James 5:2

2 your riches have rotted, and your garments have become moth-eaten;

James 5:2 Meaning and Commentary

James 5:2

Your riches are corrupted
Either through disuse of them; and so the phrase is expressive of their tenaciousness, withholding that from themselves and others which is meet, and which is keeping riches for the owners thereof, to their hurt; or these are corrupted, and are corruptible things, fading and perishing, and will stand in no stead in the day of wrath, and therefore it is great weakness to put any trust and confidence in them:

and your garments are moth eaten;
being neither wore by themselves, nor put upon the backs of others, as they should, but laid up in wardrobes, or in chests and coffers, and so became the repast of moths, and now good for nothing.

James 5:2 In-Context

1 Go, now, ye rich! weep, howling over your miseries that are coming upon [you];

2 your riches have rotted, and your garments have become moth-eaten;

3 your gold and silver have rotted, and the rust of them for a testimony shall be to you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye made treasure in the last days!

4 lo, the reward of the workmen, of those who in-gathered your fields, which hath been fraudulently kept back by you -- doth cry out, and the exclamations of those who did reap into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth have entered;

5 ye did live in luxury upon the earth, and were wanton; ye did nourish your hearts, as in a day of slaughter;