SEV Biblia, Chapter 3:11
¿Echa alguna fuente por una misma abertura agua dulce y amarga?
Clarke's Bible Commentary - James 3:11
Verse 11. Doth a fountain send forth-sweet water and bitter?] In many things nature is a sure guide to man; but no such inconsistency is found in the natural world as this blessing and cursing in man. No fountain, at the same opening, sends forth sweet water and bitter; no fig tree can bear olive berries; no vine can bear figs; nor can the sea produce salt water and fresh from the same place. These are all contradictions, and indeed impossibilities, in nature. And it is depraved man alone that can act the monstrous part already referred to.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 11. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place , etc.] Or hole; for at divers places, and at different times, as Pliny observes, it may send forth sweet [water] and bitter : and it is reported f37 , there is a lake with the Trogloditae, a people in Ethiopia, which becomes thrice a day bitter, and then as often sweet; but then it does not yield sweet water and bitter at the same time: this simile is used to show how unnatural it is that blessing and cursing should proceed out of the same mouth.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-12 - We are taught to dread an unruly tongue, as one of the greatest evils The affairs of mankind are thrown into confusion by the tongues of men Every age of the world, and every condition of life, private or public affords examples of this. Hell has more to do in promoting the fire of the tongue than men generally think; and whenever men's tongues ar employed in sinful ways, they are set on fire of hell. No man can tam the tongue without Divine grace and assistance. The apostle does no represent it as impossible, but as extremely difficult. Other sin decay with age, this many times gets worse; we grow more froward an fretful, as natural strength decays, and the days come on in which we have no pleasure. When other sins are tamed and subdued by the infirmities of age, the spirit often grows more tart, nature being drawn down to the dregs, and the words used become more passionate That man's tongue confutes itself, which at one time pretends to ador the perfections of God, and to refer all things to him; and at anothe time condemns even good men, if they do not use the same words an expressions. True religion will not admit of contradictions: how man sins would be prevented, if men would always be consistent! Pious an edifying language is the genuine produce of a sanctified heart; an none who understand Christianity, expect to hear curses, lies boastings, and revilings from a true believer's mouth, any more tha they look for the fruit of one tree from another. But facts prove tha more professors succeed in bridling their senses and appetites, than i duly restraining their tongues. Then, depending on Divine grace, let u take heed to bless and curse not; and let us aim to be consistent in our words and actions.
Greek Textus Receptus
μητι 3385 η 3588 πηγη 4077 εκ 1537 της 3588 αυτης 846 οπης 3692 βρυει 1032 5719 το 3588 γλυκυ 1099 και 2532 το 3588 πικρον 4089
Vincent's NT Word Studies
11. Doth a fountain, etc. The interrogative particle, mhti, which begins the sentence, expects a negative answer. Fountain has the article, "the fountain," generic. See Introduction, on James' local allusions. The Land of Promise was pictured to the Hebrew as a land of springs (Deuteronomy viii. 7, xi. 11). "Palestine," says Dean Stanley, "was the only country where an Eastern could have been familiar with the language of the Psalmist: 'He sendeth the springs into the valleys which run among the mountains.' Those springs, too, however short-lived, are remarkable for their copiousness and beauty. Not only not in the East, but hardly in the West, can any fountains and sources of streams be seen, so clear, so full-grown even at their birth, as those which fall into the Jordan and its lakes throughout its whole course from north to south" ("Sinai and Palestine"). The Hebrew word for a fountain or spring is ayin, meaning an eye. "The spring," says the same author, "is the bright, open source, the eye of the landscape." 31 Send forth (bruei). An expressive word, found nowhere else in the New Testament, and denoting a full, copious discharge. Primarily it means to be full to bursting; and is used therefore, of budding plants, teeming soil, etc., as in the charming picture of the sacred grove at the opening of the "Oedipus Coloneus" of Sophocles: "full (bruwn) of bay, olive, and vine." Hence, to burst forth or gush. Though generally intransitive, it is used transitively here.
Place (ophv). Rather, opening or hole in the earth or rock. Rev., opening. Compare caves, Heb. xi. 38. The word is pleasantly suggestive in connection with the image of the eye of the landscape. See above. Sweet water and bitter. The readers of the epistle would recall the bitter waters of Marah (Exod. xv. 23), and the unwholesome spring at Jericho (2 Kings ii. 19-21).
