But every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered puts her own head to shame; for it is one and the same as a shaved [woman].
Paul has just set out an order of headship, and now he applies it to a woman who prays or prophesies out loud. Two questions follow: what does it mean to dishonour "her head," and where was this praying and prophesying happening?
The word "head" shifts between the physical head and the person it stands for. Older translations read "woman" and "man" here, where the ESV reads "wife" and "husband." One commentator sets the two cases side by side.
When a man prays or prophesies with his head covered, he dishonours his head — that is, he outwardly dishonours Christ. His own physical head stands for Christ, and Christ is to be shown, not covered. On the other hand, a woman who prays or prophesies without a head covering dishonours her head — that is, she outwardly dishonours the man. How does she do this? By virtually putting the man in the place of Christ!
Chapter 11 allows a woman to pray and prophesy; chapter 14 tells women to be silent in the assembly. Most of the writers here resolve that by noticing what this verse does not say.
In the eleventh chapter he gives directions for women when praying or prophesying. In the fourteenth he tells them to be silent in the assembly. The one place permits ministry, but does not say where it was to happen. The other says plainly that it is not to be in the assembly. Evidently, then, prayer and prophecy were to be outside of the assembly.
Commentators differ on whether the setting is public. Another writer rejects that deduction. He reads the verse as saying what a woman would do if she prayed uncovered in the assembly:
It is sometimes deduced from 1 Corinthians 11:5 that Christian women prayed in the churches. Otherwise why should praying with their heads uncovered be spoken against? The deduction does not appear to us to be legitimate. If a Christian woman prays or prophesies in the assembly with her head uncovered, she does two things. First, she defies the order about the sexes that Paul gives elsewhere. Second, she dishonours her head. Only the second is mentioned here, because the first has no direct bearing on the subject, which is the hair: how should Christian men and women wear it?
Whatever the woman here is doing, it is not the same activity forbidden elsewhere. The distinction turns on what prophesying is.
1 Corinthians 11:5 applies to no meeting of sisters. It might be in their father's house, without any formal meeting at all, as Philip's four daughters. It refers to inspiration, not to teaching. A woman is not permitted to teach.
The verse assumes God really did give women this power. What it corrects is the assumption that a gift carries its own permission slip.
We are told in Acts 21:9 that Philip the Evangelist had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. If God gives spiritual power, He means it to be used. Still, He has chosen to regulate how it is used. The Christians had made a mistake that many have made since. They supposed that having a spiritual gift means unlimited freedom to use it at all times and in all places.
The comparison sounds harsh until you see what a shorn head meant in Israel.
When a woman's head was uncovered or shaven in the Old Testament it was a mark of shame. You can see it in Numbers 5:18, where a wife was under suspicion by her husband, and in Deuteronomy 21:10-13, about a woman taken captive by an Israelite... She must have no marks of shame upon her in the presence of the Lord. She is not to appear before God as one who is suspected of being unfaithful to her husband. The covering on her head would show that she acknowledges him as her head and enjoys his fullest confidence.
One writer puts the covering into words, and shows why the same act would be wrong for a man.
The apostle shows by her hair that God had covered her, and her mind and will are put on the same ground. A woman ought to be covered at family prayers, or like one of Philip's daughters prophesying in her father's house... The man is her real head, and she must cover her own head as a sign that she is under him. In effect she says, I have no head myself. The man is my head, and I am in subjection. The man could not do that, or there would be no visible head.
- Order. Headship made visible. A woman who prays uncovered "dishonors her head" — the man — by putting him in the place of Christ.
- Gift. Women really did receive the gift of prophecy. God means a gift He gives to be used. He also decides when and where.
- Place. Chapter 11 says a woman may pray and prophesy but never says where; chapter 14 says not in the assembly. Commentators differ on whether the setting here is public.
- Sign. An uncovered head is like a shaved head, because a shorn head was a public mark of shame. The covering says the opposite: she acknowledges her husband and has his full confidence.
- Practice. The settings named are family prayers and a father's house, as with Philip's daughters. Small acts, carrying a truth that is not small.
For if a woman be not covered, let her hair also be cut off. But if [it be] shameful to a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, let her be covered.
Confusion had crept into how the Corinthian believers appeared when praying and prophesying. Paul answers bluntly: a woman who refuses the covering may as well lose her hair, which raises two questions — what shame he means, and whether the covering is just her own hair.
The verse pushes a refusal to its logical end. It is a challenge, not a permission, and it shows why hair alone cannot settle the matter:
Some have also said that God gives a woman her hair as a covering, so that is enough. But God has given her long hair as a covering, and for that very reason He expects her to cover her own head too. That shows her agreement with what God has done. Notice the clear answer Scripture gives: "For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short" (v. 6). Can this mean, "if a woman does not have hair, let her also cut her hair off?" Of course the Word of God does not indulge in such foolishness. The force of this verse is this: if the woman refuses to cover her head, she might as well go all the way. She might as well refuse what God has done in giving her long hair. Honest simplicity of faith can only bow to the facts as God gives them.
Verse 6 assumes the woman still has hair to cut. So the covering must be a second thing. (Older translations read "woman" here, where the ESV reads "wife.")
First, long hair is not the covering the apostle means, as people sometimes argue. In verse 6 he says, "For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head." So the covering is something in addition to the long hair. Second, the instruction is for women — not wives only, but women — and not for children. Finally, this is no set of rules for women's dress. It is only a direction about what is fitting for them when they are praying.
The shame Paul names has a background in the law, and the covering says the opposite:
What shame did a woman's shaved or cut head confess? To answer that, we must look at the Law. There we find two occasions when the woman was shaved, or uncovered. First, when she was a suspected wife (Numbers 5). Second, when a man had recently taken her captive in battle and she was mourning her father's house, not yet joined to him (Deuteronomy 21). A woman's shaved state showed that she was not enjoying either the full confidence or the full joy of a husband. So the woman should not appear with such marks on her. The church should not look as though Christ suspected her, or as though she still felt herself a sorrowing captive. That would be her shame! But the covering on her head shows the church in neither of these states. It shows her happy in the affection and confidence of Christ, and this is her glory.
The dishonour lies in leaving the place God gave:
If she prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, she claims to express her place of dependence upon God, or to come from God. At the same time, she abandons the place of subjection in which God has placed her. In either case they have dishonoured themselves, for everyone out of his place is dishonoured before God. The uncovered woman is in effect taking the place of a man with a shaved head. It is a shame for a woman to have her head shaved, and that alone should teach her to cover it.
The covering is a sign, and one writer marvels that so small a sign sits in a letter about eternal things:
She was to have a covering on her head, a sign that she was subject to another. This may seem a very little thing. Yet what a wonderful thing it is, and what power it shows, to combine eternal things and the smallest matter of personal decorum in the same letter! The wearing of long hair or short, the use of a covering on the head or not! ... It is the smallness of man that needs big matters to make him important. But the smallest things of God have meaning when they bear on the glory of Christ, as they always do.
- Sign — the covering is a visible sign that the woman is subject to another, the place God gave her.
- Not hair — verse 6 assumes she still has hair to cut. So the covering is something added to the long hair God gave her.
- Shame — a shaved head marked a suspected wife or a mourning captive. The covering says the opposite: no suspicion, no captivity, but happy confidence.
- Dishonour — the fault is leaving your place. Anyone out of the place God gave is dishonoured before Him, man as much as woman.
- Small yet weighty — God joins the smallest matter of decorum to the greatest truths. Even small things bear on the glory of Christ.