I said, “I will watch my ways, so that I don’t sin with my tongue. I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked is before me.”
⛓ Read Psalm 39 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion2
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
'I will guard my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle.' James's image of bridling the tongue as the mark of true religion draws directly on the psalmist's resolve to muzzle his speech.
High confidenceThe image of bridling the mouth/body is voiced in the Psalter: 'I will guard my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue; I will bridle my mouth.' James reuses the same controlling-the-tongue metaphor that the psalm applies to speech, transferring it to the bit-and-bridle figure.
High confidence