In a guest post on Progressive Christianity covering the first part of James 3:1-8, we looked at some Noahic allusions, illustrating our personal communication’s constructive and destructive nature. All of that was a setup for this post.

To summarize 3:1-8, James cautioned his audience against wanting to be teachers since teachers are held to a higher standard. Why? Our tongues are powerful, and words can wreak havoc on others. Controlling our tongue is essential to our faith and spiritual growth. If you’d like to catch James 3:1-8, read the blog post here.

“James’s argument moves from the empirical observation of nature to the moral imperative for human behavior, emphasizing the consistency demanded by creation itself.”

Luke Timothy Johnson

The bullet points are that James used an allusion to Noah at the beginning of James 3 (“perfect man”), the word γενέσεως (genesis), and the same kind of creatures as Genesis 1 and 6-9: “For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature…” None of it was an accident. James’ soliloquy on the tongue made it clear the amount of destruction the tongue can wreck on Creation using Noahic language. But what was the point of bringing Noah into a conversation about human speech?

James wasn’t done with Noah, or the biblical allusions, yet. He has three more, rather poetic, verses for us.

“With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.”

James 3:9-12

Blessing and Cursing: The Tension of the Imago Dei

James begins with a serious observation: “With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God” (v. 9). This statement cuts to the heart of our identity as bearers of the Imago Dei—the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Unlike other creatures, humans carry this divine imprint, which imbues our words with a power unique to us. Ideas have consequences and they spread between humans.

When we use words, we’re using the same power God used to create the World. We are engaging and proclaiming Truth, making a statement about ourselves, and putting our ideas into other people’s heads. This is sacred and much of the collective pain the world comes from the ideas we’ve been fed, we’ve reinforced, and we perpetuate. It’s an unavoidable part of life and a responsibility every individual must wrestle with. James is clear, with the tongue we can tame ships and cross oceans, or we can set the entire course of Creation on fire. While dramatic, James is dead on about the practical reality of human speech.

This tension between blessing and cursing is not just a theological abstraction; it is a daily relational reality for every human. How often do we speak tenderly to our pets while snapping at our children? How easily does worship flow from our lips only to be followed by thoughts of judgment after Church? How often do we love God and ignore our dismissal of others?

James reminds us that this contradiction “ought not to be so” (v. 10). Such duplicity reveals the divided nature of our hearts and the ways we misuse the sacred gift of speech. If we reflect on this deeply, it becomes clear that words reveal not just a fleeting moment but the state of our inner life. “For his mouth speaks from the abundance of his heart” (Luke 6:45). Words are reflections of who we are and what we value most.

The Chiastic Structure of James 3:9-12

“The chiastic structure of James 3:9-12 reinforces the central message: the incongruity of blessing and cursing from the same source, whether that source is a spring, a tree, or the human tongue.“

Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament

James 3:9-12 reveals a depth of ancient meaning that modern readers can easily miss. The intentional structure James employs leads us into a theological and practical reflection on human speech. Verses 9-12 is a chiasm (or chiasmus)—an ancient literary structure that mirrors ideas in a specific order. Such literary devices were and still are common.

The literary brilliance of James 3:9-12 lies in its chiastic structure. James will bring together rich imagery, alluding even further to Noah, making it clear to his audience that human speech is a double-edged sword not to be taken for granted. The things he hints at and where James doesn’t perfectly mirror a chiasm is where he wants some attention to go.

Sidenote: The following is one of my favorite examples of a chiasm. Chiasms are on every page of the Bible. Another favorite is the entire Torah (Pentetuech) which is arranged as a chiasm with Leviticus’s Day of Atonement in the center. Chiasms are one of the many things that modern readers of ancient texts can miss out on. The language, tools, and worldview of the writer and original recipients always matter for an accurate interpretation of anything, not just Scripture.

In Greek, James’ chiasm is much clearer and intricate. I’ve attempted to show it below:

• A: With it we bless our Lordand Father,
  • B: and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
• A’: From the same mouth comes blessing
  • B’: and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

• A: Does a spring pour forth from the same opening
  • B: both fresh
    • C: and bitter?
      • D: Can a fig tree, my brothers,
        • E: bear olives or
        • E’: a grapevine
      • D’: produce figs?
    • C’: Neither salty and
  • B’: fresh can
• A’: come from the same water.

This chiasm is…gorgeous and much too brilliant to cover it all but let’s get the gist of it.

This structure reinforces the contradictory nature of human speech. First, James draws our eyes to the nature of our God and the nature He made humans in. Notice how he pairs and contrasts the nature of God with human nature in verses 9-10: “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.” His not-so-subtle point is, basically, “Who do we think we are to curse someone God has made when we are also made in the same way?” What gives us the right to do something unnatural to God’s Creation, when God has already blessed the people we curse?

