JAMES 1:17

In my recent post entitled “Come Rain or Come Shine,” I discussed the mainly positive imagery in the Bible associated with the use of the word “shadow.” But on occasion, the same word can also be symbolic of something insubstantial or fleeting. And this is the general meaning in the case of James 1:17 where he says that God is “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (NRSV)

The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery says, “Unique in the Bible is the imagery of unfaithfulness in terms of 'shifting shadows' in James 1:17...however, here also it is not the darkness of shadows that is evil but their instability.” This judgment is probably true, although McKnight equates James' words with John's in 1 John 1:5 – “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.”

One problem with completely understanding James' thought in this verse is that there are three Greek words found in this passage which scholars classify under the technical term hendiadys, i.e. words which only appear once in the Bible. They are aposkisma (“shadow”), trope (“turning”), and parallage (“change”). C.C. Newman points out that the Greek terms for lights, change and possibly shadow (eclipse?) are “technical cosmological terms. James invokes the solar system to contrast the permanence of the Creator God with the instability of the creation.” And all the commentators I consulted agreed that the images in this verse stem from an astronomical background.

As Davids summarizes, although the general “sense is clear enough, the exact meaning of the words has caused endless difficulties...All of these words could be used to refer to astronomical phenomena, but none of them (with the exception of trope in certain limited contexts) is a technical term. Thus confusion results when one tries to determine to which astral phenomena James refers.”

So which cosmological phenomena exactly did James have in mind?

    T. Carson: “James may have had chiefly in view either night or day, or the monthly obscuration of the moon, or even the casual vicissitudes of light due to clouds” as in Malachi 3:6.

    Kistemaker: “As the earth, sun, moon and stars move in their ordained courses, we observe the interplay of light and darkness.”

    Tasker: “The sun gives its light to the earth in varying measure.”

    L.T. Johnson: “The plural [lights] suggests the 'heavenly lights' of sun and moon or perhaps the planets.”

    Blue: “Shadows from the sun shift, but not the One who made the sun.”

    Ward: “But for all the blessings brought by the sun and stars, they are subject to change. They follow their prescribed orbit: in consequence night follows day and through the stars may set, God does not. On Him falls no shadow, as when man finds himself in the shade through the 'movement' of the sun.”

On a whole, it is probably safer to go with Adamson's final assessment of the situation: “It is not necessary to confine 'shadow' to eclipses or any other specific sort of shadow.”

An added complication comes from the fact that some early manuscripts containing this passage read differently (i.e. they have different Greek wording). Thus, I was pleased to read Metzger's statement that “The obscurity of the passage has led to the emergence of a variety of readings.” Apparently I was not the only one a bit confused by James' words. Metzger goes into more technical details on the various manuscripts than I can totally follow, but the gist of the problem is that some versions read “variation which is of [i.e. consists in, or belongs to] the turning of the shadow.” But others say “shadow or change or variation declining” while yet others read “not even the least suspicion of a shadow.” Metzger feels that the “least unsatisfactory reading” is that seen in many manuscripts. It can be literally rendered as “with whom has no place change or of turning shadow.” These various Greek renderings result in the differences one will encounter in English translations:

    KJV: with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

    Phillips: “with whom there is never the slightest variation or shadow of inconsistency.”

    NEB: “with him there is no variation, no play of passing shadows.”

    NIV: “who does not change like shifting shadows.”

    Jerusalem Bible: “With him there is no such thing as alteration, no shadow of a change.”

    Anchor Bible: “With him there is no alteration or shadow of change.”

Both the NEB and NRSV provide helpful footnotes giving the alternative readings found in other manuscripts.

Note that some of the above translations appear to rely on Greek texts that take “shadow” in a fairly literal sense as indicating a change in position of the object casting it. But others appear to go with the Greek manuscripts that utilize “shadow” in the metaphorical sense of something insubstantial, such as we might use as a synonym for “hint” when we say that there isn't even a shadow of doubt or suspicion regarding something or someone.

As a final source of uncertainty, a number of scholars such as Bo Reicke feel that James has here cited or altered a quotation he received from somewhere else, and so they attempt to reconstruct the original wording. But as L.T. Johnson points out, “Since in any case we do not have the source, the question is both moot and unhelpful.”

“Despite all this confusion, several points can be made decisively: 1) the phrase seemed strange to scribes...and...therefore, seemed to call out for correction; 2) the variations provide virtually every possible combination; 3) the basic meaning remains clear despite all the variations.” That basic meaning has been expressed in a number of helpful ways:

    Tasker: “...there is no variation with God...The light of His truth and the light of His holiness remain constant.”

    Packer: “God is free from all limitations of time and natural processes, and remains eternally the same.”

    Kistemaker: “Nature is subject to variation and change. Not so with God!”