For the body is not one member, but many.
Translate, For the body also.' The analogy of the body, not consisting exclusively of one, but of many members, illustrates the mutual dependence of the various members in the one church. Menenius Agrippa's fable of the belly and the members to the seceding commons (Livy, 2: 32) was probably familiar to Paul's well-stored mind (Acts 17:28). But the manifold membership of the one bride, in Song of Solomon 7:1-5 (cf. Psalms 139:16), rather, is the germ of the Spirit-taught truth here set forth.