Verse 4
How to possess his vessel - Let every man use his wife for the purpose alone for which God created her, and instituted marriage. The word σκευος answers to the Hebrew כלי keli , which, though it signifies vessel in general, has several other meanings. That the rabbins frequently express wife by it, Schoettgen largely proves; and to me it appears very probable that the apostle uses it in that sense here. St. Peter calls the wife the weaker Vessel, 1 Peter 3:7 . Others think that the body is meant, which is the vessel in which the soul dwells. In this sense St. Paul uses it, 2 Corinthians 4:7 ; : We have this treasure in earthen Vessels; and in this sense it is used by both Greek and Roman authors. There is a third sense which interpreters have put on the word, which I forbear to name. The general sense is plain; purity and continency are most obviously intended, whether the word be understood as referring to the wife or the husband, as the following verse sufficiently proves.
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