The women should keep quiet. Which women??? Paul is dealing with the gift of speaking God's message. Then the women of this verse must be prophetesses. F. I. Stanley says: "He is speaking of what prophets are doing, and not of marriage! He has no thought about men and their wives, but about men and women who are to prophesy (Joel 2:28-30; Acts 2:17)." SIGATOO = quiet. This same word appears in 1 Corinthians 14:28, and is translated should stop in 1 Corinthians 14:30. It means not so much as a sigh or a grunt. We can see in 1 Corinthians 14:28 this silence applied to the use of a spiritual gift. Here, then, it must also be a specific silence on a specific thing. If it were not, women would not be allowed to sing a note or to speak a word of any kind in a church meeting! The next verse tells us what this specific silence is about.

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Old Testament