“This verse applies to Hebrew slaves who were great and proud and high in their own eyes but in their slavery had become the lowest of the low. It is as if he were saying that life was harder for the rich people with whom they were living than it was for them as their servants. The boasting referred to here is not vain…”
Hilary of Arles, 5th c. — INTRODUCTORY TRACTATE ON THE LETTER OF JAMES
Original
9Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
Modern
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In context
7For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
— James 1:9 —
10But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
11For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.