McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries

1 Corinthians 11:6

For if a woman is not veiled, let her also be shorn: but if it is a shame to a woman to be shorn [with shears] or shaven [with a razor], let her be veiled. [Paul does not command that unveiled women be shorn, but he demands it as a logical consistency, as a scornful reductio ad absurdum. For a woman to want only to lay aside her veil was an open repudiation of the authority of her husband, and such a repudiation lowered her to the level of the courtesan, who, according to Elsner, showed her shamelessness by her shorn head, and likewise to the level of the adulteress, whose penalty, according to Wetstein and Meyer, was to have her head shaved. Paul, therefore, demands that those who voluntarily seek a low level, consent to wear all the signs and badges of that level that they may be shamed into rising above it. Having thus deduced a law from human custom, Paul now shows that the same law rests upon divine and creative relationships.]

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McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries

1 Corinthians 11:6

Old Testament

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