1 Peter 3:1-7

1 Peter 3:1-7

Analysis:—Exhortations addressed to married people, enjoining duties affecting their mutual relations, from a Christian point of view

1     Likewise, ye wives,1 be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if2 any obey not the word,3 they also may without the word4 be won by the conversation of the wives; 2, 3While they behold5 your chaste conversation coupled with fear.6 Whose7 adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair,8 and of wearing of gold,9 or 4of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible,10 even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit,11 which is in the sight of God of great price. 5For after this manner in the old time12 the holy women also, who trusted13 in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their 6own husbands: Even14 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are,15 as long as16 ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.17187Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1 Peter 3:1. Likewise, wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.—The Apostle now passes on to conjugal duty, intending to make ὁμοίως convey the idea that the obedience of wives to their husbands is as sacred an obligation as that of servants to their masters. What may be the reason of his not noticing the duties of believing masters to their servants, to which Paul, in Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 3:25, has special reference? It is probably to be found in the circumstance that in the Churches to which he wrote this Epistle were only few believing masters, or none that had slaves. Estius sees in this circumstance an additional reason that this Epistle was addressed to the Jews of the dispersion, among whom were many slaves, but few masters.—αἱ γυναῖκες, address as in 1Pe 2:18; 1 Peter 3:7; Ephesians 5:22; Ephesians 5:25.—ὑποτασσόμεναι, Participle, as ch 1 Peter 2:18, governed by the principle, 1 Peter 2:17, “Fear God,” etc., cf. Colossians 3:18; Genesis 3:16.

To your own husbands.—Cf. 1 Corinthians 14:35; 1 Corinthians 7:2; Ephesians 5:21; Ephesians 5:25; Ephesians 5:28; Ephesians 5:33. ἴδος is not without emphasis; it adverts to an antithesis; it is to remind the wives, as Calvin rightly observes, of the duty of chastity, and warn them of all suspicious obedience to strange men. Believing wives married to unbelieving or pagan husbands might, even apart from the then prevalent demoralization of the conjugal estate, be tempted to seek close intercourse with enlightened men, strong in faith, and to be led by them; such a course might easily shake the confidence of the conjugal relation; hence the Apostle’s delicate caution. The Apostle takes it for granted that the greater number of husbands of believing wives are also believers in the publicly preached word; but even if (καὶ εἴ) this should not be the case, the wives must persevere in self-sacrificing, self-denying obedience, and thus seek to win their husbands, not by talking and arguing, but by the powerful preaching of a quiet conversation.—ἄνευ λόγου, without open preaching and peculiar arts of speech on the part of the wives.—διὰ τῆς , by means of their behaviour and obedience; this is their principal task.—κερδηθήσωνται, cf. 1 Corinthians 9:19; 1 Corinthians 9:22; 1 Corinthians 7:17. To gain for Christ, for the Gospel, for the kingdom of heaven, for themselves—σώζειν. Calov remarks that the expression alludes to the great value of the soul, and to the holy joy in their conversion. The greatest gain is that of the converted themselves, Philippians 3:8. [Leighton observes: “A soul converted is gained to itself, gained to the pastor, or friend, or wife, or husband who sought it, and gained to Jesus Christ: added to His treasury, who thought not His own precious blood too dear to lay out for this gain.”—M.]—Grotius cites the language of the heathen orator Libanius, which shows how primitive Christian wives followed these exhortations. He exclaims: “What wives have these Christians!”

1 Peter 3:2. When they behold your conversation, chaste in fear.—ἐποπτεύσαντες, cf. 1 Peter 2:12, an insight flowing from close observation.—τὴν ἐν φόβῳ ἁγνήν.—The allusion is probably (with reference to 1 Peter 2:17) to the fear of God, not to the fear of the husband, as in Ephesians 5:33.—ἁγνήν not=chaste in its restricted sense, but because of its close connection with φόβῳ and with the sequel, denotes chaste in a wider sense,=pure, holy, cf. James 3:17.—So Calov, not only with reference to conjugal fidelity and cleanness of the body.

