to set oneself against another in active, deliberate opposition, as troops drawn up in a battle line
This word joins the term for "against" with a verb meaning "to arrange" or "draw up," and its oldest use is military: to line up soldiers facing an enemy. By New Testament times it had broadened into the ordinary word for active, deliberate opposition, but the old picture still colors it. To oppose in this sense is not merely to disagree; it is to take up a position on the other side, like two forces squared off across a field.
Its most famous use comes straight from a line of Proverbs that early Christians quoted often: "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (quoted in James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5). Here the word pictures God himself taking a stand against arrogant people. This is not God simply withholding favor; it is God actively set against them, which is why the call to humility that follows carries such weight.
The same verb describes human opposition too. In Romans 13:2 Paul warns that whoever resists governing authority is setting himself against something God has put in place, playing on a whole family of related words for order and arrangement; the twin verb he pairs it with there (ἀνθίστημι) reinforces the picture of a person standing his ground in defiance. In Acts 18:6 it names the organized hostility of a synagogue crowd against Paul's preaching.
James 5:6 turns the word on its head: the wronged and even murdered righteous person "does not resist" those who exploit him. Set against James 4:6, the point is sharp: the powerless do not fight back, but God is already arrayed against their oppressors, and he will settle the account.
Whether the negated verb in James 5:6 is a plain statement ("the righteous one does not resist you") or a rhetorical question ("does he not resist you?"), which changes who is pictured as opposing whom.
- majorityA statement: the exploited righteous person cannot and does not fight back, and the present tense fits a description of their present helplessness rather than a future vindication.; Peter H. Davids, The Epistle of James (NIGTC), on 5:6; Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James (Pillar/PNTC), on 5:6; D. C. Arichea and E. A. Nida, A Handbook on the Letter from James (UBS), on 5:6
- minorityA rhetorical question expecting the answer yes: God (or the vindicated righteous) does oppose them, echoing James 4:6.; J. A. Bengel, Gnomon Novi Testamenti, on James 5:6; J. B. Mayor, The Epistle of St. James (3rd ed.), on 5:6