Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Ephesians 5:33

Ephesians 5:33. Nevertheless. ‘Not to enter further upon this greater mystery;' enough has been said. This is preferable to explaining: ‘to return to the subject of marriage,' to finding a contrast between ‘I say' and ‘ye also.' Whether more of the mystery be known or not, the analogy has been sufficiently set forth to enforce this exhortation.

Ye, all of you, also, as in the case of Christ toward His Church, severally, as individuals the exhortation applies to you, let each one so, in this manner, namely, like Christ, love his own wife as himself; not love his wife as he loves himself, but love her as being part of himself (comp. Ephesians 5:28) thus furnishing a motive corresponding with the previous statements.

And let the wife see. The construction of the original is peculiar, but the sense is expressed by supplying ‘let' and ‘see.' Ellicott: ‘ and the wife Ibid that,' etc.

Reverence, lit, ‘fear,' in the sense which the word has in the Old Testament. The exhortation implies that the husband is the head of the wife (Ephesians 5:23), and it is a question whether a woman who cannot reverence her husband despises her-self or him the more; that both are the objects of derision to others is notorious. To reverse the duties of this verse and section is as much a folly as it is a crime. But the duties become a privilege only when rendered ‘in the Lord,' The section may be thus summed up: ‘To the husband one command is given, and in this three requirements: Love even unto self-sacrifice, with the consequence and purpose of sanctification (Ephesians 5:25-27), and this with such energy, purity, and constancy, that more is required of the husband than of the wife. The wife should love the husband, as the Church loves Christ, in entire, exclusive, indissoluble, and ministering love; and the husband should love the wife, as Christ the Churchy in entire, exclusive, indissoluble, and protecting love' (Braune).

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Ephesians 5:33

Old Testament

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