1st Timothy Chapter 2 verse 15 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 15. - But for notwithstanding, A.V.; through the child-bearing for in child-bearing, A.V.; love for charity, A.V.; sanctification for holiness, A.V. She shall be saved; i.e. the woman generically. The transition from the personal Eve to the generic woman is further marked by the transition from the singular to the plural, "if they continue," etc. The natural and simple explanation of the passage is that the special temporal punishment pronounced against the woman, immediately after her sin, "In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children" (Genesis 3:16) - (to which St. Paul here evidently alludes) - and endured by all women ever since, was a set-off, so to speak, to the special guilt of Eve in yielding to the guile of the serpent; so that now the woman might attain salvation as well as the man (although she was not suffered to teach)if she continued in faith and charity. The child-bearing (τῆς τεκνογονίας); here only; but the verb τεκνογονέω, which occurs in 1 Timothy 5:14, is found (though very rarely) in classical Greek. The equivalent, both in the LXX. and in classical Greek, is τεκνοποιέω. The reference to the birth of Christ - the Seed of the woman - which some commentators Hammond, Peile, Wordsworth, Ellicott, etc.; not Bengel, Alford. or the German school generally) see here, is rather strained, and anyhow cannot be proved without an inspired interpreter. The stress which is laid by some of the above on the use of the definite article here has no justification (see e.g., 2 Peter 1:5-7, where even the R.V. does not think of translating "the virtue," "the knowledge," "the temperance," etc.). Nor is the meaning of διά, which Alford and others press, "through," i.e. "in spite of," like διὰ πυρός in 1 Corinthians 3:15, at all probable from the context. Sanctification (ἀγιασμός; Romans 6:19; 1 Thessalonians 4:3, etc.). Sobriety (σωφροσύνη); as in ver. 9. It only occurs besides in Acts 26:25.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(15) Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing.--The last words are more accurately and forcibly rendered--through the childbearing. With that tender and winning courtesy to which, no doubt, humanly speaking, the great missionary owes so much of his vast influence over human hearts, St. Paul, now anxious lest he had wounded with his severe words and stern precepts his Ephesian sisters in Christ, closes his charge to women with a few touching words, bright with the glorious promise they contained. Though their life duties must be different from those of men--yet for them, too, as for men, there was one glorious goal; but for them--the women of Christ--the only road to the goal was the faithful, true carrying out of the quiet home duties he had just sketched out for them. In other words, women will win the great salvation; but if they would win it, they must fulfil their destiny; they must acquiesce in all the conditions of a woman's life--in the forefront of which St. Paul places the all-important functions and duties of a mother.This is apparently the obvious meaning of the Apostle's words--all this lies on the surface--but beneath all this the reverent reader can hardly fail to see another and deeper reference (the presence of the article, "through the childbearing," gives us the clue)--"she shall be saved by THE childbearing" (the Incarnation) by the relation in which woman stood to the Messiah, in consequence of the primal prophecy that her seed (not man's) should bruise the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15), the peculiar function of her sex, from its relation to her Saviour, "shall be the medium of her salvation." (See Bishop Ellicott, in loco.)If they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.--But let no one think that the true saintly woman, painted with such matchless skill by St. Paul, satisfies the conditions of her life by merely fulfilling the duties of a mother.She must besides, if she would win her crown, hold fast to the Master's well-known teaching, which enjoins on all His own disciples, men as well as women, faith and love, holiness and modesty. The last word, "modesty," or discretion, or sobriety (all poor renderings of the Greek sophrosune, which includes, besides, the idea of a fight with and a victory over self), brings back the thoughts to the beautiful Pauline conception of a true woman, who wins her sweet and weighty power in the world by self-effacement.