Ephesians 5:22 is both a cornerstone and a stumbling block for biblical teachings about the relationship between husbands and wives.

Every English translation I know treats Ephesians 5:22 as a complete sentence, with some form of the verb “submit.”

My post, Why Ephesians 5:22 Does Not Command Wives To Submit To Their Husbands had one intention.

My post refers to the Greek version of 5:22 to make the point that there is no verb in Ephesians 5:22.

This means that every translation that turns a verbless phrase into a complete sentence is mistranslating the Greek.

The real culprit in all of this is that the Bible was divided into chapters and verses centuries ago.

I made two posts on another blog about how the Bible got its verses, and some of the consequences of dividing up Bible books into discrete, and often badly divided, verses.

“Meet Your Enemy: The Bible Verse”

“How The Bible Got Its Verses”

Ephesians 5:22 is one of the most obvious examples of getting it wrong. 

The purpose of this post is not to analyze the meaning of the verb hupotasso in Ephesians or anywhere else in the New Testament, or to suggest a better translation than “submit.” 

My purpose here is to make the point that by separating the flow of the argument about “submission” into separate verses, translations have not only missed the point, they have turned an original argument about mutual submission into something that only wives are to do.

The real culprit in all of this is the traditional division into chapters and verses.  In order to keep the numbering system, translators add a verb that dramatically changes the meaning of the whole.

I wonder what difference it would make to believers if translators could break out of the restrictive tyranny of Bible verses to read all of Ephesians as one whole. 

This would mean that translators would not feel the need to add a verb that does not exist in Greek, just to make a complete sentence out of a verbless phrase in Greek.

And just imagine how this could change the way that husbands and wives think about their relationships.

By
Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.

By Kalinda Rose Stevenson, PhD

Many Christians confidently point to their Bibles and claim that Ephesians 5:22 commands wives to submit to their husbands.

This idea is particularly relevant right now because of Mike Huckabee’s campaign for the Republican nomination for President.

In June 1998, The Southern Baptist Convention made an official statement to declare that “a wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband.”

At that time, Mike Huckabee was the Governor of Arkansas. He was also a former Southern Baptist minister. Huckabee joined 129 other evangelical leaders to support this statement in a full page ad in USA Today.

Huckabee, who was not taken seriously as a possible presidential candidate at the beginning of his campaign, won the Iowa caucuses. This means that we are faced with the possibility that the Republican presidential nominee could be someone who insists that wives are to submit to their husbands.

Although religion and politics are officially separate, this religious idea that wives are to submit to their husbands raises important political questions about equality and the legal rights of women. When politicians make political statement based on the Bible, the claim that “a wife is to graciously submit to the servant leadership of her husband” is not simply a religious idea, but a deeply political one.

However anyone chooses to understand what “submission” and “servant leadership” might mean, the most basic problem with interpretation of this verse concerns translation of the original Greek into English.

Every English translation I have ever seen translates Ephesians 5:22 as a complete sentence, with an imperative verb addressed to women. Here are a few samples:

• “Wives, submit yourself to your own husbands as unto the Lord” (King James Version.)
• “Wives be subject to your husbands as to the Lord” (Modern Language Version.)
• “You wives must submit to your husbands’ leadership in the same way you submit to the Lord” (Living Bible.)
• “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord” (Revised Standard Version.)
• “Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord” (New Revised Standard Version.)
• “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord”(New International Version.)

This is clear enough, isn’t it?  Whether it is “submit” or “be subject,” in English translations, Ephesians 5:22 is a separate sentence with an imperative verb. Many English Bibles also treat Ephesians 5:22 as the start of a new paragraph.

And this is exactly the problem. Ephesians was not written in English. Ephesians was written in Greek, sometime in the first century. When you consult the Greek version of Ephesians, you will notice something remarkable.  (Here is the Greek version in an interlinear form with English translations.)

Verse 5:22, in its entirety reads: “Wives to their own husbands as to the Lord.”
This isn’t even a complete sentence, because there is no verb.

So, where does the idea of submission come from?  It comes from the verb of the previous verse, Ephesians 5:21.

In 5:21, the verb is not an imperative addressed only to wives. Instead, it is what Greek grammar calls a “reflexive” verb, in which submission is “to one another other.”

Here are some translations of 5:21.

• “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God (King James Version.)
• Be submissive to one another out of reverence for Christ (Modern Language version.)
• Honor Christ by submitting to one another (Living Bible.)
• Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ (Revised Standard Version.)
• Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ (New Revised Standard.)
• Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (New International Version.)

When it comes to Ephesians 5:21 and 5:22, we have two distinct translation decisions at work in most English Bibles:

The first is that English translations take the idea of submission  from the verb in 5:21 and create an imperative form of the verb in 5:22, which has no verb.
The second is that English translations tend to treat 5:21 and 5:22 as separate units, with no real connection to each other.

The separation of 5:21 and 5:22 into separate units demonstrates the sometimes misleading consequences of dividing Biblical books into chapters and verses.

In the earliest Greek manuscripts, there were no spaces between words and no punctuation at all. This means that there were no separate sentences and paragraphs.

All of the punctuation, and the division in sentences, verses, and chapters were added over time. Sometimes, the divisions into sentences, chapters, and verses make logical sense. Other times, these divisions separate what were clearly intended to be whole units.

The division of Ephesians 5:21 and 5:22 is one of the most dramatic examples of dividing what was clearly intended to be a whole thought. 5:22 is a phrase without a verb. The idea of submission comes from 5:21, in which submission is “to one another.”

It is simply irresponsible and misleading to take the idea of submission from 5:21, turn it into an imperative addressed only to women in 5:22, and then disconnect the idea from 5:21. Yet, this is exactly what many English translations do.

The King James Version of the Bible treated every verse as a new paragraph. Many of the newer translations separate chapters and verses into topical paragraphs. Some even add topic headings to the paragraphs.

If you investigate a series of English translations, you will find that some versions treat 5:21 as the closing sentence of a paragraph. Some treat is as a paragraph on its own. Some treat is as the opening sentence of a paragraph which includes 5:22.

The most misleading versions treat 5:22 as the first sentence of a new paragraph, under a heading.  For example,  the New International Version starts a new paragraph with 5:22, under the heading, “Wives and Husbands.”

What is the effect of these translation and publication decisions?  In the time and place in which Ephesians was written, the idea of submission to one another in marriage was a radically new idea. In contrast, there was nothing new in the idea that wives were to submit to their husbands.

As with so many radical ideas coming out of the New Testament, the original idea was lost, and replaced by traditional ideas. The radical vision of mutual submission reverted into a traditional power structure within marriage.

The translators who really do know better reinforce the traditional ideas by adding a verb that is not there, and treating 5:22 as a new paragraph, completely separate from 5:21.

Whether or not Mike Huckabee succeeds in his quest for the presidency, my point is that the Bible is a potent force in our political and social life, for believers and non-believers alike. The real problem is that often claims about the Bible are based on mistranslations and misinterpretations, which tend to reinforce traditional ideas about social status and roles. Ephesians 5:22 is a powerful example of such a mistranslation.

Every English translation I know has imposed a meaning that was not present in the Greek. And this is why Ephesians 5:22 does not command wives to submit to their husbands.

© Kalinda Rose Stevenson, PhD