Much as Psalm 37 both pronounces judgment on the wicked oppressors of the “poor” and godly and encourages the righteous to “be still before the Lord” while they wait for God’s vindication, James 5:1–11 encourages Christians to recognize that judgment will come upon the wicked rich and to wait patiently for the day of that judgment. Christians need to exhibit the patience of the farmer as they wait for “the Lord’s coming” (5:7–8). (The rains crucial to Palestinian agriculture fell in the late autumn and early spring [cf. Deut. 11:14].) This coming is “near.” Some people think that James must have been wrong to think that Jesus’s return could ha…