TEXT: BIB   |   AUDIO: MISLR - MISC - DAVIS - FOCHT   |   VIDEO: GEN - BIB

HELPS: KJS - KJV - ASV - DBY - DOU - WBS - YLT - HEB - BBE - WEB - NAS - SEV - TSK - CRK - WES - MHC - GILL - JFB

:2,28,36,39 1Ti 5:11,14

Verse 9. But if they cannot contain] If they find it inconvenient and uncomfortable to continue as widowers and widows, let them remarry.

It is better to marry than to burn.] Bishop Pearce translates the original thus: For it is better to marry than to be made uneasy. purousqai, says he, "signifies primarily to burn; but in a metaphorical sense, to be troubled, vexed, or made uneasy. So in 2 Cor. xi. x19: Who is offended and I burn not, kai ouk egw puroumai, and I am not troubled.

So in Terence, Uro hominem, is I vex him." It would be well to soften the sense of this word in reference to the subject of which the apostle speaks.

He cannot mean burning with lust, no more than Virgil means so when he says, AEn. iv. ver. l18: Uritur infelix Dido, the unfortunate Dido is tormented; and in Eccl. ii. l18: Me tamen urit amor, love torments me. All this may be said with the strictest truth in such cases where the impure fire referred to above has no existence.

A curious story, which certainly casts light on the phraseology of this place, is related by Dr. Lightfoot, from the tract Kiddushin, fol. 81. "Some captive women were brought to Nehardea, and disposed in the house and the upper room of Rabbi Amram. They took away the ladder (that the women might not get down, but stay there till they were ransomed.) As one of these captives passed by the window, the light of her great beauty shined into the house. Amram (captivated) set up the ladder; and when he was got to the middle of the steps (checked by his conscience) he stopped short, and with a loud voice cried out FIRE! FIRE! in the house of Amram! (This he did that, the neighbours flocking in, he might be obliged to desist from the evil affection which now prevailed in him.) The rabbins ran to him, and (seeing no fire) they said, Thou hast disgraced us. To which he replied: It is better that ye be disgraced in the house of Amram in this world, then that ye be disgraced by me in the world to come. He then adjured that evil affection to go out of him, and it went out as a pillar of FIRE. Amram said: Thou art FIRE, and I am FLESH; yet for all that I have prevailed against thee." From this story much instruction may be derived.

