James 5:14-15 asthenéō vs kamno

[Cincinnati]

James uses a different word for the sick person in v14 than in v15. Asthenéō occurs more frequently in the New Testament than kamno. I’m trying to ascertain why James chose a different word for the same sick person. Can anyone shed light on this? What’s the difference in the meaning of those two words?

[Jason Hare]

James uses a different word for the sick person in v14 than in v15. Asthenéō occurs more frequently in the New Testament than kamno. I’m trying to ascertain why James chose a different word for the same sick person. Can anyone shed light on this? What’s the difference in the meaning of those two words?

ἆρ᾿ ὄνομα ἔχεις, ὦ ξένε; (Got a name, partner?) You might sign your posts just so that we can respond to someone rather to “hey you” or “Σινσινάτι,” which isn’t fun to write in Greek and doesn’t have an ancient form.

Honestly, the word κάμνειν appears only twice in the NT corpus (at Hebrews 12:3 and at James 5:15), whereas ἀσθενεῖν (and, especially, the adjective form ἀσθενής) appears far more. I only learned the latter when studying Greek early on, but I learned the former from my study of Attic (mostly in the phrase μάλα κάμνω in the Athenaze textbook).

The meanings certainly overlap, and it isn’t surprising to see someone referred to as ἀσθενεῖ in one verse (James 5:14) only to see him called κάμνοντα in the next verse (James 5:15). That is the nature of synonyms, just as we see the interplay between ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν in the final chapter of the Gospel of John. Too much should not be made of the use of synonyms. Often it is just for variety in expression.

[dougknighton]

The meanings certainly overlap, and it isn’t surprising to see someone referred to as ἀσθενεῖ in one verse (James 5:14) only to see him called κάμνοντα in the next verse (James 5:15). That is the nature of synonyms, just as we see the interplay between ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν in the final chapter of the Gospel of John. Too much should not be made of the use of synonyms. Often it is just for variety in expression.

While there is some overlap in the meaning of these words, there is also a larger range of meaning that could apply in this context so that we could construe the author as presenting a nuanced progression of thought, instead of merely repeating himself in other words. ἀσθενέω and its cognates indicate ‘to be weak.’ And κάμνω indicates ‘to be weary.’ Besides being used to indicate bodily weakness (illness), the ἀσθενέω family is frequently used to indicate being weak in faith: e.g., Romans 4:19 καὶ μὴ ἀσθενήσας τῇ πίστει; 14:1 & 2 Τὸν δὲ ἀσθενοῦντα τῇ πίστει προσλαμβάνεσθε …; cf. also Mark 14:38 τὸ μὲν πνεῦμα πρόθυμον ἡ δὲ σὰρξ ἀσθενής; 1 Thessalonians 5:14 αραμυθεῖσθε τοὺς ὀλιγοψύχους, ἀντέχεσθε τῶν ἀσθενῶν, μακροθυμεῖτε πρὸς πάντας; Romans 6:19 Ἀνθρώπινον λέγω διὰ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τῆς σαρκὸς ὑμῶν. The other use of κάμνω occurs in Hebrews 12:3 where it indicates people who are being exhorted not to give up their faith because they are weary.

As I see it (and I recognize that now I'm addressing exegetical rather than language concerns), James’ primary goal in his letter is to encourage those encountering trials of various kinds not to give up the fight. The rest of this last section of the letter (beginning in verse 8) concludes this appeal by including the readers in the company of the OT prophets, including Job and Elijah, who endured suffering (κακοπάθεια and κακοπαθέω in the active sense). So it makes sense to me to gloss the exhortation that begins in 5:14 as “Is any among you [spiritually] weak? Let him call the elders of the church and let them pray over him ... and the prayer of faith [prayed by people who are strong in their faith] will save the one who is weary and the Lord will raise him up ... .” By understanding the two terms this way, it seems that James is not just using a pair of synonyms; he is painting a more detailed picture for his readers so they can more readily identify themselves as those who need someone else to pray on their behalf and possibly “turn a sinner from the error of his way.”

Doug Knighton