1 Petrus 5:5-8

5:5 In the same way, you who are younger, ¹  be subject to the elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. ²  5:6 And God will exalt you in due time, ³  if you humble yourselves under his mighty hand ⁴  5:7 by casting ⁵  all your cares ⁶  on him because he cares for you. 5:8 Be sober and alert. Your enemy the devil, like a roaring lion, ⁷  is on the prowl looking for someone ⁸  to devour.

[5:5]  ¹ sn In this context younger and elder are terms that combine two meanings: relative age and an official structure of leadership in the church. As in v. 1, elder here denotes those who exercise spiritual leadership, who for the most part are older in years. Likewise younger means the rest of the community, who for the most part are younger in age, who are urged to accept the authority of their leaders.

[5:5]  ² sn A quotation from Prov 3:34 (cf. Jas 4:6).

[5:6]  ³ tn Grk “in time,” but connoting “the proper time, when the time is right” as in Matt 24:45; Luke 12:42.

[5:6]  ⁴ tn Grk “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that in due time he may exalt you.” The sentence was rearranged so that the English reader could more clearly see the connection between “casting” (v. 7) and “humble” (v. 6).

[5:7]  ⁵ tn Or “throwing on”; “loading.” Some scholars take the participle to function imperativally, or as attendant circumstance – thus, “cast.” See below for discussion.

[5:7]  sn Casting. According to ExSyn 630, “Although treated as an independent command in several modern translations (e.g., RSV, NRSV, NIV), the participle [casting] should be connected with the verb of v 6, ταπεινώθητε [tapeinwqhte, Humble yourselves]. As such, it is not offering a new command, but is defining how believers are to humble themselves. Taking the participle as means enriches the understanding of both verbs: Humbling oneself is not a negative act of self-denial per se, but a positive one of active dependence on God for help.”

[5:7]  ⁶ tn Or “anxiety, burden,” but using a word from the same root as the verb “cares” in the last part of the verse.

[5:8]  ⁷ sn This phrase may be an allusion to Ps 22:13.

[5:8]  ⁸ tc A few mss (B Ψ 0206^vid pc) lack the pronoun τινα (tina), while others have it. Those that have it either put the acute accent over the penult, making this an interrogative pronoun (“whom”; L P 322 323 614 630 945 1243 1739 2298 al), or leave off any accent, making this an indefinite pronoun (“someone”; Ï), or are too early to employ accents but nevertheless have the pronoun τινα (Ì⁷² א A). Generally speaking, the shorter and harder reading is to be preferred. In this instance, the omission of the pronoun would obviously be accommodated for by scribes, since both ζητέω (zhtew, “look, seek”) and καταπίνω (katapinw, “devour”) are transitive verbs. However, if the omission were original, one might expect the position of the pronoun to float in the mss – both before and after the infinitive καταπιεῖν (katapiein, “to devour”). Further, other terms might be expected as well, such as ἕνα ἐξ ὑμῶν ({ena ex Jumwn, “one of you”) or τινα ἐξ ὑμῶν (tina ex Jumwn, “a certain one/someone of you”). The uniformity of both the word and its location suggests that the shorter reading (found in but a few Greek mss) in this instance was a scribal mistake. As to whether the pronoun is interrogative or indefinite, since accents were not a part of the earliest mss, such Greek witnesses are of no help to us in this kind of problem. There would be little difference in meaning between the two in this context.