Just as a spring cannot yield both fresh and bitter water, neither should our speech contain both blessing and cursing. James invites us to see the natural world as a reflection of divine order and align our lives accordingly. Reality, and God, do not bend Truth to accommodate our assumptions. The structure of this passage mirrors James’ message: acceptance and purpose should be characteristic of both creation and human conduct. James is declaring that if we want to walk in the love and light of God, as Christ modeled, we must also have the same heart He has for others, including our enemies. A grapevine can not produce figs, nor a stagnant well a fresh spring.

Noah’s Blessing and Curse: A Foundational Allusion (v. 9-10)

To fully grasp James’ message, we must consider his allusions to Genesis 9:25-27, where Noah blesses Shem and curses Canaan. In James 3:1-8, as mentioned, James used “perfect man,” world destruction, and a list of animals to put his audience back into Noah’s story, the only man recorded as “perfect” in the Old Testament (Genesis 6:9).

Similarly, in verse 9, when James tells his audience that blessing and curse should not flow from the same mouth, some good Jew in James’ audience would have immediately thought of Noah, again, as the first man to not just only utter a curse, but also a blessing in the same breath – the first time in Scripture that blessing and cursing flow from the same source. For James’ original audience, steeped in the Torah tradition, this story would have been an obvious connection. Noah’s actions underscore the gravity of speech and its capacity to shape destinies, especially within God’s redemptive plan for all of Creation.

From the beginning of Genesis, the theme of “blessing” or “curse” runs through to Joseph. In short, the Curse enters Creation when Adam & Eve eat the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is at the end of Genesis when the tension between good and evil, and blessing and cursing, is finally brought to a redemptive climax. The answer to the sin of Genesis 3 is finally given in Genesis 50:20, where Joseph says to his brothers, “what you meant for evil, God meant for good,” and reconciles his family with forgiveness. Instead of cursing, Joseph chose blessing, in contrast to Noah.

While God made the world good and blessed it, it was us who introduced a curse. As such, it’s up to us to get rid of it. From Genesis 3 until Genesis 10, God was looking for someone willing to trust in the blessing of Genesis 1-2 and not spread the Curse. This was the calling of Abraham: to be a blessing for all families on earth (Genesis 12:2). Today, we live in the fruit of his faith.

Despite common assumptions, God does not literally curse humanity in Genesis 3. We could assume all of Genesis 3:-14-18 is one big curse from God against humans – but it isn’t. Instead, He pronounces a curse on the serpent (Genesis 3:14) and Earth (Genesis 3:17). To the humans, God’s words are not prescriptive but descriptive. He just describes what’s going to happen – that isn’t a curse. Ugly? Sure. But it’s Love & Truth.

Humans, created in His image, are recipients of blessing, not cursing. When we curse others, we usurp a role that does not belong to us and so reject Creation and its Creator with it. Such actions violate the divine order and the purpose of creation. In the end, it is ourselves we are casting out of Reality when we try to reject others in It.

“The power of the tongue, for good or ill, is one of James’s central concerns, and he explores it with a series of vivid metaphors drawn from the natural world.”

N.T. Wright

Genesis 9 (the proceeding events after the Flood) contains hints that intentionally mirror Genesis 3, suggesting the temptation, serpent, and Curse survived the Flood. Another primary theme shared between the two chapters is that of our nakedness. After the Flood had subsided and evil dealt with, Noah planted a garden. He got drunk and his son, Ham, did something suspect to his father – the phrase “to behold nakedness” never means just to see someone naked in the Old Testament (c.f. Leviticus 18:6-23). Theories range from something sexual with his dad or mom to castrating his dad.

So, after Ham did something…sketchy, Noah fell also to temptation and utters, in the only place in Scripture, both a curse and a blessing. He curses the son of Ham (Canaan) and blesses his oldest son (Shem) by making Noah’s grandson his “servant” as a reaction. Here is the first curse uttered by a human. Not only that, Noah’s assumed blessing of the oldest will be challenged throughout the rest of the Bible. Scripture teaches never to assume our “position” and entitlements, and to be careful when we think we speak on behalf of God.

The temptation to curse is real and directly related to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was what Cain did to Abel and what people did to Jesus. It’s what we still struggle with. It’s what we do when we choose anger and hate over love and acceptance. This is why James alludes to Noah and Creation. After God “drained the swamp,” it was with a simple slip of the tongue that the Curse also survived the Flood. Evil does not exist “out there,” but within the divided heart of mankind.

In this light, the image of Noah’s dual speech becomes a warning. Even the “perfect man in his generation” (James 3:2) couldn’t perfectly control his tongue. Noah, immediately after the world was flooded, set the entire course of Creation on fire with a slip of his tongue. How much more ought this to be taken seriously today? Words carry divine weight – when misused, they distort God’s intentions for humanity.

