1 Peter 3:6

3:1-7 The wife must discharge her duty to her own husband, though he obey not the word. We daily see how narrowly evil men watch the ways and lives of professors of religion. Putting on of apparel is not forbidden, but vanity and costliness in ornament. Religious people should take care that all their behaviour answers to their profession. But how few know the right measure and bounds of those two necessaries of life, food and raiment! Unless poverty is our carver, and cuts us short, there is scarcely any one who does not desire something beyond what is good for us. Far more are beholden to the lowliness of their state, than the lowliness of their mind; and many will not be so bounded, but lavish their time and money upon trifles. The apostle directs Christian females to put on something not corruptible, that beautifies the soul, even the graces of God's Holy Spirit. A true Christian's chief care lies in right ordering his own spirit. This will do more to fix the affections, and excite the esteem of a husband, than studied ornaments or fashionable apparel, attended by a froward and quarrelsome temper. Christians ought to do their duty to one another, from a willing mind, and in obedience to the command of God. Wives should be subject to their husbands, not from dread and amazement, but from desire to do well, and please God. The husband's duty to the wife implies giving due respect unto her, and maintaining her authority, protecting her, and placing trust in her.

They are heirs together of all the blessings of this life and that which is to come, and should live peaceably one with another. Prayer sweetens their converse. And it is not enough that they pray with the family, but husband and wife together by themselves, and with their children. Those who are acquainted with prayer, find such unspeakable sweetness in it, that they will not be hindered therein. That you may pray much, live holily; and that you may live holily, be much in prayer.

Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are {5} not afraid with any amazement. (5) Because women are by nature fearful, he gives them to understand that he requires of them that subjection, which is not wrung out from them either by force or fear.

1 Peter 3:6 . Ὡς , even as ) The particle used in bringing forward an example.— ὑλήκουσε , obeyed ) Genesis 18:6 .— κύριον , lord ) Genesis 18:12 , Septuagint, ὁ δὲ κύριός μου . Also 1 Samuel 1:8 : καὶ εἴπεν αὐτῇ , Ἐλκανᾶ ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς , Ἄννα · καὶ εἶπεν , ἰδοὺ ἐγώ κύριε · τί ἐστί σοι ὅτι κλαίεις ; And Elkanah her husband said to her, Hannah! and she said, Here am I, my lord: and he said, why weepest thou? — αὐτὸν , him ) although he was born of the same father: Genesis 20:12 .— ἐγενήθητε , ye have become ) he says; not ye are [as Engl. Vers.] He addresses those that believe even of the Gentiles.— τέκνα , daughters ) Daughters ought to imitate their mother, as the sons Abraham.— ἀγαθοποιῦσαι , doing well ) This also depends upon adorned [ 1 Peter 3:5 ; Engl. Vers, differently].— καὶ μὴ , and not ) Comp. 1 Peter 3:13 ; 1 Peter 3:16 ; 1 Peter 3:15 . You need fear no man in doing what is right.— φοβούμεναι , fearing ) Anger assails men, fear women.— πτόησιν , [fluttering] terror ) coming upon them from without; 1 Peter 3:14 , note. Proverbs 3:25 , Septuagint: Καὶ οὐ φοβηθήσῃ πτόησιν ἐπελθοῦσαν · And thou shalt not be afraid of sudden terror .

Even as Sara; after ger name was changed from Sarai, my lady, to Sarah, simply a lady or princess, because kings were to come of her, Genesis 17:15,16 : yet even then she obeyed Abraham; and this is spoken in commendation of her obedience. Calling him lord; not merely in compliment, but in reality, hereby acknowledging his authority and her own subjection. Whose daughters ye are; not only according to the flesh, but spiritually, according to the promise. Ye are; either ye are made or become, viz. by imitation of her faith and holiness, as well as ye are by kindred and succession; or, ye are declared and known to be, as the phrase is elsewhere used, John 15:8 . As long as ye do well; follow her in good works, 1 Timothy 2:10 . And are not afraid with any amazement; or, afraid of any amazement, any thing frightful, or which might terrify you, taking amazement for the object or cause or fear, as 1 Peter 3:14 Psalm 53:5 Proverbs 3:25 ; and the sense may be, either, so long as ye perform your duty with a resolute mind, and keep from that which is contrary to your faith; or, as long as you subject yourselves to your husbands willingly, cheerfuly, and without slavish fear of being losers by your obedience, and faring the worse for your patience and submission.

