However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
33. Nevertheless, let every one. Having digressed a little from this subject, though the very digression aided his design, he adopts the method usually followed in short precepts, by giving a brief summary of duties. Husbands are required to love their wives, and wives to fear (φοβὢται) their husbands, understanding by fear that reverence which will lead them to be submissive.
Here the apostle begins his exhortation to the discharge of relative duties. As a general foundation for these duties, he lays down that rule Eph 5:21. There is a mutual submission that Christians owe one to another, condescending to bear one another's burdens: not advancing themselves above others, nor domineering over one another and giving laws to one another.
Commenting on Ephesians 5:21-33
Verse 33. Nevertheless. The apostle here resumes the subject which he had been discussing in , and says that it was the duty of every man to love his wife as he did himself. This was the main topic, from which he had been directed by the discussion respecting the love which the Redeemer had shown for his church. And the wife see that she reverence her husband.