entertain wittingly a purveyor of error is to come short of the Divine standard. These evil

workers who creep into houses select their prey, "and lead captive silly women laden

with sins" (3: 6).

"Lead captive" aichmaloteuo, is derived from aichme a spear, allied with akme

(English "acme") a sharp point. This same word aichmaloteuo occurs in Eph. 4: 8 and

cannot refer to the deliverance of the sleeping saints, for at the ascension of the Lord He

surely did not lead His redeemed people to glory at the point of a spear! It rather refers to

those principalities and powers which were put off at the cross, made a show of openly,

and triumphed over by the victorious Christ. There is an evident connection here with the

close of chapter 2:, for there also we read of some who had been "taken captive" by the

Devil. The word used in 2: 26, is zogreo, and means literally "to take alive", some

commentators have the idea that the meaning of verse 26 is that the person spoken of had

been "caught alive by the Lord's servant", and so delivered. This translation, though

attempting to ease the problem occasioned by autou and ekeinou being used of the same

person, introduces greater confusion, for it ignores the "snare" actually mentioned and

introduces another (an evangelical one). Zogreo is used in Luke 5: 10 "henceforth thou

shalt catch men", undoubtedly in a good sense. While we may not endorse the idea that

zogreo can mean deliverance (26), yet the fact that within the compass of a few verses

two distinct words are used for the one idea, should cause us, reverently, to inquire the

meaning. Those who were ensnared in 2: 26, had hope of deliverance; upon repentance

they would "recover", or, as the original reads, ananepho "to awake out of a drunken

sleep" and so be restored. In the second instance, those "led captive" are led captive at

the spear's point, not "taken alive", they do not "wake up", they do not arrive at the

knowledge of the truth which "waking up" signifies in the twenty-sixth verse and so

never recover themselves from their bondage. Those who are thus "led captive" (3: 6),

are called "silly women", gunaikaria.  This passage seemed to us to read a little

uncharitably towards women in general and we half-hoped that it would permit the

rendering "effeminate persons" and so include men as well as women, but there is a word

already in use with that meaning, and there is no avoiding the fact that the apostle had

one class of women in view. It is good to remember what tributes the apostle has paid to

some women of his time. There is "the woman Lydia" (Acts 16: 14); the "wife" or

"woman Priscilla" (18: 2); there are "those women" so commended by the apostle

(Phil. 4: 1-3) and Phebe (Rom. 16: 1, 2), also the mother and the grandmother of

Timothy (II Tim. 1: 5). While all mankind have sinned, men differ from women in many

ways, and Satan is not ignorant of these things, neither does he hesitate to prey upon any

human weakness. Just as in II Tim. 3: 1-9 we have "men" and "women" specially

referred to, so in I Tim. 2: we have the same marked division.

It was to the woman that the serpent directed his tempting arguments at the beginning,

and he has been unscrupulous in his exploitations of the sex ever since. These "silly

women" moreover were "laden with sins". It was this burdened conscience that made

these poor women so vulnerable. Soreuo "lade", "heap up", a sepulchral mound and