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This month's devotional exegesis has been and is a work in progress on James 4:6-10.Two verbs pop out at me after syntactically analyzing the passage: "he will exalt", and "humble yourselves." Two greek words, that is.
Bauer defines the particular usages of those words as follows:
"humble yourselves": to cause to be or become humble in attitude.
"He will exalt" (you): to cause enhancement in honor, fame, position, power or fortune. This is reminiscent and indeed the same verb used in the Septuagint when Moses "lifted up" the golden snake that people could look at and be healed. John 3:14-15 says "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life."
The significance I found intriguing above all this, however, is in the particular verb tense of "humble yourselves." Any normal person might use a present tense, or imperfect - which would suggest a presently active ongoing humbling of oneself. However, the usage here is Aorist, which to clarify, has a broad range of translational ability. Generally, the rule of thumb is that it refers to a completed action that happened at some point in the past.
Second, which baffles me equally, is that it is a passive, whereas I would have expected a middle. Middle voice means that it is reflexive - I would be the one doing the humbling to myself, in a similiar way as I put on my own shoes on my own feet. Passive, however, indicates that the humbling is done to me. I wouldn't stake a whole lot more significance than that on this, as I'm not sure how much much more grammatical ground it has, but it is indeed significant that the humbling is done to us.
Thirdly, it is an imperative. It is a command. We, as believers, are commanded for humbling of ourselves (in the presence of the Lord as the verse says) to happen to ourselves. We are commanded to be the recipient of humbleness.
It is in light of all this that the verse finishes with "and he will exalt you." Thus, humility comes before exaltation, and it is the Lord who does the exalting, not us.
