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Col_3:20 f. Comp. Eph_6:1-4, where likewise is given a characteristic development in fuller detail of what is here only succinctly stated.
κατὰ πάντα ] not to be restricted; for Paul is quoting the rule, that which holds good principaliter in the relation of children, while possible exceptional cases obviously come under the principle of obeying God rather than man (Oecumenius: δίχα τῶν εἰς ἀσέβειαν φερόντων ). Comp. Eph_5:24.
εὐάρεστόν ἐστιν ἐν κυρίῳ ] In connection with this reading (see the critical remarks), to supply τῷ Θεῷ to εὐάρ . is arbitrary (in opposition to de Wette and Baumgarten-Crusius), since this is not suggested by the context as in Rom_12:1-2; nor is ἐ̓ ν κυρίῳ to be taken as instead of the dative (Flatt, Bähr, Bleek), or in the sense: coram Domino (Böhmer), but rather as in Col_3:18. We have to leave εὐάρ . without any other more precise definition than what is contained in ἐν κυρ ., so that it is affirmed of childlike obedience, that it is well-pleasing, and that indeed not in a worldly fashion apart from Christ, οὐκ ἀπὸ τῆς φύσεως μόνης (Chrysostom), but in a definite Christian character; consequently the Christian ethical beauty, in which the δίκαιον (Eph_6:1) of that virtue manifests itself. Comp. προσφιλῆ in Php_4:8. It would be a perfectly groundless violence to couple, with Hofmann, ἐν κυρίῳ with ὑπακούετε τ . γ . κ . π ., notwithstanding the clause which is introduced by γάρ .
Col_3:21. οἱ πατέρες ] they, and not the mothers, are addressed as holding the government of the household, also in reference to education. Comp. on Eph_6:4.
ἐρεθίζετε ] irritate, very frequent in the classics and LXX., especially in connection with anger, as here (comp. Eph_6:4). This irritation takes place through unjust or over-severe ( ἐστὶν ὅπου καὶ συγχωρεῖν ὀφείλετε , Chrysostom) treatment, which the child, provoked thereby to anger, must bear without being able to get satisfaction for its injured sense of justice; whereby it becomes liable to a spiritless and sullen, and therefore immoral, resignation, a despair paralysing all moral power of will; hence ἵνα μὴ ἀθυμῶσιν . This verb is only found here in the N. T., but frequently in LXX., also Jdt_7:22; 1Ma_4:27; and in classic writers from the time of Thucydides (v. 91. 1, vii. 21, al.). Its opposite is θαῤῥεῖν . Bengel aptly says: “fractus animus pestis juventutis.”