1 Peter 3:3. Your adornment let it not be the outward (adornment) of braiding the hair, and putting round golden ornaments, or of putting on of dresses.—This verse is closely connected with the foregoing. This holy conversation in the fear of God is described first negatively: “In contrast with the means used by wordly-minded women to attach their husbands, the Apostle specifies the means whereby a Christian wife may hope to win even a resisting husband.”—ὦν ἔστω sc. ὁ κόσμος, cf. 1 Timothy 2:9.—The Genitives are those of nearer definition, and describe the act of adorning, not the objects of adornment.—ἐμπλοκή, the artificial braiding of hair; female vanity is inexhaustible in the invention of new styles and fashions. Calov cites a passage from Jerome’s Epistle to Demetrius, in which he adverts to this subject, and quotes Cyprian’s sharp censure of women on this score. The views, which even the more serious heathen held concerning such trifles, have been collected by Steiger from Plato, Sophocles and Plutarch.—ἢ ἐνδύσεωε ἱματίων.—Peter, of course, adverts simply to the costliness of dresses. [But does not ἐνδύσεως allude rather to putting them on in an unbecoming and indecent manner? Alford says that ‘within the limits of propriety and decorum, the common usage is the rule.’ True, but where are those limits? Are they observed in the ‘full dress’ of the best society of either hemisphere? Is ‘full dress’ not a misnomer, and ought not our Christian matrons to use their influence in having full dress made more dress?—M.] Calov:—“Peter forbids not any and every adornment, but a modest and seemly adorning of the body, conformably to their several stations, is allowed,” cf. 1 Corinthians 12:23.

1 Peter 3:4. But let it be the hidden man of the heart—price.—κρυπτὸς ἄνθρωπος ἐσω , Romans 7:22; 2 Corinthians 4:16; Ephesians 3:16. This hidden man is not, as Steiger holds, = καρφία, but that which the Spirit of God forms and develops in the secret workshop of the heart, namely, the new way of thinking, feeling and willing, the new spiritual life, the new nature, the inmost kernel of man’s religion, in as far as he has within him something flowing from the life of Jesus. [In other words the inner man is the Christian, the regenerated, daily-renewed man, adorned with the beauty of holiness with his (heart) affections centred in God.—M.].—ἐν τῷ . Contrasted with those perishable, worthless trifles, 1 Peter 3:3. A neuter adjective is used for an abstract noun (v. Winer, p. 266). Beza: = sinceritas, incorruptio. πραΰς= עָנִי mild, gentle, meek, Matthew 21:5; 1 Corinthians 13:4, etc.; Ephesians 4:2; Colossians 3:12; Matthew 11:29; James 1:20; James 3:13; 1 Corinthians 4:21; Galatians 6:1; 2 Timothy 2:24. The contrary of self-will, pride, presumption, obstinacy, hardness, anger and envy.—ἡσυχίου, calm, tranquil, without passionate excitement. Bengel:—mansuetus, qui non turbat, tranquillus, qui turbas aliorum placide fert.—πνεύματος relates not to the Holy Spirit, but to the spiritual life, infused into believers by the Holy Ghost.—ὅ ἐστιν may be connected either with πνεύματος or with ἀφθάρτῳ. Bengel connects it with the latter, as being the principal subject, [but “the meek and quiet spirit” seems to be the main thing desired.—M.].—πολυτελής πολύτιμος 1 Peter 1:19.—[cf. Mark 14:3; 1 Timothy 2:9; Proverbs 1:13.—M.].—ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ, “coram Deo, qui interna, non externa, spectat, cui placere curant pii.” Bengel.

1 Peter 3:5. For after this manner formerly also the holy women, who hoped in God, adorned themselves, etc.—οὔτω refers to what immediately precedes. The proof of it [the meek and quiet spirit.—M.] is their obedience.—ἄγιαι γυναῖκες, Luke 1:70; Acts 3:21; Ephesians 3:5; 2 Peter 1:21; those women of blessed memory and singled out in the history of salvation; their personality is defined by their hope in God. If God is all in all in a man’s heart, it has renounced the idol ‘vanity’ and expelled passionate excitement, cf. 1 Timothy 5:5. Tertullian:—“Be clothed with the silk of honesty, the byssus of holiness and the purple of chastity: thus adorned, God will be your friend.” Bengel:—“vera sanctitas, spes in Deum: est hoc epitheton pars subjecti.”

