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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - 1 Peter 2:18 - 2:18
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Servants (οἰκέται)
Household servants. So Rev., in margin. Not a common term in the New Testament, occurring only in three other passages: Luk 16:13; Act 10:7; Rom 14:4. Some suppose that Peter intended to cover by it freedmen and other dependants in the household, or that he uses it with a conciliatory purpose, as presenting the slave in closer relation with the family.
Gentle (ἐπιεικέσιν)
A common derivation of this word is from εἴκω, to yield. Hence the meaning, mind, yielding, indulgent. But the true derivation is from εἰκός, reasonable; and the word implies rather the not being unduly rigorous: “Wherein not strictness of legal right, but consideration for one another, is the rule of practice” (Alford). Compare Phi 4:5, where, for moderation (τὸ ἐπιεικὲς), Rev. gives forbearance, with gentleness in margin. According to Aristotle, the word stands in contrast with ἀκριβοδίκαιος, one who is exactingly just, as one who is satired with less than his due.
Froward (σκολιοῖς)
Lit., crooked. See Luk 3:5. Peter uses the word in Act 2:40 (untoward); and Paul, in Phi 2:15 (crooked). The word froward is Anglo-Saxon fream-ward or from-ward, the opposite of to-ward. (See untoward, above.) Thus Ben Jonson:
“Those that are froward to an appetite;”
i.e., averse. Compare the phrases to-God-ward (2Co 3:4); to-us-ward.