Robertson Word Pictures - 1 Peter 3:3 - 3:3

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com

Robertson Word Pictures - 1 Peter 3:3 - 3:3


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Whose adorning (hōn kosmos). Genitive plural of the relative referring to gunaikōn (wives). Kosmos has here its old meaning of ornament (cf. our cosmetics), not the common one of world (Joh 17:5) considered as an orderly whole. Mundus in Latin is used in this double sense (ornament, world).

Let it be (estō). Imperative third singular of eimi. Not the outward adorning of plaiting the hair (ouch ho exōthen emplokēs trichōn). The use of ouch here rather than mē (usual negative with the imperative) because of the sharp contrast in 1Pe 3:4 (all'). The old adverb exōthen (from without) is in the attributive position like an adjective. Emplokē is a late word (from emplekō, to inweave, 2Ti 2:4; 2Pe 2:20) in Strabo, but often in the papyri for struggle as well as plaiting, here only in N.T.

Of wearing (peritheseōs). Late and rare word (Galen, Arrian) from peritithēmi (Mat 27:28), to put around, a placing around. Ornaments of gold were worn round the hair as nets and round the finger, arm, or ankle.

Or of putting on (enduseōs). Old word from enduō (to put on), here only in N.T. Peter is not forbidding the wearing of clothes and ornaments by women, but the display of finery by contrast. Cf. 1Ti 2:9-13; Isa 3:16.