To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion
James addresses his letter "to the twelve tribes", a phrase that evokes the entirety of Israel. This is a symbolic reference to the Jewish Christians scattered abroad, known as the "Dispersion" or "Diaspora" (Greek: "Diaspora"). Historically, the Diaspora refers to Jews living outside of Israel, a result of various exiles and migrations. By addressing the twelve tribes, James connects the Christian community to the historic people of God, emphasizing continuity and fulfillment of God's promises through Christ. This also reflects the early church's understanding of itself as the true Israel, a spiritual community transcending geographical and ethnic boundaries.

Greetings
The word "Greetings" (Greek: "Chairein") is a common Greek salutation, meaning "rejoice" or "be glad." It sets a tone of joy and encouragement, which is fitting given the trials and challenges the recipients face. This greeting is not merely a formality but an invitation to embrace the joy found in Christ, even amidst suffering. It reflects the overarching message of the epistle, which calls believers to live out their faith with perseverance and joy, grounded in the wisdom and grace of God.

To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.--Or, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion. To these remnants of the house of Israel, whose "casting away" (Romans 11:15) was leading to the "reconciling of the world;" whose "fall" had been the cause of its "riches;" "and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles" (James 1:12). Scattered abroad indeed they were, "a by-word among all nations" (Deuteronomy 28:37), "a curse and an astonishment" (Jeremiah 29:18) wherever the Lord had driven them. But there is something figurative, and perhaps prophetic, in the number twelve. Strictly speaking, at the time this Epistle was written, Judah and Benjamin, in great measure, were returned to the Holy Land from their captivity, though numbers of both tribes were living in various parts of the world, chiefly engaged, as at the present day, in commerce. The remaining ten had lost their tribal distinctions, and have now perished from all historical record, though it is still one of the fancies of certain writers, rather pious than learned, to discover traces of them in the aborigines of America, Polynesia, and almost every where else; most ethnologically improbable of all, in the Teutonic nations, and our own families thereof. But long before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, and even the preaching of Christianity, Jewish colonists were found in Europe as well as Asia. "Even where they suffered most, through their own turbulent disposition, or the enmity of their neighbours, they sprang again from the same undying stock, however it might be hewn by the sword or seared by the fire. Massacre seemed to have no effect in thinning their ranks, and, like their forefathers in Egypt, they still multiplied under the most cruel oppression." (See Milman's History of the Jews, vol. i., p. 449, et seq.) While the Temple stood these scattered settlements were colonies of a nation, bound together by varied ties and sympathies, but ruled in the East by a Rabbi called the Prince of the Captivity, and in the West by the Patriarch of Tiberias, who, curiously, had his seat in that Gentile city of Palestine. The fall of Jerusalem, and the end therewith of national existence, rather added to than detracted from the authority of these strange governments; the latter ceased only in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius, while the former continued, it is said, in the royal line of David, until the close of the eleventh century, after which the dominion passed wholly into the hands of the Rabbinical aristocracy, from whom it has come down to the present day. The phrase "in the dispersion" was common in the time or our Lord; the Jews wondered whether He would "go unto the dispersion amongst the Gentiles" (John 7:35, and see Note there). . . .

(1) Ξαίρειν is common to both, and not found elsewhere in apostolic greet-tugs. (It is used by Ignatius in the opening of all his epistles except that to the Philadelphians.)

(2) The letter in the Acts is addressed to Gentile communities in definite regions; St. James's Epistle, to Jews of the dispersion. So also his contemporary Gamaliel wrote "to the sons of the dispersion in Babylonia, and to our brethren in Media, and to all the dispersion of Israel" (Frankel, 'Monatsschrift,' 1853, p. 413). Ταῖς δώδεκα φύλαις (cf. δωδεκάφυλον in Acts 26:7; Clem., 'Rom,' l, § 55; 'Prefer. Jacob.,' c.i.). Such expressions are important as tending to show that the Jews were regarded as representing, not simply the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, but the whole nation, including those so often spoken of as "the lost tribes" (cf. 1 Esdr. 7:8). Διασπορᾷ. The abstract put for the concrete. It is the word used by the LXX. for the "dispersion" (2 Macc. 1:27; Jud. 5:19; cf. Deuteronomy 28:25, etc.), i.e. the Jews "so scattered among the nations as to become the seed of a future harvest" (Westcott on St. John 7:35). (On the importance of the dispersion as preparing the way for Christianity, see the 'Dictionary of the Bible,' vol. 1. p. 44:1.) It was divided into three great sections:

(1) the Babylonian, i.e. the original dispersion; . . .

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