What Does 1 Corinthians 14:34 Mean?
Let your women hush in the assemblies; for it is not permitted to them to speak, but to place themselves under, as the instruction also says.
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
Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.THE KEY
The verb translated “keep silence” is also used when other speakers are told to stop speaking in this chapter, but here the command is expressly directed to women.
THE MEANING
The verse directly tells women to keep silent in the assemblies and states that speaking is not permitted to them. It presents being under the law’s instruction as the stated basis for that restriction.
THE ROOT
σιγάτωσαν
sigatōsan
GROWS FROM
σιγ-
sig-
Be silent; keep quiet.
“keep silence” in this verse is sigatōsan. The same verb appears in this chapter when a speaker without an interpreter and a prophet yielding to another are told to be silent. The shared word names the restraint; this verse’s own wording directs it specifically to women.
ALSO GROWS
sigatō: Let him keep silent.
σιγάτω
In 1 Corinthians 14:28, the same verb directs a speaker without an interpreter to keep silent in the assembly.
sigē: Silence.
σιγή
In Acts 21:40, this noun describes silence settling over a crowd before someone speaks, showing the root’s connection to speech ceasing.
ὑποτασσέσθωσαν
hypotassesthōsan
GROWS FROM
τάσσω (tássō), with ὑπό (hypo-, “under”)
Arrange or place; with “under,” place in a subordinate position.
“place themselves under” in this verse is hypotassesthōsan. The Greek word’s construction gives “obedience” a spatial sense: being placed under. The command therefore describes a relation of rank, and the verse applies that placement to women.
ALSO GROWS
táxis: Order, arrangement.
τάξις
The same chapter uses this related word in 1 Corinthians 14:40, where the assembly’s activities are to be done “in order.”
hypotássō: Place under; submit.
ὑποτάσσω
In Ephesians 5:21, the same verb appears in “submitting yourselves one to another”; that reciprocal use makes the one-direction command here especially clear.
THE PATTERN
Within shared life, Scripture names silence as a deliberate limit alongside speaking.
A time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to hush, and a time to speak.Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to swell.But if there is no one to carry it across, let him hush in the assembly, and let him speak to himself and to God.THE THREAD
But if something is unveiled to another who is seated beside, let the first one hush.This verse uses the same verb, σιγάω (sigáō, “be silent”), rendered “hold his peace” here and “keep silence” in verse 34. The shared root links both commands as forms of silence in assembly speech, while verse 34 expressly directs its command to women and adds subjection to the law.
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