Intertextuality Pair

James 2:11 → Deuteronomy 19:4

Echo

Later text

James 2:11BSB

For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

Earlier text

Deuteronomy 19:4BSB

Now this is the situation regarding the manslayer who flees to one of these cities to save his life, having killed his neighbor accidentally, without intending to harm him:
+ 3 more earlier texts

Earlier text

Deuteronomy 1:3BSB

In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the LORD had commanded him concerning them.

Earlier text

Deuteronomy 22:9-30BSB

Do not plant your vineyard with two types of seed; if you do, the entire harvest will be defiled—both the crop you plant and the fruit of your vineyard. Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together. You are to make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear. Suppose a man marries a woman, has relations with her, and comes to hate her, and he then accuses her of shameful conduct and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman and had relations with her, but I discovered she was not a virgin.” Then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring the proof of her virginity to the city elders at the gate and say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he has come to hate her. And now he has accused her of shameful conduct, saying, ‘I discovered that your daughter was not a virgin.’ But here is the proof of her virginity.” And they shall spread out the cloth before the city elders. Then the elders of that city shall take the man and punish him. They are also to fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given a virgin of Israel a bad name. And she shall remain his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives. If, however, this accusation is true, and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house, and there the men of her city will stone her to death. For she has committed an outrage in Israel by being promiscuous in her father’s house. So you must purge the evil from among you. If a man is found lying with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. If there is a virgin pledged in marriage to a man, and another man encounters her in the city and sleeps with her, you must take both of them out to the gate of that city and stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. So you must purge the evil from among you. But if the man encounters a betrothed woman in the open country, and he overpowers her and lies with her, only the man who has done this must die. Do nothing to the young woman, because she has committed no sin worthy of death. This case is just like one in which a man attacks his neighbor and murders him. When he found her in the field, the betrothed woman cried out, but there was no one to save her. If a man encounters a virgin who is not pledged in marriage, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her must pay the young woman's father fifty shekels of silver, and she must become his wife because he has violated her. He must not divorce her as long as he lives. A man is not to marry his father’s wife, so that he will not dishonor his father’s marriage bed.

Earlier text

Deuteronomy 27:24BSB

‘Cursed is he who strikes down his neighbor in secret.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

Significance

James presents a radically unified view of Torah that stands against selective obedience. The law is not a collection of discrete commands where one can pick and choose which to obey, but an organic whole given by one Lawgiver. This hermeneutical principle has deep OT roots in the covenant structure where violation of any stipulation breaks covenant relationship with God. By citing the Decalogue prohibitions against murder and adultery, James invokes the most foundational Torah commands to show that even these cannot be isolated from the broader demand for neighbor-love. The prophetic tradition (Hosea 4, Jeremiah 7) similarly condemned those who kept ritual observances while violating ethical commands, affirming Torah's relational unity.

Found via
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
Reference Type
Echo
Connection Method(s)
Analogy

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