Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
Neither Is Independent of the Other
1 Corinthians 11:7-16
7 For a man indeed ought not to have his head covered, because he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. · WEB
Verses 11-12 are the passage's center of gravity — no independence in either direction — so the covering marks distinction, never inferiority.
For a man indeed ought not to have his head covered, because he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man 1 Corinthians 11:7.
The reasoning turns to the creation account, and the sequence there is what Paul appeals to: man is not from woman, but woman from man 1 Corinthians 11:8 Genesis 2:21–23. It should be said plainly that Genesis calls both male and female the image of God Genesis 1:27, and this verse does not deny it — the subject is glory, what each displays, not what each is.
For this cause the woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels 1 Corinthians 11:10.
Two puzzles sit in one verse, and the first is best solved by the plain grammar. The text says the woman ought to have authority over her own head — not that a sign of someone else's authority is imposed on her. On the reading the whole passage supports, the covering is hers: the mark of a praying and prophesying woman exercising her gift without discarding what she is. And because of the angels is unexplained here and everywhere; angels are said to observe the church 1 Corinthians 4:9 Ephesians 3:10 1 Peter 1:12, so worship has more witnesses than the congregation — and beyond that, where Scripture supplies a reason once and never expands it, the reason is reported and not reconstructed.
Nevertheless, neither is the woman independent of the man, nor the man independent of the woman, in the Lord. For as woman came from man, so a man also comes through a woman; but all things are from God 1 Corinthians 11:11–12.
The nevertheless is the passage's center of gravity, and it must be read with weight equal to verse 3. Whatever order the earlier verses describe, it licenses no independence in either direction, and the argument from origin is immediately balanced by an argument from birth: the first woman came from a man, and every man since has come through a woman. Then the clause that relativizes both: all things are from God. Neither sex may build a claim of self-sufficiency out of the creation account — and that settles what the covering can and cannot mean. It does not mark inferiority; verses 11-12 forbid that reading in so many words. It marks distinction inside a mutual dependence.
But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given to her for a covering 1 Corinthians 11:15.
The closing appeals shift ground audibly: judge for yourselves 1 Corinthians 11:13, what nature itself teaches about hair 1 Corinthians 11:14, and at last — if any man seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither do God's assemblies 1 Corinthians 11:16. The argument ends on propriety and the common practice of the churches, not on a command of the Lord, which this letter cites carefully when it has one 1 Corinthians 7:10 1 Corinthians 9:14. And verse 15 names the hair itself a God-given covering. Both details point the same way: the abiding matter is the principle — the sexes honored as distinct and interdependent in worship — while the particular sign belonged to Corinth's world. A church may keep the form or translate it; what it may not do is use worship to declare that the difference between man and woman has ceased to matter, or that either stands alone.
held with reason What this mark means