Ver. 9. But if they cannot contain , etc. Or �if they do not contain�, as the words may be rendered, and as almost all versions do render them; if they have not the gift of continency; if they are not willing, and do not think fit to contain, for none are to be compelled; if either therefore they want a will or power to contain, let them marry; it is not only lawful for them to marry, but it is right and best for them; hence it appears that second marriages are lawful, which were condemned by some of the ancients: for it is better to marry than to burn; or be burnt; not with material fire, as Judah ordered Tamar to be brought forth and burnt with, for whoredom; nor with hell fire, the just demerit of uncleanness; but with the fire of lust itself; and so the Syriac version reads it, �it is better to marry than to be burnt� atgrb , �with lust�; when persons not only find in them some lustful motions and desires, and a glowing heat of concupiscence; but are as it were all on fire with the lusts of the flesh, and in great danger of being drawn into the commission of fornication, adultery, or other pollutions, and even unnatural lusts; it is much better to enter into a marriage state, though it may have its cares, inconveniences, and difficulties, than to be under temptations and inclinations to such defilements: so the Jews often express the lust of concupiscence by fire; they tell us a �story of R. Amram, that he redeemed all the captives, men and women; and the women and the virgins dwelt in a chamber in his house alone; one time, Satan kindled in him, hwath �a , �the fire of lust�, and he set a ladder to go up to them, and when he came upon the steps of the ladder, he began to cry with a loud voice, �rm[ yb arwn �rm[ yb arwn , �fire in the house of Amram, fire in the house of Amram�: and the men came to quench the fire, and found nothing burning; for it was only his intention to cause to cease from him the fire of lust; and his thought ceased and his mind grew cool; and they asked him, why he mocked them? he replied, for this is a greater �fire� than all the fires in the world, for it is the fire of hell:� This story is also told in the Talmud f104 , with some little variation: so we read of one that is [r rxyb jyhlta , �inflamed� f105 , or all on fire �with the corruption of nature�, who does not direct his heart to God: and such a man that finds his corruptions prevail over him, he ought to marry, they say f106 , as a proper remedy against it: �he whose mind is intent upon the law continually, and learns it as Ben Azzai, and cleaves to it all his days, and does not marry a wife, there is no iniquity in his hands, and that because his corruption does not prevail over him; but if his corruption prevails over him, h�a a�yl byyj , �he ought to marry a wife�:� and that for the very reason the apostle here gives. The Ethiopic version reads, �it is better to marry than to commit fornication�; that and adultery both are expressed by fire and burning, with the Jews, as they prove from ( Hosea 7:4 Song of Solomon 8:6) f107 Ver. 10. And unto the married I command , etc.] To the unmarried and widows he spoke by permission, or only gave advice and counsel to remain unmarried, provided they could contain; but if not, it was advisable to marry; but to persons already in a married state, what he has to say to them is by commandment, enjoining what they are under obligation to observe, not being at liberty to do as they will: yet not I, but the Lord ; not as if he took upon him the dominion over them, to make laws for them, and, in an imperious authoritative way, oblige them to obedience to them; no; what he was about to deliver, was not a law of his own enacting and obtruding, but what their Lord, their Creator, head, husband, and Redeemer, had ordered and enjoined; and this grave solemn way of speaking he makes use of, to excite their attention, command awe and reverence, make the greater impression upon their minds, and show the obligation they were under to regard what was said: let not the wife depart from her husband ; for the same law that obliges a man to cleave to his wife, obliges the wife to cleave to her husband, ( Genesis 2:24) and those words of Christ, �what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder�, ( Matthew 19:6) regard the one as well as the other; and the rules he has given, forbidding divorces only in case of adultery, ( Matthew 5:32 19:9) are as binding upon the wife as upon the husband. The wife therefore should not depart from her husband upon every slight occasion; not on account of any quarrel, or disagreement that may arise between them; or for every instance of moroseness and inhumanity; or because of diseases and infirmities; nor even on the score of difference in religion which, by what follows, seems to be greatly the case in view. The apostle observes this, in opposition to some rules and customs which obtained among Jews and Gentiles, divorcing and separating from one another upon various accounts; not only husbands put away their wives, but wives also left their husbands: for women to put away, or leave their husbands, were not in former times allowed of among the Jews, but from other nations crept in among them; indeed if a man married one under age, and she did not like him for her husband, she might refuse him, and go away without a bill of divorce; the manner of refusal was, by saying before two witnesses, I do not like such an one for my husband, or I do not like the espousals, with which my mother or my brother espoused me, or in such like words; and sometimes a written form of refusal was given f108 ; but otherwise where marriage was consummated, such a departure of the wife was not allowed. Salome, the sister of Herod, is thought to be the first that introduced it, who sent a bill of divorce to Costobarus her husband; and in this she was followed by Herodias, the daughter of Aristobulus, who left her husband, and married Herod Antipas f110 ; and it seems certain, that this practice prevailed in Christ�s time, since not only such a case is supposed, ( Mark 10:12) but a very flagrant instance is given in the woman of Samaria, ( John 4:18) who had had five husbands, not in a lawful regular manner, one after another upon their respective deaths, but she had married them, and put them away one after another: and as for the Gentiles, the account the Jews give of them is, that though they had �no divorces in form, they put away one another; R. Jochanan says, wt�rgm wt�a , �a man�s wife might put him away�, and give him the dowry:� though, according to other accounts, they had divorces in form, which, when a man put away a woman, were called grammata apopomphv , �letters of dismission�; and when a woman left her husband, apoleiqewv grammata , �letters of dereliction�, such as Hipparchia the wife of Alcibiades gave to him f112 ; and Justin Martyr gives us an instance of a Christian woman, who gave her husband what the Roman senate called a divorce.