I’ve been assigned to preach Eph. 5:22—6:9 in two weeks. That’s the passage that begins, “Wives…” and then does children and slaves. After having finally sat down to work through the first verse, 5:22, four grammatical features surprised me:
The absence of the word “submit.” The verse, 5:22, runs like this:
ai gunaikes (wives)
tois idios andrasin (to your own husbands)
hōs tō kuriō (as to the Lord).
The word submit (hupotassomenoi) appears once in 5:21, but the ESV gives it again in 5:22. This is not the beginning of a new sentence, but a verbless phrase that clarifies the previous one, which is itself a continuation of the previous sentence, running thus: “…submitting to one another in the fear of Christ…”
The framing imperatives. When “submit” does appear—as hupotassomenoi at 5:21, it is given as a participle, and not as an imperative. There are now three reasons why “Wives, submit” is a bad way to translate the beginning of 5:22:
It’s not a new sentence.
The word ‘submit’ doesn’t appear, nor does any verb.
The appearance of ‘submit’ back in 5:21 isn’t even an imperative.
The last imperatives we saw came as an inverse pair at 5:18—
“Don’t get drunk (mē methuskesthe, negative imp.) on wine…
but be filled (plērousthe, positive imp.) with the Spirit.”
The next imperative isn’t given until it is given to the husbands at 5:25—
“Husbands, love (agapate)…”
The participle string. Between those the imperatives in vv. 18 and 25 is a cascade of participles that runs like this:
(v. 18) “Be filled (plērousthe, imp.) in the Spirit…
(v. 19) speaking (lalountes, part.)…
singing and psalming (adontes kai psallontes, part.)…
(v. 20) giving thanks (eucharistountes, part.)…
(vv. 21-24) submitting (hupotassomenoi, part.)…”
The participles explain the imperative. There’s only one positive imperative, and there are five ways to do it: Be filled in the Spirit by speaking, singing, psalming, thanking, and submitting.
That’s another reason why it’s dastardly tricky for certain English Bibles to insert a section break halfway through the fifth participle, between vv. 21 and 22. It’s why they have to throw the word “submit” into a verse that doesn’t have a verb in it.
The “your own” modifier. The imperative to ‘be fulfilled’ is achieved by submitting allēlois (to one another) particularly en phobō christou (in the fear of Christ), whom we already know is the “one lord” we serve (4:5). The verbless phrase at 5:22, actually limits the scope of submission, pointing wives toward their own (idiois) husbands (andrasin). This is not about women qua ‘women’ submitting to men qua ‘men’, but about wives restricting their hupotassomenoi allēlois to their husbands.
This modifier protects women from being told ‘Submit!’ by men who aren’t their husbands and who lord their masculinity over them, asking to be submitted to on the basis of their sex/gender, rather than their sacramental duty as husband.
To such men, these women may say, “Sorry, Paul said, to my own husband.”
Here is a dynamic paraphrase of Eph. 5:18-25f that emphasizes these observations and offers, perhaps, a fresher read of the sentence.
(18) The point is: Don’t get the body drunk; but let it be filled with the Spirit. And do that in four ways: (19) by speaking spiritual words, by singing and psalming, (20) by giving thanks for everything, and (21) by submitting to one another—(22) but, women, only to your own husbands, (23) for husbands are to wives as Christ is to the church. (24) As the church submits to Christ, so wives to husbands in everything.
(25) Husbands, however, have a specific duty: husbands must love…
Eph. 5:22 doesn’t restrict women any more than 5:21 already had. Rather, it limits the breadth of their submission to their own husbands.
Eph. 5:25, however, gives husbands an additional imperative. Wives only “submit” (5:21); Husbands “submit” (5:21) and “love” (5:22).
But Paul doesn’t devolve here into generalities about love. He adds a clarifying verb phrase:
eauton (yourselves)
paradōken (give)
huper (up/over)
This verbal concept is used throughout the gospels to describe, among over things, Jesus’ “handing himself over” to his captors and judges and Judas’ “handing over” of Jesus to the same. This “handing” is not a giving of oneself to one’s wife or to God, but a giving of oneself to an adversary. Seemingly less liturgical and less romantic. Seemingly more about blame-taking and Satan and adversity, and therefore more about the Passion Narratives, and more about the Garden, and more like the next pericope:
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (from 6:10-23).
More on that between now and two Sundays from now.
Wow! That is a huge insight into healthy marriage
Thanks for these thoughts! Incredibly helpful as I teach a Sunday School class through Ephesians this morning.