Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills…”: James goes on to say what the right attitude is that business people should have. In face of the uncertainty in human life, they should entrust their future totally to God. Instead (“rather,” Moffatt) points out a contrast with the thought expressed in verse 13; Instead of saying “Today or tomorrow we will…,” they should say what is recommended in this verse. Rather than their self-confident attitude, business people should commit all their plans and hopes entirely to the will of God. The expression If the Lord wills, or “If the Lord is willing” (Good News Translation), is not merely a casual formula but a conviction and acknowledgment that God has the final say on everything, and that the future is in the hand of God (compare Acts 18.21; 1 Cor 4.19; 16.7; Phil 2.19, 24). The Lord here refers not to Jesus as in 2.1, but to God. It is a functional term describing God’s absolute control, authority, and sovereignty over everything. (See 1.1 for a discussion on the translation of Lord.) In cases where Lord will be rendered as “Big Chief” or “The Highest Chief,” or something similar, it may be helpful to simply use “God” in this verse; for example, “If God is willing….”

Only if it is the will of God can we say we shall live and we shall do this or that. Knox, obviously based on the Latin Vulgate, which follows inferior manuscripts, has taken the first verb shall live as a subjunctive and therefore part of the conditional clause; thus “We will do this or that if it is the Lord’s will, and if life is granted us.” This interpretation has not won wide acceptance. Aside from the superior manuscript evidence, it is more probable that James would include everything, including life and death, not simply human actions, as being conditional on the will of God. In Greek the clause may be rendered as “we shall both live and do this or that.” A number of translations have taken the “and” construction as referring to one and the same action, thus “we shall live to do this or that” (Goodspeed, New American Bible, New English Bible; similarly Revised English Bible). The expression this or that is a way of referring to a plan that is not stated in detail. As with “such and such a town” in verse 13, it is understood that the speaker may be referring to a specific plan, but this expression allows the sentence to be applied to any plan the hearer may have. The Contemporary English Version rendering may serve as a helpful model for many translators: “If the Lord lets us live, we will do these things.” In this translation the idea of wills is included in the expression “lets us.”

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .