasticus 20:15).