What Does 1 Corinthians 7:3 Mean?
Let the husband give to the wife what is owed in goodwill, and likewise the wife to the husband.
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 the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.THE KEY
The verse names marital intimacy as a mutual due: each spouse both renders and receives.
THE MEANING
Marital intimacy is spoken of as an obligation held in both directions: the husband renders it to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. Both spouses stand within the same exchange.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that one spouse alone is the giver while the other alone is entitled to receive.
THE ROOT
ὀφειλήν
opheilēn
GROWS FROM
ὀφειλ-
opheil-
To owe or be under obligation.
“give what is owed in goodwill” in this verse is opheilēn. The same stem names debts and debtors elsewhere, giving “due” the concrete shape of what is owed. The immediate “likewise” places both spouses within that same reciprocal account.
ALSO GROWS
opheilétēs: Debtor; one who owes.
ὀφειλέτης
It names the person under an obligation, making the verse’s “due” relational rather than abstract.
opheílēma: Debt; what is owed.
ὀφείλημα
This related word-family branch reveals the account-like shade carried by “due.”
THE PATTERN
A shared bond holds each person in reciprocal regard rather than a one-way claim.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.Placing yourselves under one another in the awe of the Anointed One.Each of you, do not fix your eyes on your own things, but also on the things of others.THE THREAD
And release our debts, as we also release our debtors.The word translated “due” shares its Greek word family with “debts” and “debtors” here. The prayer shows that this same root can name what is owed and then released, while this verse uses obligation language for a mutual marital exchange.
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