1 Peter 3:6. As Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord.—This obedience is illustrated by the example of Sarah, whom the Rabbis also were wont to set up as a pattern. She showed her obedience first in leaving with her husband the land of her nativity in reliance upon the promises of God, secondly in regarding Abraham as her Lord and calling him so, Genesis 18:12, notwithstanding they were both descended from a common earthly parent, Genesis 20:12.—ὑπήκουεν denotes the continuance of her obedience, which was rewarded by Abraham in his turn obeying her, Genesis 16:2; Genesis 21:12.—Grotius remarks that when the corruption of morals had become general at Rome, wives were called mistresses [of course in a good sense.—M.]

Of whom ye have become children.—ἦς ἐγενήθητε τέκνα. This is one of the Apostle’s frequent allusions to Isaiah; cf. Isaiah 51:1-2. “Look upon the rock whence ye are hewn (Abraham) and to the hole of the pit (or well) whence ye are digged (Sarah).” Sarah is here mentioned as the first mother of the people of Israel.—It is not ἐστὲ but ἐλενήθητε, because the expression ‘children of Sarah’ has not only a carnal but also a spiritual import. Steiger argues from this passage that the Apostle was addressing Gentile Christians as he would hardly have said to Jewesses, “ye have become Sarah’s children” without adding some such explanation as this; “You have now become Sarah’s children indeed or after a spiritual manner;“ but the opposite conclusion seems more in place. Did our Lord make such a qualification when He said to Zaccheus, the Jewish publican-in-chief, “He also is a son of Abraham”? Luke 19:9. Did He do it in the case of the infirm woman of whom He said that she was a daughter of Abraham? Luke 13:16; John 8:39. Even John the Baptist destroyed the delusion that those are Abraham’s children who are descended from him after the flesh, Matthew 3:9. Believing Jewesses would have no difficulty in understanding what was meant, while to Christian Gentile women it would hardly have been equally intelligible and applicable. Weiss remarks, “To be called the daughters of Sarah was no particular distinction conferred upon Gentile women, but to be designated as the children of their venerated ancestress and that in the highest sense [i. e., of similarity of disposition), was the loftiest praise bestowed upon Jewesses.” This conclusion is corroborated by the quotation from Isaiah 51:0

If ye do good and are not afraid of any sadden fear.—ἀγαθοποιοῦσαι, not in that - - - - or because- - - -, or if - - - -, but: as those who - - - - [so German.—M.]. You evidence your relationship to Sarah by doing good. Grotius recalls the amiable reception which Sarah accorded to the stranger guests and the readiness with which she obeyed Abraham on that occasion, Genesis 18:6; and in connection with the sequel refers to Genesis 20:0. But the sense is probably more general and the reference is rather to zeal in well-doing, as in 1 Peter 2:15; 1 Peter 2:20.—μὴ φοβούμεναι may be a quotation from Proverbs 3:25 : “οὐ μὴ φοβηθήσῃ πτόησιν ἐπελθοῦσαν οὐδὲ ὁρμὰς .—πτόησις, terror caused by something external. As those who are so full of trust in God, that they are not tenderly moved by any evil or by menaces similar to those Sarah had to pass through at the court of Pharaoh and Abimelech, cf. Hebrews 11:11. The sentence contains also an exhortation to strive more and more for the courage and manly fortitude of their ancestress, cf. 1 Peter 3:14. [Estius says on πτόησιν: quod dum facitis, non est quod metuatis quidquam mali: velut, ne maritis vestris displiceatis, si minus corruptæ inceditis: aut ne serviliter vos tractent, si faciles ad obsequium vos præbeatis; ut solet sexus muliebris vanis pavoribus esse obnoxius. Sed et si forte nacti estis maritos iniquiores, silentio potius ac patientia, quam multis verbis studete eorum animos lenire.“ cf. Luke 21:9; Luke 24:37.—M.]

