Even as Sara. — A definite example of the general fact just alleged. St. Peter seems rather to have argued from what every one would feel must have been the case than from explicit records. Sara’s usual subjection is clearly seen in the one instance to which St. Peter refers (Genesis 18:12), where Sara, though not addressing Abraham, but speaking to herself, calls him “my lord.” People show their usual habits of mind more freely in speaking to themselves.
Whose daughters ye are. — A very misleading version, following the Vulgate. What St. Peter says is, whose children ye became, or were made. There was a definite period in their past lives at which they came to be — what they were not before — children of Sara. Have we not here, therefore, a distinct proof that these readers of the Epistle were Gentiles and not Jewesses? Not so. The phrase, “which hoped in God,” pointing as it does to the coming of the Messiah, prepares us to understand how these Hebrew women became Sara’s children. It was only by entering into her hope and attaching themselves to Jesus Christ, for whose coming she had looked. St. Peter has already been insisting on the nothingness of the fleshly descent, the “corruptible seed.” As has been pointed out on 1 Peter 1:24, this doctrine was not first taught by St. Paul, for St. Peter had heard it from the Baptist (Matthew 3:9) and from our Lord Himself (John 8:39). Whether persons were naturally Jews or Gentiles, they could not be children of Abraham without voluntarily becoming so by embracing his principles — i.e., by becoming Christians. The participial clauses which follow will need no change of translation, for they express not the act or process by which these ladies became children of Sara, but the condition on which they would remain her children. A very similar passage occurs in Hebrews 3:14 : “We have become partakers of the Christ, if (for the future) we hold,” &c. (Comp. also 1 Thessalonians 3:8; Hebrews 3:6.)
Do well. — See 1 Peter 2:12; 1 Peter 2:15; 1 Peter 2:20. The word means, of course, general good behaviour, especially in all wifely duties. As this is a condition of remaining Sara’s children, it is implied that it was a characteristic of Sara. Some critics would even put in a parenthesis all the words from “even as” to “ye are,” and attach these participles (as they are in the Greek) to the last clause in 1 Peter 3:5, thus: “adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands (as Sara, for instance... whose daughters ye were made), doing well, and not being afraid,” &c. This is, however, somewhat cumbrous, and leaves the clause “whose daughters ye became” a little too bald.
Are not afraid with any amazement. — Though this translation is grammatically possible, it does not make such good sense as to translate, are not afraid of any alarm. It is, in fact, a quotation from or allusion to Proverbs 3:25, as Bengel points out, where “Be not afraid of sudden fear” is rendered in the LXX. by these same peculiar words. The “Wisdom” in that passage, which brings the calmness with it, is Christ, and it is Christ who must be understood in Proverbs 3:26 : “the Lord shall be thy confidence.” To be afraid of sudden alarms and panics argues a lack of trust in God’s providence and power, and would, therefore, be unbecoming the daughters of Sara, who “hoped in God.” The “alarms” which they naturally might fear are, of course, quite general, but especially here, we may suppose, dread of what their unbelieving husbands might do to them. (Comp. 1 Peter 3:13 et seq.)