Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - 1 Corinthians 11:6 - 11:6
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Our apostle here proceeds by many arguments to evince and prove the woman's inferiority and subjection to the man, and that she ought to have a covering upon her head as a sign and token of it.
First, because the image of God, that is, the image of his majesty, dominion, and power, shineth forth most brightly in the man, therefore he ought to have his head uncovered: Man is the image and glory of God.
But is not the woman so likewise?
Ans. Consider the woman according to her specifical nature, and so she was created after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, as well as the man: but then consider the woman according to her personal relation to her husband, and in that regard the woman is not the image of God because dominion, which is the image of God, is the man's privilege; and subjection the woman's duty.
But she is the glory of the man; that is, it is the glory and honour of man, that God hath given him superiority over so excellent a creature as the woman; for if his dominion over the irrational creatures be his glory and honour, then what a glory and honour it is for a man to have so excellent a creature as the woman, a creature endued with reason like himself, subject to him?
But as in this sense the man is the glory of the woman, so in another sense the woman is the glory of the man. She communicates with him in all his dignity, how great soever; whatever natural or civil excellency is in him, reflects on her: Uxor fulget radiis mariti, the wife shines with the rays of her husband's honour.
And the woman being thus in a state of inferiority, she ought to profess her subjection to her husband by wearing a veil.