Pastor @tbbayly as you know my plate is a little full at the moment. So sorry for not reading or responding till now.
I for one think back to Machiavelli’s the Prince, who wrote about the king’s need to be both loved and feared. I don’t remember if the word respect crept into that text but I think it might have been used to describe the blending of the two.
But your translational points are well taken. I think I have read that footnote and also interpreted respect through that added information though I am certain that neither my wife nor my church would view a wife fearing her husband as a good thing.
I remember in a counseling session with one of our elders my wife told him that my kids told her that they were afraid of daddy. Of course the thought went immediately to, what would they have to fear of their father.
I explained that I interpreted their comments that they didn’t like receiving consequences from daddy when they were in rebellion. I also pointed out that though they claim to be afraid of me, when it’s time to go to bed and the lights go out, and they are afraid of the dark, it’s actually me and not mommy that both of them want to be with to protect them and assure them. Sometimes I’m up for a hour tending to my children’s fears and praying with them or snuggling to get them to calm, or even just sitting in their rooms while they settle down.
I have to admit it pains to hear things like they are afraid of daddy. I much rather hearing them they say that they love me, and they do often. But I also know that if they didn’t fear me at all, I wouldn’t be doing my job and they wouldn’t grow up to be functional human beings much less citizens of the kingdom of heaven. To be honest, I think they still don’t really fear me.
So, does my wife fear me. Again I’ve never given her cause to fear for her safety but she has commented that she is sometimes afraid of me in that my sternness of disapproval can be rather intimidating. I honestly don’t try to intimidate, but I think I am somewhat of an intense personality. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, and it’s no doubt been shaped by years of trials. I don’t want my wife to be terrified of me, but I do often see how her rebellious nature comes out when she forgets that she fears me.
Ugh, what an impossible balance. Maybe I should go back and reread the Prince and perhaps switch to the ASV, since it appears even the KJV translators took the same exception.
Ephesians 5:33
Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.