1 Peter 3:7. Ye husbands, in like manner, dwelling according to knowledge with the feminine, as with the weaker vessel.—Ὁμοίως refers back to 1 Peter 2:17 as in 1 Peter 3:1. Weiss wrongly maintains that the exhortation to Christian husbands is out of place in this connection because it does not coincide with the point of view indicated at 1 Peter 2:11-12. But why should it not coincide, if the Apostle addresses in turn the different conditions and classes of Christians, and shows to each how they should walk worthily among the Gentiles, honour all men and fear God? It would rather have been a grave omission, had he not reminded husbands of their duties; the exhortation was indeed peculiarly needed in order to avoid all misunderstanding and abuse of the obedience of women.—His first precept to husbands relates to συνοικεῖν=to dwell together, to have intercourse in general and then, as some of the ancients understand the word, with particular reference to conjugal intercourse. It should take place κατὰ γνῶσιν, according to knowledge—derived from reason and from the Gospel in respect of their peculiar relations and wants.—ὡς should be joined to συνοικοῦντες; otherwise συνοικεῖν would have no object, ἀπονέμοντες would have two ὡς.—σκεῦος is widely used of vessels, clothes and things in general, Deuteronomy 22:5; Luke 17:31; then of men with reference to their dependence and frailty and their destination for some particular purpose. We are like vessels in the potter’s hand, Jeremiah 18:6; Isaiah 29:16; Isaiah 45:9; Isaiah 64:8. He can break or preserve, reject or prefer them to honour, Jeremiah 19:11; Jeremiah 22:28; Jeremiah 48:38; Hosea 8:6; Psalms 2:9; Revelation 2:27; Romans 9:21-22; 2 Timothy 2:20. In particular, the body is called the vessel containing the soul, 1 Thessalonians 4:4-5. Here σκεῦος applies equally to husband and wife as is evident from the comparative ἀσθενεστέρῳ; it designates both as the handiwork of God, organized and designed for each other. The husband should be particularly moved to a considerate, loving and careful treatment of his wife by the thought:—“God himself has thus appointed and made the nature of woman.”—ἀσθενεστέρῳ. Calov:—“Women are weak in point of sex, the constitution of their body, mind and judgment, art, aptitude and wisdom in the conduct of affairs.” [Rather a sweeping judgment of woman, and as ungenerous as untrue. Woman is physically man’s inferior, but it is doubtful whether she is so mentally. This is not in the writer’s opinion a question of superiority or inferiority, but one of diversity. There are mental qualities in which woman excels man and others in which he excels her. They seem to be well balanced under equal advantages afforded to each. His experience in schools constrains him to admit that up to the age of sixteen, girls are decidedly brighter and better students than boys. If they do not progress after that period in an equal ratio, the fault belongs to vicious social habits and to the superficial and fanciful ideas as to the maximum attainments of females, but not to the natural endowment of their mind. It came forth from the Creator’s hand perfect after its kind, everyway adapted to man’s mind and the two equally and healthily developed, working together in one direction, supply each other’s defects and strengthen each other’s powers. United, this natural diversity blends in harmony. An excellent discussion of this subject maybe found in Adolphe Monod’s “La Femme,” Paris. 1860.—M.] Luther:—“Woman is weaker in body, more timid and less courageous than man, hence your treatment of her should be accordingly.” But as woman’s weakness is relative, man also being a weak, frail vessel, he, mindful of his own weakness, ought the more readily to sympathize with the weaker, τῷ γυναικείῳ σκεύει.

