12 Bible Verses About a Good Husband, Including Isaac, Elkanah and Hosea

Ephesians 5:25

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

Reflection: The phrase “gave himself up” first appears in Ephesians 5:2, where every believer is told to “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” Paul now applies the same words to one relationship: a husband’s love for his wife is measured by what Christ did for the church. The sentence runs on through verse 27 with what Christ gave himself up for.

Colossians 3:19

“Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.”

Reflection: The verb behind “harsh” is the Greek pikraino, to make bitter; Revelation 10:9-10 uses it of the scroll that turned John’s stomach sour. Thayer’s lexicon lists Colossians 3:19 under its passive sense, to be embittered or irritated against someone. The King James Version reads “be not bitter against them.”

1 Peter 3:7

“Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.”

Reflection: The Greek word behind “heirs with you” is sugkleronomos, co-heir. Paul uses it in Romans 8:17 for believers as “co-heirs with Christ” and in Ephesians 3:6 for Gentiles who are “heirs together with Israel.” Peter applies it to a wife alongside her husband, in the same sentence that ties the husband’s treatment of her to his prayers.

Mark 10:9

“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Reflection: Pharisees ask whether a man may divorce his wife, and Jesus answers from the creation account, “God ‘made them male and female,’” rather than from the certificate of divorce Moses permitted (Mark 10:4-8). Mark adds what Jesus told the disciples afterwards in the house: a man who divorces his wife and marries another “commits adultery against her” (10:11). The words “against her” name the wife as the one wronged, and verse 12 applies the same rule to a wife who divorces her husband.

Malachi 2:14-16

“You ask, ‘Why?’ It is because the LORD is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. ‘The man who hates and divorces his wife,’ says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘does violence to the one he should protect,’ says the LORD Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.”

Reflection: Malachi’s charge against Judah has two parts. Verse 11 condemns men for “marrying women who worship a foreign god”; verses 14-16 turn to men who have broken faith with the wives they already had. In the NIV both are called being unfaithful, the word verse 10 uses for profaning “the covenant of our ancestors.”

Hosea 3:1

“The LORD said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.’”

Reflection: Hosea had married Gomer at the Lord’s command (Hosea 1:2-3), and here he is told to love her again although she has been with another man. The Lord gives his own love for unfaithful Israel as the pattern. Hosea pays fifteen shekels of silver and barley for her and then binds himself as well as her: “you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you” (Hosea 3:2-3).

Genesis 24:67

“Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.”

Reflection: Rebekah arrives with the servant while Isaac is out in the field one evening (Genesis 24:63-65). The verse records three things in order: Isaac married her, he loved her, and he was comforted after his mother’s death. He brings her into the tent that had been Sarah’s.

Genesis 25:21

“Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.”

Reflection: The verse sits between two of Isaac’s ages: he was forty when he married Rebekah (Genesis 25:20) and sixty when she gave birth (25:26). In that time he prayed “on behalf of his wife,” and the Lord answered. When the pregnancy troubled her, Rebekah went to inquire of the Lord herself (25:22).

1 Samuel 1:8

“Her husband Elkanah would say to her, ‘Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?’”

Reflection: Elkanah had two wives, and Peninnah, who had children, provoked Hannah year after year because she had none (1 Samuel 1:2-7). At the yearly sacrifice Elkanah gave Hannah a double portion “because he loved her” (1:5). His questions here come when she weeps and will not eat, and the last of them asks her to weigh his love against the sons she did not have.

Deuteronomy 24:5

“If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.”

Reflection: In the law of Moses, a man who had recently married was exempt from military service and any other duty for a year. The law states the purpose of the exemption: he is to stay at home and bring happiness to his wife.

1 Timothy 5:8

“Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

Reflection: Paul gives this rule while writing about widows (1 Timothy 5:3-7), telling their children and grandchildren to care for them. The rule itself is general, covering “anyone” and their relatives, “especially” their own household, and it counts failure to provide as a denial of the faith.

1 Timothy 3:4-5

“He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)”

Reflection: The verses belong to Paul’s qualifications for an overseer, which include being “faithful to his wife” and “not violent but gentle” (1 Timothy 3:2-3). Verse 4 asks that he manage his family “in a manner worthy of full respect.” Paul asks the same of deacons in 1 Timothy 3:12: a deacon “must be faithful to his wife and must manage his children and his household well.”