What Does Ephesians 5:22 Mean?
Wives, place yourselves under your own husbands, as to the Lord.
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
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.THE KEY
The Greek leaves “submit yourselves” unstated here, carrying the action forward from the preceding verse’s call to submit to one another.
THE MEANING
The verse directly calls wives to take an ordered, yielding relation to their own husbands, “as unto the Lord.” Its wording connects that direction to the preceding call for mutual submission. The instruction to wives remains specific, while the Lord remains its point of reference.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This is not a grammatically isolated command to wives: its unstated verb is carried forward from the preceding verse’s call to mutual submission.
THE ROOT
ὑποτάσσω
hypotassō
GROWS FROM
τάσσω (tassō), in the compound ὑποτάσσω
To arrange or place under, in an ordered relation.
“place yourselves under” in this verse is hypotassō. The Greek wording leaves the verb unstated in this verse; “submit yourselves” is supplied from the preceding verse. That grammatical link connects the wife’s instruction to mutual submission while preserving the specific direction given to wives.
ALSO GROWS
tassō: Arrange, appoint, or assign.
τάσσω
This component of the compound gives submission the sense of taking an ordered position within a relationship.
hypotagē: Submission or subjection.
ὑποταγή
This noun from the same word family shows submission as an enacted relation, not merely an attitude of politeness.
THE PATTERN
The household teaching places each spouse’s conduct under the Lord while giving each a distinct responsibility.
Placing yourselves under one another in the awe of the Anointed One.Husbands, love your wives, as the Anointed One also loved the assembly and handed himself over for her.Likewise, you husbands, dwell with them knowing, giving value to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and as heirs together of the favor of life, so that your prayers are not cut off.THE THREAD
Placing yourselves under one another in the awe of the Anointed One.This verse uses the same Greek verb, ὑποτάσσω (hypotassō), whose action is left unstated in 5:22. That carryover places the wife’s specific instruction inside the preceding call to mutual submission.
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