Giving honour as to those who are also fellow-inheritors of the grace of life, in order that your prayers be not hindered.—The second precept is: ἀπονέμοντες τιμήν: to accord τὸ νόμμον, what is due; τίμήν with reference to 1 Peter 2:17. The honour due to, them, honourable treatment which implies also care for their bodily wants.—The reason of this esteem: they also are fellow-heirs of the grace of life; this is a higher reason than the former, flowing from the natural relation of the sexes. Woman becomes man’s equal in virtue of the gift of the grace of life accorded to and hoped for by both.—συγκληρονόμοις. Griesbach and others read συγκληρονόμοι, masculine; this reading gives the same sense, but the former is preferable, for they are destined with other believers to inherit the kingdom of heaven, καί denotes the participation, cf. 1 Peter 1:4; 1Pe 1:10; 1 Peter 1:13; Romans 8:17; Ephesians 3:6; Hebrews 11:9. The hypothesis is that both husband and wife are believers, or if either part be as yet unbelieving, it may become believing.—χάριτος ζωῆς; χἄρις; = χάρισμα, the gracious gift of life, of eternal life beginning here and consummated above, ci. Galatians 3:28. Others explain: grace communicating life, or life given out of grace, i. e., flowing from it.—εἰς τὸ μὴ ἐκκόπτεσθαι. (Griesbach and others read ἐγκόπτεσθαι = עָקַר to be interrupted, lamed). This expression is used of the pruning, cutting down and tearing up of trees, hence to cut off [to cut off occasion.—M.], to hinder, render ineffectual. Common and private prayer, its power and effect are hindered, where such esteem is wanting, for prayer, in order to be effectual, exacts a reconciled mind, Matthew 5:23; Matthew 6:14; 1 Timothy 2:8; 1 John 3:21. [“Cum vir et uxor non sunt bene Concordes, minus possunt oratione vacare et eorum orationes sunt minus exaudibiles.” Lyra.—M.]. Roos: “There is no room for prayer that may be answered where the husband despises and tyrannizes his wife and where a marriage is marred by discord.” Grotius: “Harsh treatment leads to insult and strife, which hinder the power and efficacy of prayer.” Matthew 18:19; Sir 25:1. Wiesinger: “The consciousness of having sinned against the hope of salvation forces itself as an obstruction between God and him who prays, and thus bars the way of prayer.”

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The conjugal state is not a human-Divine κτίσις, like the secular rule, 1 Peter 2:13, but instituted by God Himself, Genesis 2:18; Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5; it is a relation of life adapted even to the royal priesthood, to the holy people of God’s possession, in which they are to show forth the praises (virtues) of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvellous light, 1 Peter 2:9. On the other hand, we ought not to deny the existence of a pure celibacy; so Thiersch.

2. Although the necessity of the wife obeying the husband is recognized outside of Christianity, the equality of husband and wife, in virtue of Divine appointment and grace, were altogether unknown; hence there is every where (i. e., outside of Christendom) a great degradation of the female sex. “Christianity,” observes Steiger, “is equi-distant from the moral degradation of the female sex, which the Mohammedans and Rabbis would almost deprive of immortality, and from the secular exaltation and deification, which, especially since the middle ages, has been defended as Christian by those who confounded Germanism with Christianity, while it secured to woman anything but happiness.

3. Peter, defining prayer as the centre and support of conjugal life, takes as lofty a conception of the matrimonial covenant as Paul, although the Pauline idea that the marriage of Christians is a figure of the relation of Christ to His Church does not occur in Peter (cf. Ephesians 5:0).

4. True love in the conjugal state depends upon and is rooted in mutual esteem; where this is wanting, the conjugal state is shaken at its very foundation; but it is not only esteem of the personal qualities and excellencies of either part, but also, and chiefly, the appreciation flowing from the thought: Thy partner, like thyself, is a child of God, purchased with the same precious blood of Christ, and called, like thyself, to be an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

There must be some special reason why wives are reminded of their duties before the husbands, and charged with obedience as their principal and foremost task.—Christian wives need not ask, which husbands must we obey? The direction is unmistakable: your own husbands; consequently, also unbelieving, harsh, and wayward husbands.—Noble art!—to be silent with the mouth, and to speak in the life. Augustine tells of Monica, his mother, that she spoke of Christ to her husband by her feminine virtues, and that, after having borne his violence without a murmur or complaint, she gained him at the close of his life to Christ, without deploring in the believer what she had suffered at his hands as an unbeliever.

