1 Timothy 2:9

1 Timothy 2:9. In like manner also. The word shows the sequence of the writer's thought. His mind is dwelling on the public worship of the Church. He has laid down rules for the men; he will now give rules for the women. General as those rules may seem, they have (as 1 Timothy 2:12 is enough to prove) a special reference to the dress and demeanour of women as worshippers. So understood, the rule is analogous to that of 1 Corinthians 11:5.

Apparel. The generic term, including the details that are afterwards specified. The Greek word, originally meaning ‘order,' ‘arrangement,' is precisely parallel, both in its primary and derived meanings, to the English.

Shame-facedness and sobriety. The spelling of the first word is a corruption of the older form ‘shamefastness' which we find in the earlier editions of the Authorised Version. The second is but an inadequate rendering of the Greek σωφροσύνη, but it is not easy to find a better. The ethical habit expressed is that formed by acts of self-control over desire till the effort of control is no longer needed (Arist Eth. i ii. 13), and so it is distinguished from the more instinctive ‘modesty' which is joined with it ‘Self-restraint, which has been suggested, loses sight of the true meaning of the word, and ‘sober-mindedness' has no advantage over sobriety. ‘Self-reverence,' though not a translation, comes perhaps nearer to the idea of the word.

Not with broidered hair.... The words indicate, as those of 1 Peter 3:3 (1) that many women of the wealthier class were found among the converts; (2) that a fashion was growing up of coming to the meetings of the disciples with all the outward tokens of wealth that belonged, as they thought, to their social status the ‘plaitings of the hair,' which are so conspicuous in all the female busts of the time, the gold bands worn on the head, the ‘pearls' which at that time were in more request than any gems (comp. Matthew 7:6; Matthew 13:46), the raiment of Byssine or Coan texture, filmy, gauzy, embroidered with gold, for which women of fashion were ready to pay fabulous prices.