1 Peter 3:6 . ὡς … καλοῦσα . The only evidence that can be adduced from the O.T. narrative is Sarah laughed within herself and said … “but my lord is old ” ( Genesis 18:12 ). The phrase, if pressed, implies a nominal subjection as of a slave to her lord, but the context at any rate excludes any hope in God . Philo, who starts with the assumption that Sarah is Virtue, evades the difficulty; her laughter was the expression of her joy, she denied it for fear of usurping God’s prerogative of laughter ( de Abr. , ii. p. 30 M). The Rabbinic commentaries dwell upon the title accorded to Abraham and draw the same inference as Peter; but there are also traces of a tendency to exalt Sarah “the princess” as superior to her husband in the gift of prophecy, which St. Peter may wish to correct (as St. James corrects the exaggerated respect paid to Elijah, Jam 5:17 ).— ἧς … τέκνα . Christian women became children of Sarah who is Virtue or Wisdom: (Philo) just as men became children of Abraham. But the fact that they were Christians is still in the background; the essential point is that they must do the works traditionally ascribed to Sarah ( cf. Romans 4.; John 8.) and so justify their technical parentage, whether natural or acquired. Oec. compares Isaiah 41:2 , Sarah your mother .— ἀγαθοποιοῦσαι the present participle emphasises the need for continuance of the behaviour appropriate to children of Sarah.— μὴ … πτόησιν , from Proverbs 3:25 , LXX.

Peter regards Sarah’s falsehood (Gen. l.c. ) as the yielding to a sudden terror for which she was rebuked by God. Fearlessness then is part of the character which is set before them for imitation and it is the result of obedience to the voice of Wisdom. Rabbinic exegesis as sociates the ideas of ornament with the promised child and that of peace between husband and wife with the whole incident.

6. Sara—an example of faith. calling him lord—(Ge 18:12). ye are—Greek, "ye have become": "children" of Abraham and Sara by faith, whereas ye were Gentile aliens from the covenant. afraid with any amazement—Greek, "fluttering alarm," "consternation." Act well, and be not thrown into sudden panic, as weak females are apt to be, by any opposition from without. Bengel translates, "Not afraid OF any fluttering terror coming from without" (1Pe 3:13-16). So the Septuagint, Pr 3:25 uses the same Greek word, which Peter probably refers to. Anger assails men; fear, women. You need fear no man in doing what is right: not thrown into fluttering agitation by any sudden outbreak of temper on the part of your unbelieving husbands, while you do well.

6 . even as Sara obeyed Abraham ] The tense which St Peter uses would seem to imply a reference to some special instance of obedience, but, as the history of Genesis supplies no such instance in act, we are left to infer that he saw in her use of “my lord,” in speaking of her husband ( Genesis 18:12 ), a representative utterance that implied a sense of habitual subordination. It seems strange to refer to literature like that of the sixth satire of Juvenal in illustration of an Epistle of St Peter, but there can be no clearer evidence that the general corruption of the Empire had extended itself to the life of home, and that over and above the prevalence of adultery and divorce, the wives of Rome, and we may believe also, of the cities that followed in the wake of Rome, had well-nigh thrown aside all sense of the reverence which the Apostle looked on as essential to the holiness, and therefore the happiness, of married life. whose daughters ye are ] whose daughters ye became . If the words were addressed to women who were converts from heathenism, we might see in the words a suggestive parallel to those of St Paul, that Abraham was the father of “all them that believe though they be not circumcised” ( Romans 4:11 ), that “they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham” ( Galatians 3:7 ).

Taking this view there would be a special interest in the fact that St Peter, the married Apostle, told the female converts from among the Gentiles that they were as truly daughters of Sarah as their husbands, if believing, were sons of Abraham. On the assumption which has been adopted throughout these notes, as on the whole the most probable, that the Epistle was really addressed, as it purports to be, to the Jews of the dispersion, the words have another significance. The daughters of Sarah according to the flesh are told that they only became truly her children when they reproduced her character. The words, on this view, present a striking parallelism to those in which St Paul speaks of Abraham as being “the father not of the circumcision only, as such, but of those who walk in the steps of Abraham’s faith” ( Romans 4:12 ). as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement ] The construction of the Greek sentence is not quite clear, and admits of being taken either (1) as in the English version, or (2) treating the words “as Sara obeyed.… whose daughters ye became” as a parenthesis, we may refer the words “doing well” to the “holy women” of 1 Peter 3:5 . On the whole (1) seems preferable. It may be questioned whether the words “so long as” rightly represent the force of the participle.