1 Peter 3:2. There is often a veil before the eyes of a hard husband; doubt not that it can be removed, so that he may admiringly look upon the mystery of a profoundly-Christian mind, and with melted heart fall down at the feet of Jesus.—Fondness of rule and dress is a bad propensity, which is sometimes found even in Christian wives.—The proud daughters of Eve may see themselves reflected, as in a mirror, in Isaiah iii.—What is the heavenly bridal array of the believing daughters of Sarah?—Where hope in God is firmly established, no evil can terrify us.—It is the greatest calamity of wedded life to see prayer hindered and room given to Asmodeus [the devil matrimonial or disturber of married life.—M.].—How do husband and wife walk in the light of Divine truth?—It is the greatest folly if husbands act the part of tyrants to their wives.

Starke:—Although wives should mainly fear God that they may shun evil and do good, yet ought they to fear their husbands also, that is, not only to give them no cause for suspicion and jealousy by unseemly speech, behaviour or works, Proverbs 7:10, but they should also make it their study to please them.—Holy women, influenced by the Holy Spirit, will observe the proper medium in dress, cf. Est. ii: 16; Genesis 24:22; Romans 12:2.—Are you astonished to see persons covered with gold and pearls, with jewels and similar vanities? Rest assured that a believing soul, resplendent in virtues, is far more glorious and pleasant to God and His angels, Psalms 45:14-15.—The most respectable dress! Is it to be this? You say, it does not suit me, it is old, and makes no show. Well, that depends upon whom you want to please: God?—if so, it should be glorious, but inward; or the devil, the prince of this world?—then you need not care for Peter or Christ, dress after your own fashion, Proverbs 7:10.—As the Old and the New Testaments have only one Messiah, one faith, one hope and one charity, so they have only one inward soul-ornament, Acts 15:11; Isaiah 61:10.—Wives may lessen or increase the cares of their husbands, Proverbs 31:12.—If a husband and wife do not live after God’s ordinance, their prayers and worship are utter vanity and loss, 1 Timothy 2:8.

[Leighton:

1 Peter 3:1. “The common spring of all mutual duties on both sides is supposed to be love: that peculiar conjugal love that makes them one, will infuse such sweetness into the authority of the husband and obedience of the wife, as will make their lives harmonious, like the sound of a well-tuned instrument; whereas without that, having such an universal interest in all their affairs, they cannot escape frequent contests and discords, which is a sound more unpleasant than the jarring of untuned strings to an exact ear.”—M.]

[Publius Syrus:—Casta ad virum matrona parendo imperat. The submissive wife rules by obedience.—M.]

[Jay:

1 Peter 3:2. Chaste conversation implies “diffidence, the blushings of reserve, the tremulous retiring of modesty, the sensation that comes from the union of innocence and danger, the prudence which keeps far from the limits of permission, the instinctive vigilance which discerns danger afar off, the caution which never allows the enemy to approach near enough even to reconnoitre.”—M.]

[Leighton:—With fear.—“Fearing the least stain of chastity, or the very least appearance of any thing not suiting with it. It is delicate, timorous grace, afraid of the least air, or shadow of any thing that hath but a resemblance of wronging it, in carriage, or speech, or apparel, as follows in the 3d and 4th verses.”—M.]

[Plutarch:

1 Peter 3:3. Conjug. Præcep. c. 26. “An ornament, as Crates said, is that which adorns. The proper ornament of a woman is that which becomes her best. This is neither gold, nor pearls, nor scarlet, but those things which are an evident proof of gravity, regularity and modesty.” The wife of Phocion, a celebrated Athenian general, receiving a visit from a lady who was elegantly adorned with gold and jewels, and her hair with pearls, took occasion to call the attention of her guest to the elegance and costliness of her dress; “My ornament,” said the wife of Phocion, “is my husband, now for the twentieth year general of the Athenians.” Plutarch in Vit. Phoc.—Plato De Repub.:—“Behaviour and not gold is the ornament of a woman. To courtesans, these things, jewels and ornaments, are advantageous to their catching more admirers; but for a woman who wishes to enjoy the favour of one man, good behaviour is the proper ornament, and not dresses. And you should have the blush upon your countenance, which is the sign of modesty, instead of paint; and worth and sobriety, instead of gold and emeralds.”

