1 Corinthians 11:7

1 Corinthians 11:7. For, etc. This whole view of the relation of the sexes is founded on a combination of Genesis 1:2. As the first chapter gives the creation of man as man, both sexes are included (1 Corinthians 11:27); the woman, as an essential portion of humanity, created in Adam, being as truly “the image and glory of God” as the man. But in the second chapter, we have first the creation of the male, and then (not as a second creation, but) out of and from the man, the making of woman is recorded. Further, since Adam, though including the woman, was made to have dominion over all here below, the woman was made distinctively to be “a help meet” for “the man,” it being “not good for the man to be alone.” In these recorded facts, then, the apostle had the materials for his own statement made ready to his hand, which in substance is this ‘The man, as the image and glory of God, in having dominion over sublunary things, ought not to have his head his noblest and most godlike feature covered in the public assemblies of the Church; but since the woman is distinctively the glory of the man, out of and for whom she was formed, this glory, belonging all to her husband, should be reserved for him at home, and in the public assemblies she should be veiled.'

Ver. 7. For this cause ought the woman to have a sign of authority on her head. This verse has puzzled critics more than almost any other. To refute the almost endless interpretations, most of them manifestly false, would be needless. With the simple supplement here inserted, the words speak for themselves; the veil being viewed as the symbol of her subjection to her husband.

because of the angels a statement which from its unusual character is apt to startle one. The meaning probably is, that as “ministering spirits to do service to the heirs of salvation,” and so, present though unseen in their religious assemblies, they ought, in consideration of this, to avoid anything unbefitting the modesty of their sex.