What Does 1 Corinthians 7:33 Mean?
But he who is married is pulled apart over the things of the world, how he may please his wife.
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 he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.THE KEY
The verb for pleasing a wife is also used for pleasing God, making the verse’s tension one of divided attention within a life of care.
THE MEANING
In marriage, your wife’s well-being becomes one of the real concerns shaping your attention. The verse names this care alongside the other claims on a person’s focus, giving ordinary relational life a place in the account of devotion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that a husband’s attention to his wife’s happiness is beneath spiritual notice; the verse names that concern as a real part of married life.
THE ROOT
ἀρέσῃ
aresē
GROWS FROM
ἀρεσκ-
To please, satisfy, or be acceptable to.
“please” in this verse is aresē. The verb names active regard for what brings satisfaction to another. The same verb is used for pleasing God in 1 Thessalonians 4:1, so the word itself does not make care for a wife trivial; it shows where attention is directed.
ALSO GROWS
areskō: To please or satisfy.
ἀρέσκω
This is the verb used here and in 1 Thessalonians 4:1, joining care for a wife and the desire to please God through the same word.
areskeia: Pleasing; what satisfies or is acceptable.
ἀρεσκεία
This noun appears in Colossians 1:10 as “all pleasing,” extending the same word family into a life oriented toward what pleases God.
κόσμου
kosmou
GROWS FROM
κοσμ-
Order, arrangement, adornment; by extension, the ordered world.
Kosmos carries the sense of an ordered world, not only a corrupt one. Here it reaches into the arrangements and responsibilities of shared life, where a wife’s well-being becomes part of what is cared for.
ALSO GROWS
kosmeō: To arrange or adorn.
κοσμέω
The verb shows the root’s sense of putting things in order, illuminating the lived arrangements encompassed by “the world.”
kosmios: Orderly or decorous.
κόσμιος
This related word preserves the root’s sense of order and shows why kosmos can name an ordered sphere of life.
μεριμνᾷ
merimnai
GROWS FROM
μεριμν-
Care or anxious concern.
“is pulled apart over” in this verse is merimnai. This word can name practical concern or anxiety; what matters is what claims that attention. Here the wife’s place in the speaker’s care is explicit, while the surrounding verses describe marriage as one of the claims that shares a person’s focus.
ALSO GROWS
merimna: Care, concern, or anxiety.
μέριμνα
This noun appears in Matthew 13:22 for the cares of the age, showing the word family’s reach into the concerns that occupy a person’s attention.
merimnaō: To care or be concerned.
μεριμνάω
The same verb appears in 1 Corinthians 7:32 for concern directed toward the Lord, placing both kinds of care within the passage’s account of attention.
THE PATTERN
Love gives another person a real place within the ordering of one’s attention.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.So husbands owe love to their wives, as to their own bodies. The one who loves his wife loves himself.Each of you, do not fix your eyes on your own things, but also on the things of others.THE THREAD
Furthermore then, brothers, we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you took from us how you ought to walk and to please God, so you would overflow still more.The verb translated “please” here is the same verb in “to please God.” That shared root makes the relational tension audible: pleasing another person is a real orientation of care, while the surrounding lines name the divided attention marriage brings.
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