The sense of antiquity on this subject was very strong. Clemens Alex. Pædag. Lib. 3, cap. 4, says: “The women that wear gold, plait their hair, paint their faces, have not the image of God in the inward man, but in lieu of it, a fornicating and adulterous soul.” The Apostolical Constitutions, Lib. 1, cap. 8, 8, forbid women to wear exquisite garments fitted to deceive, or gold rings upon their fingers, because all these things are signs of whoredom. Jamblichus in Vita Pythag., Lib. 1, cap. 31, p. 165, maintains “that no free women wore gold, but whores only.”—An inquiry into the sources from which false hair, now so generally worn by women, is procured, might possibly abolish this vicious and unchristian fashion.—M.]

[Leighton:

1 Peter 3:3-4. “The soul fallen from God hath lost its true worth and beauty, and therefore it basely descends to these mean things, to serve and dress the body, and take share with it of its unworthy borrowed ornaments, while it has lost and forgotten God, and seeks not after Him, knows not that He alone is the beauty and ornament of the soul, Jeremiah 2:32, and His Spirit and the grace of it, its rich attire, here particularly specified in one excellent grace; and it holds true in the rest.”—M.]

[Philip Henry:—“Besides this” (secret prayer) “he and his wife constantly prayed together morning and evening, and never, if they were together at home or abroad, was it intermitted; and, from his own experience of the benefit of this practice, he would take all opportunities to recommend it to those in that relation, as conducing very much to the comfort of it, and their furtherance in that which he would often say is the great duty of yoke-fellows, and that is ‘to do all they can to help one another to heaven.’ He would say that this duty of husbands and wives praying together is intimated in that of the Apostle, 1 Peter 3:7, where they are exhorted to live as heirs of the grace of life, that their prayers (especially their prayers together) be not hindered; that nothing may be done to hinder them from praying together, nor to hinder them in it, nor to spoil the success of their prayers. This sanctifies the relation, and fetches in a blessing on it, makes the comforts of it more sweet, and the cares and crosses of it more easy, and is an excellent means of preserving and increasing love in the relation. Many to whom he had recommended the practice of this duty have blessed God for him, and for his advice concerning it.”—An Account of the Life and Death of Mr. Philip Henry, by his Son, p. 58, Lond., 1712, quoted by Brown.—M.]

[Gataker (quoted by Brown):—“Let such married persons as God hath blessed in this kind” (by their being equally yoked in the best sense) “learn what cause they have to be thankful to God, either for other. Let the jars and discord that they see between other men and women mismatched, and the cross and cursed carriage of them, either toward other, together with the manifold annoyances and grievous mischiefs and inconveniences that ensue ordinarily thereupon, be a means to put them in mind of God’s great mercy and goodness toward them, and to make them more thankful to Him for the same. And since they have received either other from God, let them therein show their thankfulness to God by endeavouring to bring either other nearer unto God, by helping either other forward in the good ways of God. Do either with other as Anna did with her son Samuel: as she had him of God, so she bestowed him on God again: return each other again to God, and labour to return them better than they received them. The better they shall make each other, and the nearer they shall bring each other to God, the more good, through God’s goodness, shall they have either of other. The more man and wife profit in the fear of God, the more comfortably and contentedly shall they live together, the better shall it be for them both.” From “A Good Wife Indeed.” The same author has also sermons entitled, “A Good Wife, God’s Gift”, “Marriage Prayer”, and “Marriage Duties”, which are well worth consulting.—Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women, in 2 vols., London, 1794 (rare) are also very valuable.—M.]

[Bp. Jeremy Taylor:—(Marriage Ring): “Marriage was ordained by God, instituted in paradise; the relief of a natural necessity, and the first blessing from the Lord. Marriage is a school and exercise of virtue. Here is the proper scene of piety and patience, of the duty of parents and the charity of relatives; here kindness is spread abroad, and love is united and made firm, as a centre. Marriage is the nursery of heaven, fills up the numbers of the elect, and hath in it the labours of love and the delicacies of friendship, the blessing of society and the union of hands and hearts. Marriage is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities, and churches, and heaven itself. Like the useful bee, marriage builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every flower, and labours, and unites into societies and republics, and sends out colonies, and feeds the world with delicacies, and obeys their king, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest of mankind, and is that state of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world.”—M.]

