1 Peter 3:6

even as Sara obeyed Abraham The tense which St Peter uses would seem to imply a reference to some special instance of obedience, but, as the history of Genesis supplies no such instance in act, we are left to infer that he saw in her use of "my lord," in speaking of her husband (Genesis 18:12), a representative utterance that implied a sense of habitual subordination. It seems strange to refer to literature like that of the sixth satire of Juvenal in illustration of an Epistle of St Peter, but there can be no clearer evidence that the general corruption of the Empire had extended itself to the life of home, and that over and above the prevalence of adultery and divorce, the wives of Rome, and we may believe also, of the cities that followed in the wake of Rome, had well-nigh thrown aside all sense of the reverence which the Apostle looked on as essential to the holiness, and therefore the happiness, of married life.

whose daughters ye are whose daughters ye became. If the words were addressed to women who were converts from heathenism, we might see in the words a suggestive parallel to those of St Paul, that Abraham was the father of "all them that believe though they be not circumcised" (Romans 4:11), that "they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham" (Galatians 3:7). Taking this view there would be a special interest in the fact that St Peter, the married Apostle, told the female converts from among the Gentiles that they were as truly daughters of Sarah as their husbands, if believing, were sons of Abraham. On the assumption which has been adopted throughout these notes, as on the whole the most probable, that the Epistle was really addressed, as it purports to be, to the Jews of the dispersion, the words have another significance. The daughters of Sarah according to the flesh are told that they only became truly her children when they reproduced her character. The words, on this view, present a striking parallelism to those in which St Paul speaks of Abraham as being "the father not of the circumcision only, as such, but of those who walk in the steps of Abraham's faith" (Romans 4:12).

as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement The construction of the Greek sentence is not quite clear, and admits of being taken either (1) as in the English version, or (2) treating the words "as Sara obeyed.… whose daughters ye became" as a parenthesis, we may refer the words "doing well" to the "holy women" of 1 Peter 3:5. On the whole (1) seems preferable. It may be questioned whether the words "so long as" rightly represent the force of the participle. If we adopt the rendering given above ("ye became") that meaning is clearly inadmissible, and we have to see in the two participles the process by which Christian women becamedaughters by doing good and not being afraid. The word for "amazement" does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament, but the cognate verb is found in Luke 21:9; Luke 24:37. The noun itself meets us in the LXX. of Proverbs 3:25. It implies the crouching, shuddering fear of one who is overwhelmed with terror. In warning the women to whom he writes against such a fear, St Peter seems to be guarding them against the unwisdom of rushing from one extreme to the other. The Christian wives of unbelieving husbands, whether Jews or heathens, might often have much to bear from them, but if they were always shewing their terror, cowering as if they expected the curse or the blow, that very demeanour was certain to make matters worse. It was a tacit reproach, and therefore would but irritate and annoy. Wisely therefore does the Apostle urge on them a different line of action. "Be certain," he seems to say, "that you are doing what is right and good, and then go about the daily tasks of your household life with a cheerful intrepidity." Two interpretations may be noticed only to be rejected, (1) that which takes the second clause as meaning "be not afraid of anything that causes terror," and (2) that which renders it "doing good, even though you are not afraid," as though stress were laid on their good conduct being spontaneous and not originating in fear.