Bitter and Sweet: The Water Metaphor (v. 11)

“James’s use of creation theology and natural analogies serves to emphasize the unnaturalness of duplicitous speech among believers.”

Scot McKnight

James shifts to a water metaphor, asking, “Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?” (v. 11). We might assume this is a rhetorical question and the answer is a simple, “No.” Not for James’ mostly Jewish audience.

First, the first time “springs” show up in the Old Testament is also during the flood (Genes 7:11), so we’re still within James’ layers of meaning. There is a famous Old Testament story of a spring that was bitter and became fresh. The Greek terms translated as “bitter” (πικρός) and fresh (γλυκύς) draws a direct connection to Exodus 15:22-25.

After crossing the Red Sea, the Israelites begin doubting quickly and want to go back to Egypt. They are thirsty, having just escaped the Egyptians through divine miracles. When come upon the pool of Marah (“bitter“), they find it is bitter. So, they begin to “grumble” (lûn) “at” (ʿal) Moses. The Hebrew word is more like, “They began grumbling on account of Moses” – in other words, they were blaming Moses for their situation.

When Moses cries out to God, he is instructed to throw a log into the water, transforming it into sweet (γλυκύς in the Septuagint), drinkable water. This “log,” in the Greek Septuagint, is the same word Revelation uses for “tree” in the Tree of Life (xulon – Revelation 22:2). It also wasn’t a “tree” (dendron) but rather a “post” and could be an allusion to the Cross, but that’s another blog post.

What’s fun is that, in Hebrew, the word for “grumbling” (lûn) has another meaning. Lûn‘s primary meaning is “to lodge, stay the night, or abide.” It was a word for hospitality. When we grumble, we hunker down and choose to abide in a different mindset than that of faith and love – we “camp” in ego and insecurity. If we are grumbling, we can not be hospitable. This story is why Peter says, in 1 Peter 4:9, “Show hospitality without grumbling.” When we are bitter, our sin is in the way – something in us needs to die.

Bitterness in our lives can only be transformed through sacrifice – not by chewing on it more. Letting it go and being willing to trust the moment is how we experience something different than our misery. Just as God sweetened the waters of Marah, He can purify our speech through our hearts. James warns that such transformation requires intentionality and refusing to go back into the Curse of Genesis 3. A spring cannot produce both fresh and bitter water without compromising its integrity – it is either fresh or bitter, not both. Neither can we be. Unresolved bitterness in our lives will seep into our relationships and speech, turning what could be life-giving into something toxic, and poisonous. Our mouths, like springs, will inevitably reflect their true source.

“Words have the power to wound deeply or heal profoundly. Vulnerability in our speech is the birthplace of authentic connection.”

Brené Brown

Figs, Olives, and Grapevines: Symbolism and Significance (v. 12a)

James continues his argument with agricultural imagery, asking, “Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs?” (v. 12). Each plant carries rich symbolic meaning in the biblical narrative. James’ selection of plants was intentional and kept with his previous Noahic allusions. Every one of these plants first makes an appearance in Genesis 1-9:

• Figs: Figs appear in Genesis 3:7, where Adam and Eve use fig leaves to cover their shame. Fig leaves are a sign of covering up shame, man-made religion, and false righteousness. Fig fruit is a symbol of peace, prosperity, and well-being. Fig trees represent spiritual leadership and Israel’s faithfulness (Micah 4:4, Jeremiah 8:13). A fig tree without fig fruit was a sign of misfortune and judgment from God (Mark 11:12-25).
• Olives: The first appearance of the olive plant is when a dove brings an olive branch back to Noah (Genesis 8:11). Olive oil was used for anointing kings and the sick. It symbolizes peace and restoration, as seen when the Holy Spirit descends “like a dove” on Christ.
• Grapes: The first appearance is the vineyard Noah plants immediately after the Flood saga has finished. Grapes were associated with abundance and sometimes, like in Noah’s case, excess (Genesis 9:20-21).

The chiastic structure emphasizes the impossibility of these plants producing anything other than their intended fruit. James mixes different parts of the plants with different fruits to, perhaps symbolize the importance of not being double-minded (James 1:8), a person with more than one nature instead of being a mature, whole (telos) person. The plants themselves are such different plants: they grow and act differently…as they should.

This imagery parallels Jesus’ teaching: “Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit” (Matthew 7:17). Our words, like fruit, reveal the true nature of our hearts. James is inviting his readers to look inward and ask: “What kind of tree am I? What fruit does my life produce?” The answer lies not in appearances but in the consistent outflow of our speech and actions.

