What Does 1 Corinthians 11:15 Mean?
But if a woman has long hair, it is a weight to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.THE KEY
The verse calls the same hair both a woman’s glory and her covering, so covering and honor belong together.
THE MEANING
Here, a woman’s long hair is her visible honor and is given to her as a covering. What surrounds her also bears weight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a covering erases a woman’s glory: here, her covering is itself named her glory.
THE ROOT
περιβόλαιον
peribolaion
GROWS FROM
βαλ
to throw or cast; in this word, to throw around
The word translated covering carries the image of something cast around the body. Covering is not merely an absence of visibility; it is something placed about her.
ALSO GROWS
periballō: to throw around, wrap, or clothe
περιβάλλω
It makes the verse’s covering a concrete image of something wrapped around her.
apoballō: to cast away or throw off
ἀποβάλλω
The same root can describe casting something off or casting something around; here, the word takes the shape of what is placed around her.
δόξα
doxa
GROWS FROM
δοξ
recognized honor; weight
The verse gives her hair weight as visible honor, then calls that same hair a covering. Glory here is not separate from the body’s covering; the two descriptions meet in one thing.
ALSO GROWS
doxazō: to honor or glorify
δοξάζω
It carries the same language of recognized honor that the verse gives to her hair.
endoxos: held in honor; glorious
ἔνδοξος
It shows the root’s connection to honor that is recognized or seen.
THE PATTERN
What covers the body can also carry visible honor.
And you will make set-apart garments for Aaron your brother, for weight and for adornment.He wraps himself in light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a curtain.For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and weight of God; but the woman is the weight of the man.THE THREAD
For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and weight of God; but the woman is the weight of the man.The Greek word δόξα (doxa, weight or glory) appears in both verses. Verse 11:7 names the woman as glory in relation to the man; verse 11:15 names her hair as glory to her, tying that honor to her covering.
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