The point is easy to illustrate. “Doth the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter?” James was familiar with the brackish waters of parts of Palestine. The water of the Dead Sea is really bitter, though fed by the snows of Hermon and the sweet springs of the Jordan valley. The waters of Marah were bitter (Ex. 15:23), and one may recall “the water of bitterness that causeth the curse” (Num. 5:18, 23). See also Revelation 8:11 for the waters that were made bitter. Pliny (N. H. ii. 103) tells a fable of a fountain of the sun that “was sweet and cold at noon and bitter and hot at midnight” (Mayor). It is possible to sweeten water, as we see in the great filtering plants in our modern cities. And sweet water can become bitter. But water is not sweet and bitter at the same time from the same fountain. You have sweet water on Hermon and salt water in the Dead Sea (also called the Salt Sea), but not both in the same place. The Vine and the Fig Tree (3:12) James has not only a new image here but also a new point of view (Hort). He has, in verses 9-11, shown the inconsistency of two kinds of speech from the same tongue. Now he goes deeper to the heart behind the utterance. The comparison is here made between the heart and its utterance (tongue). The grape and the fig are the commonest fruits in Palestine. “Each tree is known by its own fruit” (Luke 6:44). Yes, and Jesus had just said (6:43): “For there is no good tree that bringeth forth corrupt fruit; nor again a corrupt tree that bringeth forth good fruit.” It is not uncommon to find the point made somewhat as James has it. So Epictetus (Diss. ii. 20) says: “How can a vine grow, not vinewise, but olivewise, or an olive, on the other hand, not olivewise, but vinewise?”[80] And Jesus says: “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt” (Matt. 12:33). Once more hear Jesus: “Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” (Matt. 7:16). It is the appeal to life.