Other than playing with the Creation-Flood story, James shows the hypocritical nature of human speech, and how we all are susceptible to giving ourselves a free pass. Aside from intentionally crafting with a gorgeous chiasm, James is helping his audience bounce back and forth from Blessing to Cursing.

The Israelites chanted the blessings and curses of the law on Mount Gerizim after entering the Promised Land as described in Deuteronomy 27; specifically, Moses instructed the people to divide themselves between Mount Gerizim (for blessings) and Mount Ebal (for curses) when they reached the land, with the ceremony being further detailed in Joshua 8:30-35. James is reminding his audience of something deeper than just “control your speech.” He’s making subjective individuals wrestle with deep truths in their own lives by reminding them of the nature of God and mankind.

James isn’t done mixing metaphors to make his point stick yet. Using his chiasm, James will take us back through the waters.

“The power of words is immense; they act as bridges or barriers between the conscious and unconscious mind, shaping both individual and collective realities.”

Carl Jung

Ezekiel’s Vision: Living Water and Restoration (v. 12b)

As we’ve seen, wherever James doesn’t perfectly fit his chiasm, there is a reason. James will continue to draw us further into human speech’s deep, spiritual implications. Another place James’ chiasm doesn’t perfectly mirror itself is in the words for and descriptions of water.

The description of “fresh” or “sweet” (γλυκύς) for one contrasting body of water does not change in the chiasm. However, everything else, the bodies of water and negative descriptors, is different. In verse, it starts with a fountain or spring (pēgē) “sending out for the same opening” or “fissure” (opē). What does change is the word “bitter”. Instead of a bitter fountain, as James began with, it ends with “salty” (ἁλυκός) “water” (hydōr).

James may have started with the Israelites at the Pool of Marah, but he brings them somewhere else – to a salty and/or fresh “pond.” Two bodies of water were salty: the Mediterranean Sea (the “Great Salt Sea”) and the Dead Sea at the bottom of the Jordan. In Scripture, there’s a powerful prophecy of these, and one of them becomes fresh.

James brings us to a powerful parallel in Ezekiel 47. In this prophetic vision, “fresh” water flows from the Temple as a life-giving river, transforming the Dead Sea, and salty, into a life-giving oasis. The river supports trees whose leaves are for healing and whose fruit sustains life. Around this sea are fishers of all kinds of fish (Matthew 4:19). This is, perhaps, the only other place we can find a body of water changing from something unlivable to livable. Well, here and perhaps in Revelation 22:1-7.

This vision points to God’s redemptive work through His people. When our words align with His purposes, they become streams of living water, bringing life and restoration. Jesus first made this invitation in John 7:37-38: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” The imagery is not just poetic; James and Jesus meant every word. It’s a call to live differently. Our words can either participate in God’s life-giving work or perpetuate the bitterness and chaos of a broken world.

The Power of Collective Speech (v. 13-18)

While James primarily addresses individual speech, his message has broader implications. In a society where words are abundant and often cheap, the collective power of speech can shape cultures, communities, and even nations. Social media amplifies this reality, making it all the more critical for believers to use their words with wisdom and intentionality.

“Speech reflects the inner freedom of a person. In how we speak to others, we create or deny meaning in life.”

Victor Frankl

A similar reason could be why James, immediately after this soapbox about the power of the human tongues, asks, “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom” (v. 13). He then goes on to talk about two kinds of wisdom in the world, “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness” (v. 17-18).

Authentic speech requires a transformed heart. It demands humility, self-awareness, and a commitment to truth. When individuals embody this authenticity, the ripple effects can create communities marked by genuine connection, mutual respect, and shared purpose. This collective impact mirrors the transformative potential James envisions: when individuals align their words with God’s purposes, the result is a community that embodies God’s kingdom on earth.

Conclusion: Words as Instruments of Redemption

James’ intricate use of chiasm, Old Testament allusions, and natural metaphors all point to a central truth: our speech reveals our hearts and has the power to bless or curse. The teaching in 3:9-12 is more than a warning; it’s a call to action. Our words have the power to create or destroy, to bless or curse, to bring life or death. By aligning our speech with God’s purposes, we participate in His redemptive work.

In a world where words often divide, authentic and life-giving speech is a radical act. It reflects the kingdom of God, where blessing flows freely and cursing has no place. May our tongues be instruments of blessing, and may our words reflect the living water flowing from the heart of God. In doing so, we join in the mission of restoration, transforming bitterness into sweetness and death into life.

Our words matter. They always do. Just as much as our silence does. The question James poses is whether they will bring life or destruction. The choice has always been ours.

“The tongue is like a spark that can set the whole soul ablaze, either with the fire of divine love or the flames of destruction.”

St. John of the Cross