1 Timothy 2:15 - Exposition

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 1 Corinthians 3:9 . It only occurs besides in Acts 26:25 .