Footnotes:

1 Peter 3:1; 1 Peter 3:1. [Cod., A. B. and Sinait. omit αἱ. ὁμοίως goes back to 1 Peter 2:13—M.]

1 Peter 3:1; 1 Peter 3:1. [καὶ εἴ, even if; the force of καὶ εἴ is, “put the worst case, even if your husbands are positively disobedient to the word, your duty is clear.”—M.]

1 Peter 3:1; 1 Peter 3:1. [κερδηθήσονται; another reading is κερδηθήσωνται. Rec Cod. Sin.—On ἵνα with a Fut. Indic. see Winer, 6th ed. p. 258, and cf. Revelation 22:14; translate “that they shall be won.”—M.]

1 Peter 3:1; 1 Peter 3:1. [ἄνευ λόγου, without word. Translate the whole verse: “Likewise, wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that even if any obey not the word, they shall be won without word by means of the conversation of the wives.”—M.]

1 Peter 3:2; 1 Peter 3:2. [ἐποπτεύσαντες=having beheld, when they behold.—M.]

1 Peter 3:2; 1 Peter 3:2. [The German renders “your conversation chaste in fear.”—M.]

1 Peter 3:3; 1 Peter 3:3. [ὦν=of whom, i.e., your adornment.—M.]

1 Peter 3:3; 1 Peter 3:3. [ἐμπλοκῆς τριχῶν=braiding of hair, cf. 1 Timothy 2:9.—M.]

1 Peter 3:3; 1 Peter 3:3. [περιθέσεως=putting round (the head, the arm, the ankle or the finger). Translate the verse: “Your adornment let it be not the outward of braiding of hair, and putting round golden ornaments, or of putting on of dresses.”—M.]

1 Peter 3:4; 1 Peter 3:4. [ἐν τῷ =in the incorruptible ornament of.—M.]

1 Peter 3:4; 1 Peter 3:4. [τοῦ πρᾳέος καὶ ἡσυχίου πνεύματος=the meek and quiet spirit, which, etc.—M.]

1 Peter 3:5; 1 Peter 3:5. [ποτὲ καὶ=formerly also.—M.]

1 Peter 3:5; 1 Peter 3:5. [ἐλπίζουσαι (Part, of Imperfect, according to Winer, 6th ed., p. 305)=who hoped.—M.]

1 Peter 3:6; 1 Peter 3:6. [No necessity for “even”; the Greek has simply ὡς.—M.]

1 Peter 3:6; 1 Peter 3:6. [ἧς ἐγενήθητε τέκνα=of whom ye have become children.—M.]

1 Peter 3:6; 1 Peter 3:6. [αγαθοποιοῦσαι states the condition on which they have become Sarah’s children; render, therefore, “if,” instead of “as long as.”—M.]

1 Peter 3:6; 1 Peter 3:6. [καὶ μὴ φοβοΰμεναι μηδεμίαν πτόησιν=and are not afraid of any sudden fear. πτόησιν=fear from without, some external cause of terror. See additional observations under “Exegetical and Critical.”—M.]

1 Peter 3:7; 1 Peter 3:7. [This verse needs entire recasting; the E. V. is involved. We translate, closely following the original: “Ye husbands, in like manner, (refers to πάντας τιμήσατε, 1 Peter 2:17) dwelling, according to knowledge with the feminine, as with the weaker vessel, giving honour as to those who are also fellow-inheritors of the grace of life, in order that your prayers be not hindered. So Alford. The Cod. Sin. reads συνομιλοῦντες, “companying with,” for συνοικοῦντες, and supplies ποικίλης, manifold before χάριτος.—M.]

1 Peter 3:8; 1 Peter 3:8. [It is better to retain in English the adjectival construction of the original, substituting being, in Italics. instead of be ye.—M.]